Help to find academic literature and research data

Where will you find literature?

In CatalogusPlusExternal link, the Library’s discovery environment, you will find digital and printed academic literature, databases and other sources to which the Library offers access.

• Journals: in the JournalsExternal link section of CatalogusPlus, you will find an overview of all the journals that the Library has. You can search for digital journals online;
• Databases: in the DatabasesExternal link section of CatalogusPlus, you will find an overview of all the databases to which the Library has access. These include specialist databases that you can use to search for literature in your field;
• Scopus/Web of Science: these are two examples of citation databasesExternal link for which the Library has a subscription. In these databases, you can search for journal articles and find information about the popularity of particular journals and articles. These databases provide a good indication of the most important journals and articles available in many fields;
• Google Scholar: Google Scholar is a useful search tool for articles in particular. It is easy to find recent literature via the 'Cited by' button.

Tips for finding sources and research data

• Review the bibliography, justification or introduction of relevant journal articles, books or theses. This will often give you a good impression of what databases, literature and websites others have used and how they collected the data. This can provide good starting points for your own research.
• Databases: the DatabasesExternal link section of CatalogusPlus provides an overview of all the databases to which the Library has access. These include databases that contain research data (like financial databases) and historic source material;
• An increasing number of sources and research data are freely accessible and also possible to find via search engines like Google. For example, the websites of statistical research agencies or archives. You will find websites that contain relevant sources by doing a smart search on your topic in combination with words like 'data', 'databases', 'statistics' or 'sources'.

Processing literature and research data

Special citation software saves you a lot of time when citing literature and sources in your essay, report or thesis. The Library has licences for various citation software that you can use. The Library also provides workshops on the use of the software. You can find more information on the Library websiteExternal link.

Need advice or support?

You can ask the Library for help and advice in finding literature or research data via the contact page. You can also contact the information specialist in your field for personal advice. You can find the information specialist under Support on the page for your field of studyExternal link.