Research Case Study: Maternal and Child Health Services

Ryc Aquino is a 2^nd year PhD candidate in Health Psychology in the School of Health Sciences, Health Services Research & Management (encompassing Public Health) at City, University of London

Her research topic applies psychological theory to explore the interprofessional collaborative practices between midwives and health visitors in UK maternal and child health services.

City, University of London Library Services

The City, University of London Library Services website contains a number of useful resources including the resource discovery tool CityLibrary Search, Library guides for different subjects such as Psychology and Health Sciences. There is an A-Z list of journals and databases including MEDLINE and the nursing database CINAHL. There is also a researcher guide.

Read for Research

Ryc has found the Read for Research scheme useful in recommending general and specific research titles for Library purchase. Inter-library loans can also be used to obtain materials such as articles held in other libraries.

Other libraries

The SCONUL Access scheme is available for staff and students to join and allows access to university and other libraries in London and throughout the country. Ryc has found the Senate House Library useful. All research students and staff should join the British Library at St Pancras by registering for a reader pass.

Research tools

Ryc has used Mendeley and EndNote for reference management and Review Manager for systematic review data management.

Ryc is on Twitter and Medium, and maintains a website. She also tweets from the Centre for Maternal and Child Health Research Parent Advisory Group Twitter account.

Advice to new researchers

“Get to know your institution’s library and the resources available to you, including training, publications and software. Try out different tools to make sense of and manage your data and resources. Use social media to disseminate information about your research, but be aware of the limitations and considerations around doing this. Finally, use social media to network with other researchers in your field of interest, ResearchGate and Twitter are particularly useful platforms for this.”

Research case study: Library & Information Science – Information Seeking Behaviour & Cult Media Fans

Ludi Price is a PhD student (3^rd year) in the Department of Library & Information Science at City, University of London. Her multi-disciplinary research topic is “Serious leisure: information behaviour in fan communities” where she is researching the information seeking behaviour of cult media fans.

City, University of London Library

CityLibrary Search is a resource discovery tool which searches across a wide range of resources including print and electronic books, journals, articles, theses and more. CityLibrary Search has a new RSS feed functionality, for example for a search on Cult media fans and information seeking behaviour.

Ludi uses a wide range of resources for her topic and finds City Library immensely helpful. City subscribes to a wide range of electronic databases and journals. She often uses journal articles for her research and the databases LISTA and LISA and Jstor. She accesses approx 95% of her articles through City Library but being based in London also has access to other libraries as well.

For multi-disciplinary subjects, City Library staff have prepared a range of library guides. There is also a comprehensive researcher guide.

Ludi has really benefitted from the City Library Read for Research purchasing scheme where research staff and students can recommend books for their research to be purchased by the Library.

Other libraries

The SCONUL Access scheme is very useful for staff and students to use University and other libraries throughout the country. Senate House, University of London is a large humanities and social science library.

The British Library is the national library and is based at St Pancras, all research staff and students should join the British Library.

Public libraries are useful for general reading and fiction etc.

The SOAS Library is useful for African and Asian studies and humanities and social sciences.

Useful research tools

“I have been using NVivo since my Masters research (also at City), which is a great resource for qualitative data analysis, and is free to use for City students. It is also able to store and categorise your articles. For the latter, however, I tend to use Mendeley, as I can access all my articles across devices, and I can highlight and annotate with the software. It’s also great for keeping track of citations – the metadata is very good, and the ‘save to Mendeley’ web buttons means that you can save articles to the software while browsing the web. I’m also a member of Figshare, though I haven’t quite got round to uploading my research yet” .

City subscribes to the online reference management software RefWorks and staff and students and City alumni can use this to store, manage and cite references. RefWorks accounts can be set up at www.refworks.com

Links to some of your blog posts, open access articles etc?

“I keep a research blog although I don’t often have the time to update it these days! Most of my work has been uploaded there; otherwise they are all collated on my Academia.edu page.”

