what is literature search in library

How to undertake a literature search: a step-by-step guide

Affiliation.

• 1 Literature Search Specialist, Library and Archive Service, Royal College of Nursing, London.
• PMID: 32279549
• DOI: 10.12968/bjon.2020.29.7.431

Undertaking a literature search can be a daunting prospect. Breaking the exercise down into smaller steps will make the process more manageable. This article suggests 10 steps that will help readers complete this task, from identifying key concepts to choosing databases for the search and saving the results and search strategy. It discusses each of the steps in a little more detail, with examples and suggestions on where to get help. This structured approach will help readers obtain a more focused set of results and, ultimately, save time and effort.

Keywords: Databases; Literature review; Literature search; Reference management software; Research questions; Search strategy.

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• Nursing Research
• Review Literature as Topic*

Best Practice for Literature Searching

• Literature Search Best Practice

What is literature searching?

• What are literature reviews?
• Hierarchies of evidence
• 1. Managing references
• 2. Defining your research question
• 3. Where to search
• 4. Search strategy
• 5. Screening results
• 6. Paper acquisition
• 7. Critical appraisal
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Literature searching is the task of finding relevant information on a topic from the available research literature. Literature searches range from short fact-finding missions to comprehensive and lengthy funded systematic reviews. Or, you may want to establish through a literature review that no one has already done the research you are conducting. If so, a comprehensive search is essential to be sure that this is true.

Whatever the scale, the aim of literature searches is to gain knowledge and aid decision-making.  They are embedded in the scientific discovery process. Literature searching is a vital component of what is called "evidence-based practice", where decisions are based on the best available evidence.

What is "literature"?

Research literature writes up research that has been done in order to share it with others around the world. Far more people can read a research article than could ever visit a particular lab, so the article is the vehicle for disseminating the research.  A research article describes in detail the research that's been done, and what the researchers think can be concluded from it.   

It is important, in literature searching, that you search for  research literature .  Scientific information is published in different formats for different purposes: in  textbooks  to teach students; in  opinion  pieces, sometimes called  editorials  or  commentaries , to persuade peers; in  review articles  to survey the state of knowledge.  An abundance of other literature is available online, but not actually published (by an academic publisher)--this includes things like  conference proceedings ,  working papers, reports  and  preprints .  This type of material is called grey (or gray) literature . 

Most of the time what you are looking for for your literature review is research literature (and not opinion pieces, grey literature, or textbook material) that has been published in  scholarly peer reviewed journals .

As expertise builds, using a greater diversity of literature becomes more appropriate.  For instance, advanced students might use conference proceedings in a literature review to map the direction of new and forthcoming research. The most advanced literature reviews, systematic reviews, need to try to track down unpublished studies to be comprehensive, and a great challenge can be locating not only relevant grey literature, but studies that have been conducted but not published anywhere.  If in doubt, always check with a teacher or supervisor about what type of literature you should be including in your search.   

Why undertake literature searches?

By undertaking regular literature searches in your area of expertise, or undertaking complex literature reviews, you are:

• Able to provide context for and justify your research
• Exploring new research methods
• Highlighting gaps in existing research
• Checking if research has been done before
• Showing how your research fits with existing evidence
• Identifying flaws and bias in existing research
• Learning about terminology and different concepts related to your field
• Able to track larger trends
• Understanding what the majority of researchers have found on certain questions.
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• Last Updated: Sep 15, 2023 2:17 PM
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Researcher skills, literature searching explained.

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1. What is a literature search?

2. Decide the topic of your search

3. Identify the main concepts in your question

4. Choose a database

What is a literature search?

A literature search is a considered and organised search to find key literature on a topic. To complete a thorough literature search you should:

• define what you are searching for
• decide where to search
• develop a search strategy
• refine your search strategy
• save your search for future use.

For background reading or an introduction to a subject, you can do a shorter and more basic  Library search .

Use this guide to work your way through the all the stages of the literature searching process.

You should form a search question before you begin. Reframing your research project into a defined and searchable question will make your literature search more specific and your results more relevant.

Decide the topic of your search

You should start by deciding the topic of your search. This means identifying the broad topic, refining it to establish which particular aspect of the topic interests you, and reframing that topic as a question.

For example:

Broad topic:  active learning and engagement in higher education

Main focus topic:  international students and online learning

Topic stated as a question:  "What is the role of active learning in improving the engagement of international students during online learning?"

Identify the main concepts in your question

Once you have a searchable question, highlight the major concepts. For example: "What is the role of  active learning  in improving the  engagement  of  international students  during  online learning ?"

You should then find keywords and phrases to express the different concepts. For example, the concept “active learning” covers a wide range of key terms, including student-based learning, problem solving and paired discussion.

It may be useful to create a concept map. First identify the major concepts within your question and then organise your appropriate key terms.

If you are researching a medicine or health related topic then you might want to use a PICO search model. PICO helps you identify the Patient, Intervention, Comparison and Outcome concepts within your research question.

P atient: Who is the treatment being delivered to? What is happening to the patient?

I ntervention: What treatment is being delivered? What is happening to the patient?

Comparison: How much better is the procedure than another? What are the alternatives?

Outcome: How is the effect measured? What can be achieved?

List synonyms for each concept. You may wish to include variant spellings or endings (plural, singular terms). Exclude parts of the PICO that do not relate to your search question. For example, you may not be drawing any comparisons in your research.

Choose a database

Subject-specific databases are the most effective way to search for journal articles on a topic. However, you can also search the Library for common information sources, such as government documents, grey literature, patents and statistics.

Find the most appropriate databases for your subject

Databases help you to find a broad range of evidence, including peer-reviewed academic articles from all over the world, from many different publishers, and over a long time period.

Databases such as Scopus and Web of Science hold expansive records of research literature, including conference proceedings, letters and grey literature.

Many databases have links to full-text articles where the Library has a subscription.

Other information sources

Go to your  subject-specific page  to see the most appropriate information sources listed for your subject area. You may need to explore more than one subject page if your topic is multi-disciplinary.

You may find it useful to make a list of which information sources you want to search to find information for your research;  a search activity template (DOCX)  can help you do this.

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How to do a Literature Search: Introduction

• Introduction
• Choosing a database
• Choosing keywords
• Using keywords
• Author searching
• Managing your search/results

What is a literature review?

You may be asked to write a literature review as part of an undergraduate project or postgraduate dissertation.  A well-conducted literature review will showcase your ability to:

• Survey the literature and select the most important contributions on your topic
• Critically evaluate the literature to identify key developments, trends, issues, gaps in knowledge
• Present your findings in a clear and coherent manner

The structure of a literature review may vary according to your specific subject but it will normally include these three areas:

• Introduction : an overview of your topic explaining why it is important, putting it in the wider context and perhaps highlighting recent progress and future potential.  It may also explain the scope and the organisation of your review.
• Main body : a discussion of how research in the topic has progressed to date, critically evaluating the key studies and explaining their significance.  
• Conclusion : a summary of current knowledge, highlighting any gaps in current knowledge or practice and suggesting how these may be overcome in future research.

