When you have completed a search you will have a list of items in various formats, PDFs, paper or eBooks, journal articles, media resources and many others. Now you have that list you have to consider how you find the items on it.
You can print out full text, save it or email it to yourself and print at a later date.
If the item is not on the library catalogue:
It is important that you are organised and keep track of the information you use. If you don't, and you want to refer back to it or have not finished locating all your resources - you can find yourself in difficulties.
Watch the two videos on the next pages and then think about the message they are trying to get across.
Can't see this video? - you can watch it on the YouTube
Can't see this video? - you can watch it on the YouTube.
It is important that you are organised and keep track of the information you use for your assignment, otherwise preparing your reference list or bibliography will be far more difficult. One way of managing your information is to use bibliographic software.
Bibliographic software allows you to manage all the references you need for your papers, report or thesis by enabling you to keep them in your own personal database or library. It allows you to:
RefWorks is an example of a bibliographic package. The benefits of using RefWorks are:
Many universities make packages like RefWorks accessible via the Library web pages. Glasgow Caledonian University, has a link from our Database A-Z.
Flickr is an 'online photo management' system. You can store your digital photos and share them with other people. You can upload photos from your desk top, send them by email or use your camera phone. Flickr also has the facility for you to organise and tag your photos.
Task: Now create your own account in Flickr, add some of your favourite pictures and tag them.
Digital curation means organising and storing digital data effectively so that is is readily available for use in the future. This means that it can be easily shared among the research community and so increases the value of your research.
This is especially important if you have used datasets (such as statistics or survey data) in your research. If you have been awarded a research grant, then it is often a condition of the award that the data is freely available to other researchers.
What data have you used in your research and assignments? How have you stored it? It is sensible to use different storage methods, as one type of storage device may fall out of use or suffer technical failure. CDs can de-laminate and flash drives can become corrupted! Therefore you should back up your data onto more than one type of device and store it in two separate locations, just in case! More data is avialable from the Digital Curation Centre, they have a useful FAQs sheet.