Social media resources and blogs

“A lot of fan activity takes place online so I almost have to be online as well! I use Twitter a lot to keep up with the #fanstudies hashtag, and with other fan- or library-related stuff. There are some fan academics on Tumblr as well, who host some useful resources”.

“ Researchers can now set up their own profile on Google Scholar as well, and it will collect your metrics automatically (although whether it’s accurate or not is up for debate!) Lastly, LinkedIn has some interesting stuff on it. There is a body of scholars and professionals who are always debating and posting links to interesting articles”.

Advice to new researchers

“Always read the citations in papers that are relevant to your research. It seems obvious, but all too often it can act as a short cut to a lengthy article search. Also, don’t be afraid to engage with social media. There’s a lot of people out there who want to share their work and their ideas and who are happy to connect with you. It’s also a great place to get some feedback and to open up some horizons that you might never have expected to exist before”.

Research Case Study: Data Breach Incident Response, Technology, Law and Management

Cher Devey is a PhD student at City, University of London.

Her PhD research topic is: Data Breach Incident Response, Technology, Law and Management and she has been researching this since October 2013.

City, University of London Library

The City, University of London Library website has lots of useful information. CityLibrary Search is a resource discovery tool which searches across a wide range of books, ebooks, journals and database content.

There are guides for different subjects prepared by City Library staff, there is also a comprehensive researcher guide.

There are many electronic databases and electronic journals.

Other libraries

Cher has used the British Library at St Pancras and students and staff can also join the SCONUL Access scheme which allows access to many university libraries throughout the country.

Reference management

Zotero is a free tool to help you collect, organise, cite, and share your research sources.

City University London subscribes to the reference management software RefWorks and staff and students can create an account at: www.refworks.com

Data chain online newspaper

Cher compiles the Data chain online newspaper.

Open access paper

Devey, C. (2008). Electronic Discovery/Disclosure: From Litigation to International Commercial Arbitration. Arbitration, 74, pp. 369-384. Available at: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/3024/

Cher’s blog

Cher’s research blog

Social media

ResearchGate is a social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators, Cher has a ResearchGate profile.

Cher is on Twitter

Advice to new researchers

“Have good supervisors and perseverance.

Research Case Study: Sustainability and Urban Agriculture Policy

Daphne Page is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at City, University of London.

Her PhD topic is: Exploring the Perceived Link between Urban Agriculture and Sustainability in Municipal Urban Food Strategies within the United Kingdom’s Sustainable Food Cities Network.

City, University of London Library

Library Services subscribes to a wide range of databases. You can find a list of databases and electronic journals on the Library Guides page, there are some useful for food policy here. Daphne has used resources such as: JSTOR, Ebscohost and ScienceDirect.

There are Library Guides for different subjects including Food Policy which are a good introduction to different subjects and a comprehensive researcher guide.

Workshops and 121 appointments offered by City Library Services staff have been useful to Daphne.

There are a variety of journals for food policy including: The International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, Environment and Urbanization, Local Environment, The Geographical Journal, Journal of Planning Education and Research

Other libraries

The British Library

Research staff and students should definitely join the British Library which is the national library and has very extensive collections. Register for a British Library Reader Pass which allows access to reading rooms and some electronic collections.

See our guide for information about using other libraries and joining the SCONUL Access scheme.

Daphne has also used the Ryerson University Library

Research tools

There are a number of tools which assist researchers. Some free tools can be found on the City University London Library Social media guide.

Daphne has used the following:

There is a City University London Library guide for Mendeley. Mendeley is a free tool enabling you to capture, organise, annotate, store and share your references.

Evernote is helpful for keeping notes, storing PDFs and capturing images.

The Livescribe note-taking app. “It’s a smart pen that records, takes visual copies of notes (images from microdot paper), and syncs with programs on my computer (including Evernote). It has links to a professional transcription service called ‘Transcribeme’ which I will be using for my interview transcription (and has been approved by the Research Ethics Council)”.