Having identified the topic of your review, the first step will be to undertake a literature search .  

What is a literature search?

Define your research question(s).

Before you login to a database to begin your search it's crucial that you analyse your topic, breaking it down into a number of research questions.

Take, for example, this topic:   Are biofuels the answer to falling oil reserves?

You  could  type this sentence into a database search box, but that is usually not helpful, as the sentence may not contain the most appropriate keywords.  Also this single sentence is unlikely to encompass everything that you want to find out.  You need to break down the topic into a number of separate questions and then look for the answers. For this example here are some of the questions you could ask:

• What is a biofuel?  
• How are they made?
• How much of our fuel is already from biofuel (market share)?
• Could we make enough to replace oil and/or gas?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of using biofuels compared with oil and gas?
• Could we use biofuels for transport?
• What is UK government policy relating to biofuels?

You  may  find the answers to all of these questions using a single search engine such as Google Scholar, or a single Library database, but you are more likely to succeed if you match each question to a relevant source .

Introduction to literature searching

Library video (10 minutes)

• Next: Choosing a database >>
• Last Updated: Nov 22, 2022 9:56 AM
• URL: https://library.bath.ac.uk/literaturesearch

Literature Searching

Major Steps in a Literature Search

It's a good idea to plan your search in advance.  This will help you to find resources more quickly and easily, and will save you time in the long run.

There are several steps involved in conducting a literature search. The most common major steps in a literature search are:

• Create a well-defined research or topic question
• Brainstorm to gather subject terms, keywords and synonyms
• Construct the search strategy
• Select database(s) to search
• Tailor the search strategy to the selected database(s)
• Then, conduct the search and repeat as necessary

Literature searches are an iterative process. You may discover new keywords and articles through the references and citations that you find.

Keep track and document all of the subject terms or keywords used and all of the search strategies that you use as you may want or need to re-use a successful search strategy.

Make sure to document or keep track of all of the articles you identify as relevant to your topic/research question. This will save you time and frustration later when you want to find those references or article citations again when you need to cite references for your literature review.

• << Previous: Literature Searching vs. Literature Review
• Next: Characteristics of a good research question >>

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Comprehensive Literature Search: Social Sciences

What is a literature review, tertiary sources: annual reviews, subject bibliographies & more, selecting sources to search, citation tracing (backward and forward), beyond vanderbilt, librarian for sociology, environmental sociology, mhs and public policy studies.

Before you begin searching for sources for your literature review, it is helpful to know what a literature review is so that you include all the necessary sources.  A literature review is a systematic examination of the scholarly literature about one's topic.  It critically analyzes, evaluates, and synthesizes research findings, theories, and practices by scholars and researchers that are related to an area of focus.  In reviewing the literature, the write should present a comprehensive, critical and accurate understanding tof the current state of knowledge, compare different research studies and theories, reveal gaps in current literature, and indicate what is already known about the topic of choice (p. 2  Efron, Sara Efrat, and Ruth Ravid. Writing the Literature Review : A Practical Guide, Guilford Publications, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/vand/detail.action?docID=5522670 .

There might already an existing bibliography or literature review to give you a head start.The following sources can be good places to check . 

• Annual Reviews This link opens in a new window Critical reviews written by leading scientists in the biomedical, life, physical, and social sciences including economics. Annual Reviews are highly cited in ISI's Journal Citation Reports. more... less... Coverage: 1930 to present.
• Oxford Bibliographies This link opens in a new window Literary guide to significant sources on a variety of subjects. Works as an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia.

A good literature review should be as comprehensive as necessary to identify all of the major works and debates on your research subject.  

Subject-specific Databases  - search in databases specific to your discipline of study to find more sources in your field. For example, Sociological Abstracts specializes in Sociology and will have more coverage of the sociology literature than an interdisciplinary, all-purpose database such as ProQuest.  You should also search in more than one place (i.e. multiple databases and the library search) since no one search tool covers everything.  For example, if your topic involves education, consider also searching an education database, such as Education Fulltext.

Here are ideas about finding places to search.

Databases A-Z - Once you've identified disciplines or information types, consult the Databases A-Z list by subject.  A Research Guide for a specific subject may also have some suggestions.

Library Search Tool  - The Library Search Tool also searches a variety of databases for books and journal articles at once. However, it does not search everything, so be sure to also look at disciplinary databases.

Google Scholar   -  also search for your topic in Google Scholar.  If you have a relevant source, consider searching the title in Google Scholar and using the “Cited By” link and the “Related Articles” to locate more literature.  See also  Bibliography Mining  and Cited Reference Searching

WorldCat -  If your discipline publishes its scholarship in books, the WorldCat database is a place to look.

Citation Tracing Backward (Bibliography Mining)  - use the list of works cited from a relevant source to learn more about a topic from the works cited or to see if important works are missing.  This is a way to look for relevant sources published prior to the one in hand.  A database may have a direct link to all the works cited, such as the example below; otherwise, you may need to look at each work cited manually. The database Web of Science has links to references, as do ProQuest databases.

Citation Tracing Forward (Cited Reference Searching)   -This finds newer sources that cite a particular article, book chapter, etc.  It also uncovers newer research on a topic.

• Web of Science This link opens in a new window Citation database from journals and international conference proceedings. Cross-search of the Web of Science Core Collection, BIOSIS Previews, and the SciELO Citation Index (Latin America, Spain, Portugal, the Caribbean and South Africa). more... less... All current Vanderbilt University students, faculty, and staff have access, both on and off campus.

Google Scholar allows one to trace a citation forward but not backwards.

• Google Scholar Vanderbilt Login This link opens in a new window more... less... Vendor Tutorials: Add VU to your Google profile - https://scholar.google.com/scholar_settings
• Web of Science: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) This link opens in a new window Social sciences journals, and science and technical journals related to the social sciences. Complete bibliographic data, author abstracts, and references cited. more... less... Coverage: 1900-present.
• Web of Science: Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) This link opens in a new window Indexes of arts and humanities journals, and selected items from scientific and social sciences journals. Complete bibliographic data and author abstracts for articles in the arts and humanities. Each citation includes a list of references cited in the source article. more... less... Coverage: 1975-present.
• Web of Science: Science Citation Index Expanded This link opens in a new window Major journals across science disciplines. Complete bibliographic data and author abstracts. Each citation includes a list of references cited in the source article.

Beyond Vanderbilt - if you find a citation for a source Vanderbilt doesn't own, use Document Delivery/Interlibrary Loan (ILL)   to get it. Articles and chapters can usually be scanned and sent electronically, but books must be mailed and typically arrive in 1-2 weeks, so plan ahead. TIP: If you see FindIt@VU, follow the links and sign in to have the form automatically filled out for you.

