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Managing Your Research

Overview

The multifaceted demands of academic research pose challenges to even the most seasoned of academics. If your research project is broad in scope, involves a large volume of data, and follows a prolonged or ongoing timeframe, UNB Libraries can help. We offer tools that can support you in the often unwieldy process of organizing and managing your research. These tools will be equally useful to you in the early stages of developing and mapping out your research interests.

Personal Accounts Within Databases

Many of the databases subscribed to by UNB Libraries allow researchers to create personal accounts within the databases. Personal accounts increase the functionality of the databases by allowing users to save, organize, and share their search results. As a subscriber, you can save multiple versions of your searches, organize and store your findings, as well as share your search results with others using persistent links.

The vendors of electronic resources at UNB Libraries provide instructions and tutorials on how to save, retrieve, and reuse your search results. Setting up an account in any of the databases is easy. Here are several examples of the instructional pages they provide:

Notification of New Publications: Save Your Search as an Alert

An additional benefit of a personal account includes an option to receive updates in your preferred areas of study, keeping you abreast of the most current literature in your field. After you perform a search within a given database and set your preferred search criteria, you can save your search as an alert, which will prompt the database to e-mail you any new and relevant results. The e-mail may contain a link to an RSS feed that delivers the results as soon as they become available.

Personal Accounts and E-Books

Much like personal accounts within databases, personal accounts with e-book providers give users access to features, such as the ability to annotate, download, and store on a virtual bookshelf, only available to account holders. Refer to the "Help" and "My Account" support sections on the e-book providers' websites for detailed instructions on how to set up and use your e-book account features. Here are several examples of such instructions:

For a list of all e-book providers available through UNB Libraries go to the Browse for eBook Collections page located under the UNB Libraries' Resources / Collections tab.

For information on how to incorporate e-books into your courses go to the E-books in the Classroom page located under the UNB Libraries' Faculty Support tab.

Zotero

Zotero is a free, open-source software that collects, manages, and cites research sources. It is easy to use and works with your web browser where you do your work. With one click, Zotero will save web pages, books, PDFs, abstracts, and almost anything else with all its citation information. Zotero also allows you to attach PDFs, notes and images to your citations, organize them into collections for different projects, and create bibliographies.

Students, faculty and staff of UNB and St. Thomas University can learn more about Zotero and how to use it via the UNB Libraries Guide to Zotero.

Academic Apps

Software applications for mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, offer exciting possibilities for academics. You can now rely on a wide variety of mobile applications as tools to download, read, annotate, and compile research materials. Visit the UNB Libraries' Guide to Mobile Resources for Academics for more details.