Social media resources and blogs

Blogs are interesting to keep up to date and hear the experiences of research students and academics.

Daphne reads the James Hayton PhD blog.

Advice to new researchers

“Find balance – the social to balance the isolation, physical activity to balance the sedentary computer time. Keep a PhD journal to note your progress and feelings about the process so that you can look back on hard days and see your development and feel positive. Read A LOT around your subject. Sometimes, just get away from it and take a mental day off. Take time to think about your subject. Take time to not think about your subject. Take time to strategize and plan timelines. Make to do lists. Put in the hours and the results will appear.”

Research Case Study: Journalism and Crime: Mass Murder in the United Kingdom

Athina Caraba is a PhD student in the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism at City, University of London

Her thesis title is : ‘Reports are coming in: A multidisciplinary study of the exceptional crime of mass murder in the United Kingdom’. The thesis is concerned with three mass shooting events that have occurred in the UK in the past thirty years.

City University London Library

CityLibrary Search is a resource discovery tool which searches across a wide range of resources such as print and electronic books, databases, electronic journals and much more. Rebecca’s topic is cross-disciplinary. There are Library Guides for Professional Law and UG and PG academic study of Law and Journalism and a comprehensive researcher guide.

Athina has used the Nexis newspaper database very frequently for research.There is a guide to Newspaper and news resources. Other useful news resources include Factiva and PressDisplay. The off-air recording and media archive streaming service Box of Broadcasts is also useful. See also the City Library guide to finding audio and film.

Athina has found the Read for Research, researcher book recommendation scheme at City extremely useful. You can read about Read for Research and other research related topics on the Citylibresearchers blog

Other libraries

The British Library

Research staff and students should definitely the British Library which is the national library and has very extensive collections.

The British Library at St Pancras has news and media collections and also has a Newsroom. The newsroom has a blog

Athina has also used Senate House Library, LSE Library.

See our guide for information about using other libraries and joining the SCONUL Access scheme.

Research tools

Athina has used RefWorks to manage her research references. City University London subscribes to the reference management tool RefWorks which you can use to store and manage your references while doing your research. You can create an account at www.refworks.com

Article

Athina had an article called A view from the gallery published in Counsel (the Bar’s journal). It can be found here: http://www.counselmagazine.co.uk/articles/view-the-gallery

Social media resources

Athina has used the research blog The Thesis whisperer and uses Twitter.

Advice to new researchers

“I would advise new researchers to spend some time to familiarise themselves with all the resources at their disposal within the University, as well as across other institutions and bodies to which they may have access via the University -that will save a lot of time in the future.”

Research Case Study: Food Policy and Journalism

Rebecca Wells is a former BBC producer and a visiting lecturer at City, University of London where she has been studying for a PhD in Food Policy and Journalism for the past 4 years. Her research is examining at whether UK print media influences food policy.

City, University of London Library

CityLibrary Search is a resource discovery tool which searches across a wide range of resources such as print and electronic books, databases, electronic journals and much more. Rebecca’s topic is cross-disciplinary. There are Library Guides for Food Policy and Journalism and a comprehensive researcher guide.

Rebecca has used the Nexis newspaper database very frequently for research and for teaching Masters students. There is a guide to Newspaper and news resources. Other useful news resources include Factiva and PressDisplay. The off-air recording and media archive streaming service Box of Broadcasts is also useful. See the City Library guide to finding audio and film.

The British Library

The British Library at St Pancras has news and media collections and also has a Newsroom. The newsroom has a blog

All research staff and students should register for a British Library Reader Pass which allows access to facilities such as the Newsroom.

Useful research tools

City subscribes to the reference management software package Refworks. Staff and students can register for an account at www.refworks.com and there is a RefWorks Library Guide. Rebecca has used Refworks while writing her thesis.