• Last Updated: Feb 8, 2024 9:44 AM
• URL: https://researchguides.library.vanderbilt.edu/literaturesearch

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• Indian J Anaesth
• v.60(9); 2016 Sep

Literature search for research planning and identification of research problem

Anju grewal.

Department of Anaesthesiology, Dayanand Medical College and Hospital, Ludhiana, Punjab, India

Hanish Kataria

1 Department of Surgery, Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh, India

2 Department of Cardiac Anaesthesia, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

Literature search is a key step in performing good authentic research. It helps in formulating a research question and planning the study. The available published data are enormous; therefore, choosing the appropriate articles relevant to your study in question is an art. It can be time-consuming, tiring and can lead to disinterest or even abandonment of search in between if not carried out in a step-wise manner. Various databases are available for performing literature search. This article primarily stresses on how to formulate a research question, the various types and sources for literature search, which will help make your search specific and time-saving.

INTRODUCTION

Literature search is a systematic and well-organised search from the already published data to identify a breadth of good quality references on a specific topic.[ 1 ] The reasons for conducting literature search are numerous that include drawing information for making evidence-based guidelines, a step in the research method and as part of academic assessment.[ 2 ] However, the main purpose of a thorough literature search is to formulate a research question by evaluating the available literature with an eye on gaps still amenable to further research.

Research problem[ 3 ] is typically a topic of interest and of some familiarity to the researcher. It needs to be channelised by focussing on information yet to be explored. Once we have narrowed down the problem, seeking and analysing existing literature may further straighten out the research approach.

A research hypothesis[ 4 ] is a carefully created testimony of how you expect the research to proceed. It is one of the most important tools which aids to answer the research question. It should be apt containing necessary components, and raise a question that can be tested and investigated.

The literature search can be exhaustive and time-consuming, but there are some simple steps which can help you plan and manage the process. The most important are formulating the research questions and planning your search.

FORMULATING THE RESEARCH QUESTION

Literature search is done to identify appropriate methodology, design of the study; population sampled and sampling methods, methods of measuring concepts and techniques of analysis. It also helps in determining extraneous variables affecting the outcome and identifying faults or lacunae that could be avoided.

Formulating a well-focused question is a critical step for facilitating good clinical research.[ 5 ] There can be general questions or patient-oriented questions that arise from clinical issues. Patient-oriented questions can involve the effect of therapy or disease or examine advantage versus disadvantage for a group of patients.[ 6 ]

For example, we want to evaluate the effect of a particular drug (e.g., dexmedetomidine) for procedural sedation in day care surgery patients. While formulating a research question, one should consider certain criteria, referred as ‘FINER’ (F-Feasible, I-Interesting, N-Novel, E-Ethical, R-Relevant) criteria.[ 5 ] The idea should be interesting and relevant to clinical research. It should either confirm, refute or add information to already done research work. One should also keep in mind the patient population under study and the resources available in a given set up. Also the entire research process should conform to the ethical principles of research.

The patient or study population, intervention, comparison or control arm, primary outcome, timing of measurement of outcome (PICOT) is a well-known approach for framing a leading research question.[ 7 , 8 ] Dividing the questions into key components makes it easy and searchable. In this case scenario:

• Patients (P) – What is the important group of patients? for example, day care surgery
• Intervention (I) – What is the important intervention? for example, intravenous dexmedetomidine
• Comparison (C) – What is the important intervention of comparison? for example, intravenous ketamine
• Outcome (O) – What is the effect of intervention? for example, analgesic efficacy, procedural awareness, drug side effects
• Time (T) – Time interval for measuring the outcome: Hourly for first 4 h then 4 hourly till 24 h post-procedure.

Multiple questions can be formulated from patient's problem and concern. A well-focused question should be chosen for research according to significance for patient interest and relevance to our knowledge. Good research questions address the lacunae in available literature with an aim to impact the clinical practice in a constructive manner. There are limited outcome research and relevant resources, for example, electronic database system, database and hospital information system in India. Even when these factors are available, data about existing resources is not widely accessible.[ 9 ]

TYPES OF MEDICAL LITERATURE

(Further details in chapter ‘Types of studies and research design’ in this issue).

Primary literature

Primary sources are the authentic publication of an expert's new evidence, conclusions and proposals (case reports, clinical trials, etc) and are usually published in a peer-reviewed journal. Preliminary reports, congress papers and preprints also constitute primary literature.[ 2 ]

Secondary literature

Secondary sources are systematic review articles or meta-analyses where material derived from primary source literature are infererred and evaluated.[ 2 ]

Tertiary literature

Tertiary literature consists of collections that compile information from primary or secondary literature (eg., reference books).[ 2 ]

METHODS OF LITERATURE SEARCH

There are various methods of literature search that are used alone or in combination [ Table 1 ]. For past few decades, searching the local as well as national library for books, journals, etc., was the usual practice and still physical literature exploration is an important component of any systematic review search process.[ 10 , 11 ] With the advancement of technology, the Internet is now the gateway to the maze of vast medical literature.[ 12 ] Conducting a literature review involves web-based search engines, i.e., Google, Google Scholar, etc., [ Table 2 ], or using various electronic research databases to identify materials that describe the research topic or those homologous to it.[ 13 , 14 ]

Methods of literature search

Web based methods of literature search

The various databases available for literature search include databases for original published articles in the journals [ Table 2 ] and evidence-based databases for integrated information available as systematic reviews and abstracts [ Table 3 ].[ 12 , 14 ] Most of these are not freely available to the individual user. PubMed ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ ) is the largest available resource since 1996; however, a large number of sources now provide free access to literature in the biomedical field.[ 15 ] More than 26 million citations from Medline, life science journals and online books are included in PubMed. Links to the full-text material are included in citations from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.[ 16 ] The choice of databases depends on the subject of interest and potential coverage by the different databases. Education Resources Information Centre is a free online digital library of education research and information sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education, available at http://eric.ed.gov/ . No one database can search all the medical literature. There is need to search several different databases. At a minimum, PubMed or Medline, Embase and the Cochrane central trials Registry need to be searched. When searching these databases, emphasis should be given to meta-analysis, systematic reviews randomised controlled trials and landmark studies.

Electronic source of Evidence-Based Database

Time allocated to the search needs attention as exploring and selecting data are early steps in the research method and research conducted as part of academic assessment have narrow timeframes.[ 17 ] In Indian scenario, limited outcome research and accessibility to data leads to less thorough knowledge of nature of research problem. This results in the formulation of the inappropriate research question and increases the time to literature search.

TYPES OF SEARCH

Type of search can be described in different forms according to the subject of interest. It increases the chances of retrieving relevant information from a search.

Translating research question to keywords

This will provide results based on any of the words specified; hence, they are the cornerstone of an effective search. Synonyms/alternate terms should be considered to elicit further information, i.e., barbiturates in place of thiopentone. Spellings should also be taken into account, i.e., anesthesia in place of anaesthesia (American and British). Most databases use controlled word-stock to establish common search terms (or keywords). Some of these alternative keywords can be looked from database thesaurus.[ 4 ] Another strategy is combining keywords with Boolean operators. It is important to keep a note of keywords and methods used in exploring the literature as these will need to be described later in the design of search process.

