Searching for Resources

If you click on the title you’re interested in, you will be greeted with this page which is also known as the records page:

Let's look at some of the access options, and how we can make sense of these results.

A peer-reviewed article has gone through the process of being evaluated and assessed by peers of the author’s field or expertise (e.g. looked at, and evaluated by other experts in a similar or relevant field; they are called reviewers). Peer reviews ensure the paper is credible and of high quality before it is published in a journal.

This helps to ensure that you are using credible and reliable sources in your work (provided it is not misquoted, or taken out of context – and this applies regardless of the source you use!).

This is typically represented by an orange open lock designed by the Public Library of Science (PLOS).

There are various types of Open Access (OA) articles, but mainly:

• Green refers to self-archiving by the authors in repositories;
• Gold refers to immediate Open Access and is fully accessible;
• Hybrid (Paid Open Access) refers to journals where some articles are made Open Access on fee payment.

Sometimes, OA articles are not technically OA:

• Bronze OA is made Open Access for a limited period (e.g. COVID-related resources), and publishers can withdraw access anytime.

You can learn more about the different types of OA by referring to our Open Access guide. 

This allows you to read the article or eBook online, or access the database where the article or eBook is from when the PDF version is not available.

The LibKey extension will allow you to either open the PDF or download it directly.

This allows you to view other articles from the same journal issue through Browzine. Learn more about BrowZine in our Library Guide here.

Occasionally, you might see that a journal has an orange banner that reads “This issue contains no full text”, or “New Full Text unavailable for X months/years from time of publication”. This means we might not have the full text or article available, but there might be other issues and articles available from the same journal. Find out more here.

You can opt to download the article in either PDF or EPUB (depending on which formats are available) from the pull-out menu on the left. This is similar to “Read Article”.

If you scroll down, you can read the abstract or a short description of the article to decide if it’s relevant to you, or if you would like to download the article to read.

You can scroll down to "View Online" to access the resource. In this case, this article is available on 3 different databases. You can access it by clicking on any of them.