Rebecca recommends that a good way of keeping up to date with new research is to set up email alerts from Sage Journals and Ebscohost to find new research in her field which might be relevant to her subject area.

Another useful and visual tool is the journal browsing website and app BrowZine

Article & blog posts

Wells, R. & Caraher, M. (2014). ‘UK print media coverage of the food bank phenomenon: From food welfare to food charity?’. British Food Journal, 116(9), pp. 1426-1445. Available from: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/8666/

Rebecca has written some posts on the BBC College of Journalism blog:

Social media resources

Rebecca is an active Twitter user.

Her account is @wellsrebecca and she also tweets from the Centre for Food Policy Twitter account.

Advice to new researchers

“The library can provide rich resources to support your research from beginning to end. Take advantage of it from the beginning and spend time with your subject specialist – they can really help you and support your research. You can get access to almost any book or journal and if the library do not have it they will consider buying a copy for you and future researchers. As you progress through your research the library is an important resource that can underpin your work, whether it’s helping with a copyright query or giving tips on the best reference management tool to use, from help finding the right journeys to target to publish your research or advice on the best way to share your research the library can help!”

Research Case study: Scandal in the News and Sociology

Jon Eilenberg is a PhD research student at the Centre for Law, Justice & Journalism City University London.

Jon’s thesis title is: Scandalising the NHS: Scandal, Storytelling and Power in the BBC and ITV’s coverage of Mid Staffs. Jon’s research analyses recent developments in the relationship between news media and deviance.

Jon co-runs the SASS Research Students’ Society which is a professional development & networking society for Arts and Social Science PhD researchers at City University London.

City University London Library

CityLibrary Search is a resource discovery tool which searches across a wide range of resources including print and electronic books, journals, articles, theses and more.

City subscribes to a wide range of electronic databases and journals.

For multi-disciplinary subjects, City Library staff have prepared a range of subject guides. There is also a comprehensive researcher guide.

Jon uses books and electronic journals for his research. City also subscribes to newspaper/ news resources and multimedia film and audio resources. The streaming service Box of Broadcasts is very useful for watching TV programmes and documentaries etc.

Other libraries

The British Library is the national library and is based at St Pancras, all research staff and students should join the British Library.

Useful research tools eg. RefWorks

Jon finds RefWorks extremely useful for managing research references. City subscribes to the online reference management software RefWorks and staff and students and City alumni can use this to store, manage and cite references. RefWorks accounts can be set up at www.refworks.com

Social media resources and blogs

Jon is on Twitter.

Useful blogs are the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog and the Thesis Whisperer.

Advice to new researchers

“Make sure to engage with your peers, both professionally and socially. It makes the process easier and you get a network for after the PhD.”

Research Case Study: Professional Lives and Culture of Self-Employed Barristers

Atalanta Goulandris is a PhD student at City University London

Her inter-disciplinary research topic is: Continuity and Change: The Professional Lives and Culture of Self-Employed Barristers in England & Wales, Socio-Legal (Department of Sociology, supervision from Sociology and Law) 4th year

Atalanta is on Twitter https://twitter.com/greekie50

Atalanta has recently had an article published: Reshaping professionalism: branding, marketing and the new entrepreneurial barrister (2015) http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09695958.2015.1093940

City University London Library

The City University London Library has many Sociology and Law resources. There are useful subject guides prepared by Library staff and a comprehensive researcher guide. There is a Sociology guide and guides for Law and professional Law studies. These guides are a useful starting point for doing research and highlight useful electronic resources such as Westlaw and Lexis Library. There is a list of some of the Law databases.

Some search terms that Atalanta has used for literature searching are: professionalism, organisation studies, the legal profession, professional identity formation, professional culture.

Atalanta has found City Library’s Read for Research scheme very useful for ordering research books to be added to the library’s collection. Here is a selection of titles ordered by City’s research students.