‘Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) is the National Library of Medicine's controlled hierarchical vocabulary that is used for indexing articles in PubMed, with more specific terms organised underneath more general terms’.[ 17 ] This provides a reliable way to retrieve citations that use different terminology for identical ideas, as it indexes articles based on content. Two features of PubMed that can increase yield of specific articles are ‘Automatic term mapping’ and ‘automatic term explosion’.[ 4 ]

For example, if the search keyword is heart attack, this term will match with MeSH transcription table heading and then explode into various subheadings. This helps to construct the search by adding and selecting MeSH subheadings and families of MeSH by use of hyperlinks.[ 4 ]

We can set limits to a clinical trial for retrieving higher level of evidence (i.e., randomised controlled clinical trial). Furthermore, one can browse through the link entitled ‘Related Articles’. This PubMed feature searches for similar citations using an intricate algorithm that scans titles, abstracts and MeSH terms.[ 4 ]

Phrase search

This will provide pages with only the words typed in the phrase, in that exact order and with no words in between them.

Boolean operators

AND, OR and NOT are the three Boolean operators named after the mathematician George Boole.[ 18 ] Combining two words using ‘AND’ will fetch articles that mention both the words. Using ‘OR’ will widen the search and fetch more articles that mention either subject. While using the term ‘NOT’ to combine words will fetch articles containing the first word but not the second, thus narrowing the search.

Filters can also be used to refine the search, for example, article types, text availability, language, age, sex and journal categories.

Overall, the recommendations for methodology of literature search can be as below (Creswell)[ 19 ]

• Identify keywords and use them to search articles from library and internet resources as described above
• Search several databases to search articles related to your topic
• Use thesaurus to identify terms to locate your articles
• Find an article that is similar to your topic; then look at the terms used to describe it, and use them for your search
• Use databases that provide full-text articles (free through academic libraries, Internet or for a fee) as much as possible so that you can save time searching for your articles
• If you are examining a topic for the first time and unaware of the research on it, start with broad syntheses of the literature, such as overviews, summaries of the literature on your topic or review articles
• Start with the most recent issues of the journals, and look for studies about your topic and then work backward in time. Follow-up on references at the end of the articles for more sources to examine
• Refer books on a single topic by a single author or group of authors or books that contain chapters written by different authors
• Next look for recent conference papers. Often, conference papers report the latest research developments. Contact authors of pertinent studies. Write or phone them, asking if they know of studies related to your area of interest
• The easy access and ability to capture entire articles from the web make it attractive. However, check these articles carefully for authenticity and quality and be cautious about whether they represent systematic research.

The whole process of literature search[ 20 ] is summarised in Figure 1 .

Process of literature search

Literature search provides not only an opportunity to learn more about a given topic but provides insight on how the topic was studied by previous analysts. It helps to interpret ideas, detect shortcomings and recognise opportunities. In short, systematic and well-organised research may help in designing a novel research.

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Research skills, searching the literature.

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Welcome to this module about how to find what you need when searching academic literature

• Planning your search - working out what you want to look for and where you might find it
• Carrying our your search - using different resources to find materials on your research topic
• Evaluating your search and results - deciding if you have found what you need and how they are relevant to your research
• Managing your results - using tools and alerts manage what you have now and what interesting new research might be coming out
• Keeping up to date - using tools to keep up to date with new literature as it is produced and published

Academic information can take many forms such as textbooks, journal articles, datasets, software and much more. In this module we will be focusing on searching for journal articles through different services, including the many academic databases that are available to members of the University of Cambridge. As every discipline will have slightly different ways of sharing and talking about research, we will be covering the fundamental skills around searching the literature. For more subject-specialist help, seek out the relevant library team via our Libraries Directory listings .

To complete this section, you will need:

• Approximately 60 minutes.
• Access to the internet. All the resources used here are available freely.
• Some equipment for jotting down your thoughts, a pen and paper will do, or your phone or another electronic device.

Planning your search

As tempting as it is to start searching, it is important to take some time to plan out your search first, as spending a few minutes making a plan at the start will help you find all the relevant information as efficiently as possibly. There are a range of different techniques you can use for finding the information you need. Considering the techniques you will use and where you will use them can be described as developing or creating a "Search Strategy". Watch this video from the Engineering Library to learn how to create a great search strategy.  

Activity - Building your search strategy

Now you have had a chance to think about planning a search strategy, you could think about developing a search strategy for your own research question using our Search Strategy tool . This tool aims to provide prompts for you to build your search strategy to help plan your literature searching. At the end of the activity you will be given the option to email your search strategy to yourself so you have a copy to work from as you progress with your research.

Carrying out your search

Now you have a plan for searching, you can start putting your keywords into a database to see what you find. Remember, what you want to find will influence where you look for it. There are many databases available that cover many different disciplines at once, and others that focus down onto one specific area so consider using several resources together to get really good coverage of your topic.

One good interdisciplinary databases is Scopus. In this video by the Lee Library (Wolfson College), you’ll see the principles we've discussed so far applied in practice. Please note that many databases change how they look from time so if Scopus has changed since you watched this video, the essentials will be the same. 

Searching the grey literature

Sometimes you will be working on research that needs you to find what can sometimes be referred to as 'grey literature'. In a nutshell, this kind of literature is anything that has not been produced by a commercial publisher. It can include almost anything including working papers, reports published by government departments, theses and much more. Find these sorts of resources through academic databases is almost impossible as they are often not indexed there. However, many of us have a tool at our fingertips that we use daily to find information - Google!

Google is a very effective search tool, even though it still only indexes a very small proportion of the overall internet. There are techniques to get Google searching to work for you rather than you fighting against its algorithms. Find out more in video from the Biological Sciences Libraries Team!

Knowledge check - what have you remembered so far?

We've covered a lot so you can undertake a quick knowledge check . Answer the questions to see how much you've remembered. If you're not sure about a question, you can revisit the earlier sections to refresh your knowledge

Evaluating your search

Now you've been searching for a little while, it might be worthwhile going back to your original search strategy plan to see if it needs tweaking. What sort of results have you been getting?

You might want to consider the following questions as part of this review:

• Are the results different to what you expected?  Why might this be?
• Do you need to refine the search including additional keywords or using post-search filters like dates or topic?  
• Are you getting too few results and do you need to broaden the search? 
• Is the database suitable for this search, or would there be a more appropriate alternative?  

If you are struggling to answer any of these questions, it might be a good time to seek out a subject specialist. As a reminder, you can find a comprehensive listing of the various libraries dotted around the University of Cambridge with many knowledgeable people working within them who will be able to help.

Critically evaluating your results

Even if your search is as good as you can get it right now, and you're definitely using the best resource for your topic, have you taken some time to review the quality of your results? The concept of quality is incredibly subjective, especially depending on your research area. While some people may consider peer review to be a good indicator of rigorous research, others may be more sceptical of it as an overall process.

