Our Learning and Teaching Librarian can help you to get the best out of your studies. This could include:
Using search tools effectively to find relevant academic sources for your assignments
Support with referencing and plagiarism
The Academic Achievement Team can assist with:
Have a look at our How To... page for our three part tutorial on getting started with your research. The Starting Your Research tutorial is tailored to your School/Department.
You will also find guidance on searching Library databases, provided by some of our database providers.
Roehampton University subscribes to a wide range of specialist research databases, free to access with your Roehampton login; those most relevant to Biological and Biomedical Sciences are listed below. Most of these provide the full text, but sometimes just brief details (citation and abstract) of the articles. Click the Search4FullText button to see if you can access the article via our eJournals; if not, you can order it free via Interlibrary Loan.
It is important to ensure that you are using authoritative, evidence-based, scientific sources of information, as opposed to non-academic sources such as newspapers, magazines, random web pages, social media posts, etc., which may present biased opinion rather than objective facts. The sources listed below adhere to rigorous academic standards, so you can trust the information you find there.
Top databases recommended for Biological and Biomedical Sciences:
Provides researchers, academics, and scientific professionals with a definitive academic resource in more than 45 scientific disciplines. The articles capture the current understanding of a topic. This includes what is current and controversial, questions remaining, direction of future research and application to society.
The U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) premier life sciences database.
Check out our Spotlight on Nursing and Healthcare Resources blog post!
Premium nursing and allied health database, ideal for practice, research, or education, with millions of records including full text eBooks and journals.
Index of articles from biomedical and life science journals. Provides abstracts (summaries) rather than full text. You can find our sign in option by clicking Sign In > More Login options > University of Roehampton (OpenAthens).
A free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal articles at the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM).
To find out more about how to evaluate and use different sources of information, see the following:
Provides help, guidance and tools for designing, writing and reporting research projects.
Record and stream freeview TV and radio programmes for educational use, create clips and playlists, and access the archive of recorded programmes including BBC and Shakespeare Archives. ROB is managed by AVR, for assistance contact: avr@roehampton.ac.uk.
The Inter Library Loan (ILL) service gives students and staff the option of requesting books, book chapters and journals articles when we do not have them in the Library collection. The items are borrowed from the British Library and U.K. and Ireland institutions and are supplied for free.
Inter Library Loans are not available for Alumni or our partner institutions.
You can also check the availability for the item in academic libraries near you on Jisc Library Hub Discover; it may be faster to visit another London academic library through the SCONUL scheme.
How to I request an Inter Library Loan?
Where to collect my Inter Library Loan?
Returning an Inter Library Loan
How to renew Inter Library Loans?
SCONUL Access is a scheme which allows many university library users to borrow or use books and journals at other UK academic libraries which belong to the scheme, or just the convenience of studying in a library closer to your home. It's completely free to join, find how more information here:
What is SCONUL and how can I apply?
The British Library at St Pancras, London is a national research library. It does not lend books nor does it aim to stock multiple copies of basic text books. If your research needs are not fulfilled by other libraries, see the British Library catalogue and Reader Registration. For more information about getting a Reader Pass, please see the British Library website.
There are many specialist libraries in London that may be of use to your studies. General advice for access:
Jisc Library Hub Discover is a national Library catalogue that accesses the catalogues of many of the largest UK and Ireland university libraries.
London Libraries allows searches and provides information on special collections.
ULRLS is the catalogue of the University of London Research Library Services.
eduroam is a free WiFi network that allows students, researchers and staff to securely access the internet when visiting other participating institutions. See here for further details on setting up eduroam access for your visits to other institutions.