Other libraries

Students doing research should join the SCONUL Access scheme. This allows staff and students to use University libraries in London and throughout the country. A useful Library for Law research students and staff is the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.

Research students and staff should definitely join the British Library at St Pancras. The British Library is the national library and has extensive collections and some electronic resources that can be used in the reading rooms.

Data analysis

Atalanta has used MaxQDA for qualitative data analysis.

Social media resources

Twitter is useful to keep up to date with legal news, legal journalists, lawyers’ tweets and blogs and for accessing documents and reports.

@lawbore is a useful Twitter feed and the Lawbore website has many tutorials, resources and the Future Lawyer blog.

Advice to new researchers

Atalanta co-founded the Sociology Anonymous Seminar Series with Jon Eilenberg, with a view to creating a PhD Sociology community. “One year on, it has definitely created a core group of regulars who now not only meet every fortnight to listen to a presentation from one member, but also convene at other times, often informally. This is a very good way of getting experience presenting your work but also allows you to meet and exchange ideas with peers. We now often link each other up with relevant things we have spotted on Twitter or blogs etc. My other advice is to keep reading right the way through. There is a temptation to focus on fieldwork after your upgrade, but much of my really material reading happened after that. I love the Read for Research library scheme at City University London Library and have used it extensively.”

Research Case Study: Gastronomy and Modernization

Aysegul Kesimoglu, PhD student, City, University of London

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Aysegul is a research student at City University London, her profile page and some of her publications and conference papers can be found at: http://www.city.ac.uk/arts-social-sciences/culture-and-creative-industries/research/research-students/aysegul-kesimoglu

Working thesis title: Gastronomy and Modernization: A case study of taste and eating out in Istanbul. (Title, work-in-progress) (Researching this since 2012).

City Research Online is the institutional repository or research database of City University London and this contains research outputs, articles, theses written by City academics and research students. Aysegul’s article ‘A reconceptualization of gastronomy as relational and reflexive’ is available from City Research Online at: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/11908/

This article merges Aysegul’s previous research on food tourism with her current pursuits in food’s symbolic and positional value.

Aysegul was a co-founder of the SASS (School of Social Sciences and Arts) Research Students’ Society/Community at City. The society was founded in January 2014 with the hope and aim that it would provide a platform for networking between and professional development for SASS PhD students.

The City University London Library website can be found at: www.city.ac.uk/library

CityLibrary Search is a resource discovery tool which searches across a wide range of resources including books, electronic books, journals, journal articles and databases.

Aysegul recommends these books:

Ashley B, Hollows J, Jones S and Taylor B (2004) Food and Cultural Studies. London and New York: Routledge.

Caplan P (1997) Approaches to the study of food, health and identity. In: Caplan, P (ed) Food, Health and Identity. London and New York: Routledge, 1-31.

Counihan C and Van Esterik P (2013) Why Food? Why Culture? Why Now? Introduction to the Third Edition. In: Counihan, C and Van Esterik, P (eds) Food and Culture: A Reader. New York and Oxon: Routledge, pp. 1-17.

And, Warde, Alan. ‘Consumption, Food and Taste’.

The journal Food, Culture and Society is useful for studying the cultural aspects of food and gastronomy.

Read for Research

Since November 2013, City University London Library has been running a scheme whereby research students and staff can request that books for their research can be purchased via a webform. A blog post about Read for Research can be found on the Citylibresearchers blog. Aysegul has ordered some books via the scheme and has found this very useful.

Research tools

A useful tool for saving PDFs of articles and note-taking for collaborating with other colleagues or students is Evernote and Aysegul has recently started using this. There is a Researcher guide produced by City University London Library including a section on Social media and information about Evernote

Social media

Aysegul’s blog and Twitter feed.

Aysegul recommends following Discover Society on Twitter to remain aware of what other researchers are undertaking and what debates are important in general within Social Sciences.