Consider using a critical evaluation framework to assess what research results you're finding and you can start answering questions around the relevance and quality of a particular piece of work according to your own individual criteria. There are many frameworks out there and the Biological Sciences Libraries Team have a short video looking at one of these called PROMPT from the Open University.

Managing your results

Once you have a set of results that you want to save and keep so you can use them with your research moving forward, managing those resources is a critical next step to ensure that you have them easily to hand and do not lose them at any point during your work. We would strongly recommend that you consider investing in a reference manager to do a lot of this work for you. In essence, a reference manager will help you save results as you work with options for cloud storage of articles, exporting as formatted references for bibliographies and much more!

There are a wide range of reference manager tools out there, with several being free to use, so while we may recommend a few do explore the options yourself to get something that works for you. For an overview of some of the main tools, please visit our Good Academic Practice guide for more information.

Keeping up to date

So far we have considered situations where you are researching a topic at a particular point in time, yet as a researcher you will also need to keep informed about new developments in your field. How can you make sure you capture important new research in the limited time you have available? 

With alerts and other such things, there are many options available, some of which we cover in our next video.

Further Resources

We have covered a lot of different things in this module, many of which can be expanded upon and gone into in a lot of depth with a subject expert so here are some resources for you to explore further.

For a complete list of all of the academic databases and resources that the University of Cambridge subscribes to, visit our A-Z Database guide

Visit our dedicated guide on carrying out a systematic review for specialist advice from the Medical Library team

For a comprehensive list of subject libraries across the University of Cambridge , visit our Libraries Directory to find someone to help you with your literature searching needs

There are many training opportunities for researchers across the University of Cambridge, with many sessions advertised on the University Training Booking System . Check it out to see if there is a literature searching session in your research area happening soon. If you can't find one that is relevant to you, ask a subject librarian if they have anything available.

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Literature searching, what is literature searching.

• Developing a Research Question
• Translating a Research Question
• Boolean Operators
• Organizing Citations

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Literature Searching Process

Literature searching might seem intimidating because of the sheer amount of information available, but everyone can conduct a literature search by following these steps. Learn more about each step by browsing this guide:   Developing a Research Question,   Translating a Research Question,   Performing a Search,  and  Organizing Citations.

Literature Searching Benefits

Literature searching is time intensive and takes practice. However, it is well worth the effort to learn. Here are a few benefits to performing a literature search:

Background Information  - A literature search allows researchers to familiarize themselves with the scope of the research on a particular topic. It can also help a researcher recognize where they fall into the body of work. Are there any gaps in the research that your expertise could fill? Have any of your interests already been explored?

Find Major Players and Key Concepts  - As you get to know your topic, you'll begin to notice recurring authors, concepts, and terminology to build upon.

Credibility  - Showing that you have done your homework on a topic is necessary for the success of any project. This is especially true in instances where funding is involved, experiments are being conducted, and interventions are being evaluated. If you want to make a big change in your work or organization, literature searching can provide insight into effectiveness before money, time, and resources are spent.

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• Last Updated: Nov 30, 2023 12:35 PM
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Literature Search Basics

How can the library help, class recording: literature search basics, what is a literature search.

• Define your search
• Decide where to search
• Develop a search strategy
• Track and save your search
• Class Recording: Writing an Effective Narrative Review

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Our Scientific Editors perform both substantive and copy editing of grant proposals, journal articles, and other reports of original research written by MD Anderson physicians and scientists for the professional literature, funding agencies, and other external (non-MD Anderson) audiences. 

Our librarians can provide expert searching for clinical or academic research, and hospital administration. This service is available to the faculty and staff at MD Anderson.

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A literature search is a systematic search of all relevant literature on a specific topic. The literature search provides evidence to support many academic and clinical functions. The evidence gathered through a literature search can be used to answer a clinical question, write a research, review article or case report; prepare a presentation, write a grant application, and more.

Relevant literature can include journal articles, conference abstracts, books or book chapters, clinical trial registries and more.

Researchers, clinicians, and students search the literature all the time. So how is a literature search different?

As opposed to a background search where you are trying to review a topic, a literature search requires a methodical approach. To complete a literature search you will need:

• A focused, defined question to guide the search. 
• A list of databases and other websites that will comprehensively cover the topic.
• A search strategy that includes keywords and controlled vocabulary
• A tracking method so your search can be reported and reproduced.

This guide will walk you through the steps required to complete a literature search. 

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Literature searching.

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Further help

Your dissertation or research project will almost certainly require a search for literature on your topic, whether to identify selected research, to undertake a literature review or inform a full systematic review. Literature searches require planning, careful thought about what it is you wish to find out and a robust strategy to ensure you find relevant material.

On this page:

Planning your search.

• Search techniques and developing your search strategy

Literature reviews

Systematic reviews.

Time spent carefully planning your search can save valuable time later on and lead to more relevant results and a more robust search strategy. You should consider the following:

• Analysing your topic and understanding your research question: Carry out a scoping search to help understand your topic and to help define your question more clearly.
• What are the key concepts in your search?
• What terms might be used to describe those concepts? Consider synonyms and alternative spellings.
• If your question relates to health or clinical medicine, you might like to use PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison and Outcomes) to analyse your question:
• Combine your concept terms together using the correct operators , such as AND and OR.

See our Library Skills Essentials guide for support materials and guidance for planning your search, including understanding and defining your topic, and defining search terms.

Search techniques and developing a search strategy

Make sure you are confident about using essential search techniques,  including combining search terms, phrase searching and truncation. These will help you find relevant results on your topic. See our guide to search techniques:

• Search techniques

When carrying out a literature search to inform a dissertation or extended piece of research, you will need to think carefully about your search strategy. Have a look at our tutorials and videos to help you develop your literature searching skills:

• Search skills for research: tutorials and videos

When you carry out a literature search you may need to search multiple resources (see  Sources and Resources ). Your search strategy will need to be adjusted depending on the resource you are using. For some resources, a simple search will be sufficient, whereas for more complex resources with more content, you may need to develop a sophisticated search strategy, ensuring you use the correct search techniques for that resource. See our guides to selected individual resources for further guidance.

• Search guides to individual resources: bibliographic databases
• What is a literature review?
• Why are literature reviews important?

We also provide support for developing advanced search strategies to ensure comprehensive literature retrieval, including searching for systematic reviews. See our guide to Searching for Systematic Reviews.

• Systematic reviews This guide provides information on systematic review processes and support available from UCL Library Services.

See our library skills training sessions or contact your librarian .

For general enquiries, see Getting Help and contacting us .  

Get help and advice with literature searching

• You can email your librarian direct to ask for advice on your search.
• You can also book a virtual appointment with your librarian for more in depth enquiries.
• Email your librarian to request an appointment or fill out our  individual consultation request form .
• Find your librarian
• Find your site library Another way to find your local team.

