Resources and tools for research

Resources for your research

Databases are searchable collections of articles and other resources like ebooks, reports and standards. They are useful for doing a thorough search of the literature on a subject as they often support more complex and reproducible search queries than the Library Search.

Research tools and specialist support are available to support your research process.

Find more evidence, including guidelines, reviews and statistics

The Find more evidence pages will link you to sources for guidelines, legislation and policy and statistical data. You will also find links to databases of systematic reviews.

Help with using databases

For information, advice and training on a particular database visit the help pages on that supplier's site. There is more general help from Help and Training

This literature searching eLearning module helps the social care workforce in Scotland build confidence to search published literature for articles and evidence relevant to their work, study and research:

A Guide to effective literature searching

You will need a Turas Learn account to access the eLearning modules.

Expert search support from Ovid

OvidGO! supports more advanced searching skills, based on the Ovid database platform. You will find short learning videos, saved searches and a search builder tool. You can also access search coaching from the experts at Ovid. All these services are included in our Knowledge Network subscription.

National Library of Scotland eResources

The National Library of Scotland has an extensive collection of eResources, including scholarly databases. You can access most resources online if you join the Library and your primary address is in Scotland. Find out more about the National Library of Scotland eResources. The full National Library of Scotland collections include maps, archives, and the Data Foundry collection of open access datasets.

Get full text access with LibKey Nomad

LibKey Nomad is a browser extension, which highlights online articles or eBooks that are available through NHS Scotland subscriptions. Using LibKey Nomad you can access and download the full text content.

It also includes retraction alerts.

Add an NHS Scotland Library link to Google Scholar

This will allow any articles that are available through The Knowledge Network to show an NHS Scotland Journals link alongside the reference. Follow these simple instructions.

Order non-subscription content

Use the 'Get It For Me' document delivery service to request articles.

Organising search results

Search results from databases can be saved and organised by creating a personal account within that database platform. You can also save search strategies and set up alerts when new information on a topic is published. Reference management software is available to manage references from your search results and NHS Scotland provides access to RefWorks.