Also find other researchers and journalists to follow. For discussions, see the hashtag #phdchat on Twitter

The Thesis whisperer is a useful blog for helpful tips on managing the PhD stress and especially for writing tips. The following articles are useful when starting a PhD:

http://thesiswhisperer.com/2011/02/01/advice-for-newbies/

http://thesiswhisperer.com/2015/10/14/a-half-way-through-your-phd-checklist/?utm_content=bufferfcf27&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Other libraries

In terms of using other libraries, students and staff can join the SCONUL Access scheme and the national library, the British Library.

Advice to new researchers

“Read a lot and do not be scared to read around. Sometimes inspiring ideas come out of nowhere. But know when to stop. You will start the PhD full of ideas and will want to pursue a lot of things at the same time. You need to learn to control your enthusiasm and sometimes the only way to do is to stop reading and to take a step back and reconsider where you are, where you were coming from and which way you want to go. Build a good relationship with your supervisor, you will realize their advice is invaluable. Engage with your community and speak with people. A PhD does not have to be as lonely as it is often said to be.”

Research case study: Privacy and Social Media

David Haynes, Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Library and Information Science, City University London.

David successfully completed a PhD in 2015 on the topic of Privacy and social media. A copy of David’s thesis Risk and Regulation of Access to Personal Data on Online Social Networking Services in the UK is available from City Research Online at http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/11972/ City Research Online is City University London’s open access institutional repository or research database which contains research outputs from City staff and research students.

Another of David’s articles on City Research Online is: Risk and Regulation of Access to Personal Data on Online Social Networking Services in the UK http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/6228/

Article on The Conversation.com called Forget the right to be forgotten, other means exist

Article on The Conversation: End of Safe Harbour isn’t the end of the world – let’s hope its successor is better

David is also a Management Consultant Management consultant and project manager with expertise in information management, metadata, information governance and taxonomies. See the occasional blog Aspire Squared Ltd

Social media

LinkedIn is a networking tool that helps you make connections and create a professional network and share blog posts, articles etc. See David’s LinkedIn profile

David recommends Twitter for connecting with other researchers and contacts. He can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JDavidHaynes It is useful to follow researchers and organisations of interest and also hashtags such as #citylis from the Department of Library and Information Science at City.

Resources from City, University of London Library.

David has conducted interdisciplinary research which includes aspects of Law, Business, Computing.

City University London Library has created some Library guides for different subjects at: http://libguides.city.ac.uk There are guides for Law and Information Science for example.

A comprehensive researcher Library guide is also available. This covers research resources, managing information, sharing research etc. There is also a social media guide on using social media resources to manage your research and promote your research.

The large, multidisciplinary database Ebscohost has been useful for David’s research. Ebscohost covers a wide range of subjects ranging from Business to Health. The Law resources website Lawbore was also useful in the initial stages of David’s research.

Other libraries

The British Library is the national Library and is based at St Pancras. It is recommended that all research students and staff join the British Library. It is possible to pre-register for a reader pass. It is a reference library so all materials have to be consulted there. There are also some electronic resources that are available for use in the British Library Reading Rooms.

Reference management software

David uses Mendeley, this is a free tool enabling you to capture, organise, annotate, store and share your references and also to join and form groups and networks and to discover and share papers. David’s Mendeley profile is at: https://www.mendeley.com/profiles/david-haynes1/ See also the City University London Library online Mendeley guide.

City University London also subscribes to the reference management tool RefWorks. City staff and students can set up a RefWorks account. RefWorks is an online reference management tool which enables you to import, store and manage references from your research and create bibliographies. See also the RefWorks guide.

Advice to new researchers

“Twitter is a great tool for connecting with others at the same event and for picking up new research ideas”.

ORCID provides a digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher . It is a good idea to set up an Orcid profile as a researcher if you are publishing articles etc as this will ensure your work is more easily found and will be correctly attributed to you, see David’s Orcid profile.