Literature searching training sessions

• View our full calendar and make a booking

Search Explore

Check out our Explore guide to find out more about how to use Explore for your research.

• Explore guide
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• Library Search

Literature Search: Getting Started

• Getting Started
• Google Scholar
• BASE Search Engine
• Semantic Scholar

What is a Literature Search?

The purpose of a literature search is to locate all relevant materials on a particular topic, including books, journal articles, reports, and conference papers.

Prior to beginning a search, library users should complete several steps, including:

• Formulating a topic that is neither too narrow nor too broad;
• Developing appropriate search terms; and
• Defining the scope of the search with respect to time frame, language, geographical area and language.

Users should also consider the format of the information that they are seeking. In general, researchers will locate the most current information in periodicals, such as journals and conference reports. This is particularly true of research in scientific and technical fields, in which information and knowledge often change at a rapid rate. Books remain a good source of information for historical research as well as for fields where knowledge is more static. Books and  ebooks  can also be a good starting point for research in any field. They can provide researchers with a broad overview of the field of interest.

Explore the other tabs in this guide to learn more about the tools available and how to use them.

Tools for your search

The Commerce Research Library has several tools for performing these searches, including:

• Library Search , the Library’s federated catalog which searches across many databases, including the many EBSCO databases, ProQuest ABI/Inform, and HeinOnline.
• LexisNexis , a subscription research database provides access to many scholarly journals, but cannot be searched in Library Search. 
• Microsoft Academic , a free search engine on the web.
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• Last Updated: Nov 6, 2023 12:10 PM
• URL: https://library.doc.gov/LitSearch

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Literature Searching

In this guide.

• Introduction
• Steps for searching the literature in PubMed
• Step 1 - Formulate a search question
• Step 2- Identify primary concepts and gather synonyms
• Step 3 - Locate subject headings (MeSH)
• Step 4 - Combine concepts using Boolean operators
• Step 5 - Refine search terms and search in PubMed
• Step 6 - Apply limits

Steps for Searching the Literature

Searching is an iterative process and often requires re-evaluation and testing by adding or changing keywords and the ways they relate to each other. To guide your search development, you can follow the search steps below. For more information on each step, navigate to its matching tab on the right menu. 

1. Formulate a clear, well-defined, answerable search question

Generally, the basic literature search process begins with formulating a clear, well-defined research question. Asking the right research question is essential to creating an effective search. Your research question(s) must be well-defined and answerable. If the question is too broad, your search will yield more information than you can possibly look through.

2. Identify primary concepts and gather synonyms

Your research question will also help identify the primary search concepts. This will allow you to think about how you want the concepts to relate to each other. Since different authors use different terminology to refer to the same concept, you will need to gather synonyms and all the ways authors might express them. However, it is important to balance the terms so that the synonyms do not go beyond the scope of how you've defined them.

3. Locate subject headings (MeSH)

Subject databases like PubMed use 'controlled vocabularies' made up of subject headings that are preassigned to indexed articles that share a similar topic. These subject headings are organized hierarchically within a family tree of broader and narrower concepts. In PubMed and MEDLINE, the subject headings are called Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). By including MeSH terms in your search, you will not have to think about word variations, word endings, plural or singular forms, or synonyms. Some topics or concepts may even have more than one appropriate MeSH term. There are also times when a topic or concept may not have a MeSH term. 

4. Combine concepts using Boolean operators AND/OR

Once you have identified your search concepts, synonyms, and MeSH terms, you'll need to put them together using nesting and Boolean operators (e.g. AND, OR, NOT). Nesting uses parentheses to put search terms into groups. Boolean operators are used to combine similar and different concepts into one query. 

5. Refine search terms and search in PubMed

There are various database search tactics you can use, such as field tags to limit the search to certain fields, quotation marks for phrase searching, and proximity operators to search a number of spaces between terms to refine your search terms. The constructed search string is ready to be pasted into PubMed. 

6. Apply limits (optional)

If you're getting too many results, you can further refine your search results by using limits on the left box of the results page. Limits allow you to narrow your search by a number of facets such as year, journal name, article type, language, age, etc. 

Depending on the nature of the literature review, the complexity and comprehensiveness of the search strategies and the choice of databases can be different. Please contact the Lane Librarians if you have any questions. 

The type of information you gather is influenced by the type of information source or database you select to search. Bibliographic databases contain references to published literature, such as journal articles, conference abstracts, books, reports, government and legal publications, and patents. Literature reviews typically synthesis indexed, peer-reviewed articles (i.e. works that generally represent the latest original research and have undergone rigorous expert screening before publication), and gray literature (i.e. materials not formally published by commercial publishers or peer-reviewed journals). PubMed offers a breadth of health sciences literature and is a good starting point to locate journal articles.

What is PubMed?

PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. Available to the public online since 1996, PubMed was developed and is maintained by the  National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) , at the  U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) , located at the  National Institutes of Health (NIH) .

MEDLINE is the National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) premier bibliographic database that contains more than 27 million references to journal articles from more than 5,200 worldwide journals in life sciences with a concentration on biomedicine. The Literature Selection Technica Review Committee (LSTRC) reviews and selects journals for MEDLINE based on the research quality and impact of the journals. A distinctive feature of MEDLINE is that the records are indexed with NLM  Medical Subject Headings  (MeSH).

PubMed also contains citations for  PubMed Central (PMC)  articles. PMC is a full-text archive that includes articles from journals reviewed and selected by NLM for archiving (current and historical), as well as individual articles collected for archiving in compliance with funder policies.  PubMed allows users to search keywords in the bibliographic data, but not the full text of the PMC articles.

How to Access PubMed?

To access PubMed, go to the Lane Library homepage and click PubMed in "Top Resources" on the left. This PubMed link is coded with Find Fulltext @ Lane Library Stanford that links you to Lane's full-text articles online. 

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Gerstein Science Information Centre

Searching the literature: a guide to comprehensive searching in the health sciences.

• Formulate your question
• Precision vs. Sensitivity
• Gather synonyms
• Construct strategy using OR/AND

Using AND/OR (aka Boolean Operators) to Construct Search Strategy

Visualize your search strategy - 2 options.

• Use subject headings & textwords
• Choose your database(s)
• Conduct your search
• Test Your Search
• Translating your Search
• Supplement your search
• Manage your results
• Locating Full Text
• OVID Medline
• OVID Embase
• Ebsco CINAHL
• Cochrane Central
• Web of Science
• ERIC (ProQuest)
• AgeLine (EBSCO)
• Grey Literature
• Search Filters
• Saving and Documenting Your Search
• Can ChatGPT write a comprehensive search strategy?
• Systematic & Scoping Review Methods
• Searching Series Workshop: Course Materials This link opens in a new window

We use Boolean Operators (OR, AND) to combine search terms in library databases.

Boolean Operators:

• are required to turn a research question into a query the database can understand
• make searching more efficient
• enable searchers to combine dozens of queries into one

Let's use the below example question to see how Boolean Operators are applied. 

Search sets are combined logically using AND or OR.

• OR: combines terms for the same concept e.g. teenagers OR adolescents OR youth  
• AND: combines different concepts e.g. teenagers AND substance abuse

Note: You can also use brackets to group concepts and force an order of operations.  

This forms the basic skeleton of your search strategy. It's often helpful to express your skeleton strategy as a venn diagram or as a chart (see below). 

Option 1: Venn Diagram

You might find drawing a venn diagram helpful when constructing your search strategy. Underline your major concept in each circle, list all your synonyms below each each concept and then identify the overlap where you will find the most relevant literature. 

Image from  Cochrane Handbook  Section 6.4.a: Combining concepts as search sets

Option 2: Chart

You may also choose to organize your thoughts into a chart, as shown below.

Concepts : Substance Abuse | Teenagers | Randomized Controlled Trials

 Search Strategies Must Always be Tailored to the Database!

• vendor/interface differences (ex. OVID vs. EBSCO vs ProQuest)
• subject headings versus keyword-only (ex. MEDLINE vs. SCOPUS)
• peer-reviewed content only (MEDLINE:yes, CINAHL:no)
• different controlled vocabularies (ex. Medline - MeSH vs. Embase - EMTREE vs. CINAHL - Headings)  

This work is openly licensed via  CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 .  For information on this guide contact  Erica Nekolaichuk , Faculty Liaison & Instruction Librarian at the Gerstein Science Information Centre. 

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Effective March 14, 2024, HHS Virtual Library customers will have a streamlined login , with a common URL for all HHS customers using a PIV card. IHS and other HHS customers without a PIV card will continue to login using temporary credentials provided by the NIH Library. Further guidance is available here .

Literature Search

NIH Librarians will conduct a thorough search that can include specialty databases not publicly available. Animal welfare, systematic reviews, and protocol support are a few of the specialized searches you may request. 

Request a literature search

Systematic Reviews

NIH Library Librarians regularly serve as part of systematic review teams. NIH Library Librarians are skilled at:

• Conducting the literature searches
• Documenting the search process
• Managing the search results
• Writing the methodology section of the review and reporting results according to  PRISMA guidelines  or other appropriate standards, and
• Editing the manuscript to conform to the requirements of the target journal.

Additionally, they can aid with other components of a systematic review such as establishing inclusion criteria, selection of software for screening or data extraction, writing and editing of a manuscript and other tasks, as determined by need and staff knowledge. A full list of services available is included below.

These services are provided to NIH and HHS customers by a NIH Library Librarian.  Request a consultation  to discuss your systematic review.

Protocol Support

The NIH Library Protocol Support Service provides searching, consultations, and resources for developing the literature and research components of protocol development and scientific review. Librarians work with individuals to develop complex, focused searches for both clinical and animal protocols. Librarians are available to attend protocol team meetings and provide support throughout the protocol process.

An introduction to library linked data

• Jeff Mixter
• 26 March 2024
• Linked data

We recently announced a comprehensive strategy to bring linked data into mainstream library cataloging workflows. It’s a long-term approach, recognizing that most libraries will move to linked data slowly and incrementally—and we’re committed to providing tools and resources to support the transition for everyone.

Working closely with libraries around the world, we know that staff at some libraries are already educating themselves on the topic, piloting linked data services, and taking part in ongoing research. But we also know that many others have a lot of questions. In addition to technical issues, librarians are also wondering how linked data will impact and affect the work they are currently doing. To help, OCLC is rolling out linked data infrastructure and services that meet libraries where they are today and provide meaningful improvement to challenges facing libraries.

What is linked data?

At its simplest, linked data is about connections. It’s a way to organize and connect data on the web so it can be easily, automatically, and programmatically shared and used by various systems and services.

For a brief, more technical introduction, jump down to the end of this post. But the super-short version is that linked data is simply lines of standardized HTML code that computers use to link different concepts by their relationships to each other.

If you look at the “knowledge panel” in a Google result, you’ll often see information about a subject from many sources. That “info card” is populated with linked data from many other sites (including direct links to library resources , using information from WorldCat). Other related linked data sources, including VIAF, Wikidata, and DBpedia, are already being used to connect services and create new applications.

As more related linked data comes online, we’ll see more opportunities for additional library-focused applications. By breaking up the valuable, library-focused data locked in MARC records and publishing it using URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers), library staff will be able to provide greater context for information and build rich connections across library resources, their communities, and beyond.

How is linked data different? Is it better?

Traditional, fixed data formats—like MARC records—have two major limitations. It’s hard to get useful data from other, nonlibrary sources into library workflows and it’s hard for potential users of library information to get MARC data into their workflows.

The first is a challenge because, as we know, there are many sources of information to help improve the discovery and use of library materials. That could be across campus—in another department or system that is more heavily used by students and researchers—or from experts around the world. The second is a lost opportunity, because library metadata is created by cataloging workers (at libraries and OCLC) who are among the most talented data specialists in the world. Many other industries and areas could benefit from the work they do.

Linked data helps address both challenges. For example, OCLC works with organizations like Google to insert library linked data into their services. These efforts make library materials more visible in places where people search online. And there are opportunities for partners to help do the same in reverse, getting their information into systems and services where library workers and users can connect. For example, linked data makes connecting works across languages much easier, meaning that publishers can direct inquiries in one language to materials available in others.

In both cases, it helps connect library work to the wider web, promoting libraries while improving efficiency.

What about MARC?

If we look at the history of metadata, there’s a consistent record of libraries moving to systems and services that let more people interact with it in more ways.

• Closed stacks were the ultimate data filter. When users had to ask library staff to fetch resources from a closed room, there was no chance for direct interaction.
• Shelf browsing , using systems like Dewey and LCC (Library of Congress Classification), allowed users to interact with metadata themselves, making their own choices. Library workers moved from the position of data gatekeepers to being guides, educators, and advocates.
• Centralized databases , such as WorldCat, connected library catalogs for cooperative record creation and improvement, as well as new discovery and resource sharing options within library-based services.
• Online access to library databases, in places like WorldCat.org, meant that anyone with access to a web browser could find and use library metadata online. Early OCLC partnerships also meant that library data could—with some additional work—be shared in other online resources.

Linked data is the next step in this evolution. Until now, everything we’ve done was primarily to make library metadata more accessible to people. Now we’re putting library data out there in a way that’s more accessible to today’s online services, programs, machine learning systems, and artificial intelligence (AI) applications.

MARC will be with us for the foreseeable future. After all, it took nearly 50 years for many libraries to fully make the transition from printed cards to online cataloging. Our plan is to continue to support MARC-based functions while actively building powerful library linked data tools and resources.

Why should I care about linked data today?

As libraries continue to focus on new ways to facilitate the creation and sharing of knowledge, and as the volume and variety of information increases, metadata and metadata expertise are more important than ever. Evolving library data into linked data frees the knowledge in library collections and connects it to the knowledge streams that inform our everyday lives—on the web, through smart devices, and using technologies like AI.

Here are some of the reasons I think you should be excited about what’s happening with linked data today:

• It allows us to harness the collective expertise of library workers at thousands of institutions. That’s exciting both in terms of partnerships and original research .
• It synchronizes and enhances library data at scale. WorldCat Entities is a set of centralized data that establishes the context for bibliographic metadata curation. And we’re connecting it to existing systems like the DDC (Dewey Decimal Classification) and FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Technology) to integrate linked data into other library workflows.
• It helps current systems and workflows through the transition to linked data by integrating data like WorldCat Entities URIs to WorldCat.
• We’re creating new tools that will let cataloging workers add linked data to existing records. This will allow for enhanced cataloging applications, record output with identifiers, and soon, the launch of OCLC Meridian, a WorldCat Entities linked data management tool.
• We’ll also launch a bibliographic editing tool that works seamlessly between BIBFRAME and MARC data, helping to meet the needs of librarians as they transition to non-MARC formats.

There’s a lot to be excited about. And this will be a marathon, not a sprint. But for today? Know that OCLC is working toward a linked data future that supports all libraries as they transition at their own pace and in ways that provide value without impacting current processes.

This is the first of three posts about linked data. Keep an eye on this space, check out the main page for OCLC linked data strategy and news, and sign up for updates on this important subject.

Technical background for linked data

When Tim Berners-Lee and the team at CERN invented the basic protocols for the web in 1989, they proposed three basic technologies to connect people to resources:

• Unique resource identifiers (URIs) for anything that can be connected on the web; URLs (Uniform Resource Locators)—commonly known as “web page names”—are a type of URI
• The Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) code used to format documents on the web
• The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which is used to establish connections between web pages and related assets (pictures, sound, video, apps, and data)

When you—a human user of the web—click on a link that says, for example, “ Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives ,” you have an expectation that it will take you to another page with related information. The context for that journey is based on how people use documents and links to find and access related resources.

Later, Berners-Lee expanded this, outlining principles to link data between computers rather than people. He proposed that “conceptual things” should have a URI for an online name that returns data about that thing in a standard format, and that other related things should also be given a URI. In this way, similarly to how people use links, computer programs can move from page to page (URI to URI), using common technology to search for and utilize related information.

The URI for a “thing” (commonly called an “entity,” which could be any object, person, date, concept, place, etc.) is just a web page that has linked data code on it. That code contains information about the subject, and also links to other entities using something called “a triple,” which is just:

[Thing 1] <has this relationship> to [Thing 2]

So, for example:

[Octavia E. Butler] <is the author of> [Parable of the Sower]

That information would be found in a line of code on the page for both Butler and the novel. So, when a computer program finds either page, it will be able to “know” the relationship between those two entities. And when billions of pieces of linked data are published and connected all over the web, it becomes possible to build applications that utilize previously disconnected information in unique and powerful ways.

For example, another site might publish linked data about where famous people are born, and could have the following triple on the page for Pasadena, California, USA:

[Pasadena, California, USA] <is the birthplace of> [Octavia E. Butler]

And a third application might be pulling data from many sites in order to display interesting travel-related information for vacation planning. Its service could pull linked data from the birthplace site, and then search for related, interesting links. So that when you use its software to plan a trip to Pasadena, it would search that linked data, which would then connect to library data, and provide library links to works by authors from that city.

The main thing to keep in mind is that linked data is simply computer code on ordinary web pages that provides contextual information about things (“entities”). That data is then read by automated programs that put it together with linked data from other sources to create new applications and services.

Related Posts:

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Tags: Cataloging , Development , Librarianship , Library Management , Linked Data , Metadata , Technology

Research Techniques pp 23–33 Cite as

Use of Libraries, Literature Search and Review

• Habeeb Adewale Ajimotokan 2  
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The objectives of this chapter are to

Describe the use of the library and specify how to research using it;

Define the terms literature search and review;

Outline the importance of literature search and review;

Specify and briefly describe the sources of archival literature;

Specify and describe the types of publications; and

Define the term search strategy and specify the approaches to literature search.

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Lues, L., & Lategan, L. O. K. (2006). RE: Search ABC (1st ed.). Sun Press.

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Walliman, N. (2011). Your research project: Designing and planning your work . Sage Publications Ltd.

Bell, J. (2010). Doing your research project: A guide for first-time researchers in education and social science (5th ed.). Open University Press.

Baker, S. (1999). Finding and searching information sources. In Doing your research project: A guide for first-time researchers in education and social science (Ch. 5, 3rd ed.). Open University Press.

Thiel, D. V. (2014). Research methods for engineers . Cambridge University Press.

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Ajimotokan, H.A. (2023). Use of Libraries, Literature Search and Review. In: Research Techniques. SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13109-7_3

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What time is the total solar eclipse on April 8? Search your ZIP code for a viewing guide

Get ready for a spectacular show: A total solar eclipse will occur above the U.S. on the afternoon of April 8 .

Most Americans will be able to see it in some form, but the distance between your location and the path of totality will determine how much of the sun will be covered by the moon. Many places in the U.S. − Rochester, N.Y., Cleveland, and Austin, Texas, to name a few − will see a total eclipse, in which the sun is completely obscured. Other locations will see a partial eclipse. Search for your ZIP code below or select a major city to reveal the time, duration, peak and percentage of the eclipse in your area .

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When is the solar eclipse?

On April 8 the moon will travel along the path of totality in North America starting in northern Mexico. The shadow of the moon will pass into Texas a little before 1:30 p.m. local time. It will then cover portions of the Midwest and East Coast and touch southeast Canada before it moves out to sea, according to NASA .

Learn more: What is the path of totality for the total solar eclipse? Follow as it crosses the US.

Lea en Españo l: ¿Cuál es la trayectoria de totalidad del eclipse solar total? Siga mientras cruza México y los EE. UU.

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If you buy or are given eclipse glasses, be sure they are made by companies the  American Astronomical Society  has certified as safe .

NASA does not certify glasses , so be wary of any manufacturers claiming that to have the space agency's approval.

Eclipse glasses should all have the "ISO" (International Organization for Standardization) icon. The glasses also must have the  ISO reference number 12312-2 .

If you cannot find certified glasses , there are other ways to view the eclipse, including with a shadow box you can make yourself. Whatever you do, don't look at the sun without proper protection.

Learn more : What happens if you look at a solar eclipse? A viewing guide for this year's sky show.

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A total eclipse occurs when the moon appears the same size as the sun and blocks the entire disk, leading to a period of darkness lasting several minutes. The resulting "totality," when observers can see the outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere, known as the corona, confuses animals – nocturnal creatures stir, and bird and insects fall silent.

Learn more : A total solar eclipse will cross the US in April: Here's where and when to see it

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Contributing: Janet Loehrke, Javier Zarracina and Shawn J. Sullivan