MSc Research Databases: literature searching, saved searches and alerts
Management Librarians: Jane Hill and Helen Rhodes
This workshop will demonstrate how to use a selection of management databases to search for journal
literature, save searches, create search alerts and journal alerts.

Business Source Premier from EBSCO -

Web of knowledge multidisciplinary database -

Scopus multidisciplinary database -

The British Library’s Zetoc Service
We will demonstrate:
A/ How to create a search in Business Source Premier (BSP), how to save the search.
B/ How to use the “Google-style” SmartText searching in BSP and save the search as an alert.
C/ How to find ‘follow on references’ using cited reference searching in Web of Knowledge.
D/ How to do an author search in Scopus and see author evaluations (H index).
E/ How to receive ‘tables of contents’ alerts from Zetoc.
All the databases referred to here can be found on the Resources for Management web pages http://www.bath.ac.uk/library/subjects/management/
Business Source Premier - Journal articles
To get the most from BSP it is useful to create a personal profile in the database so you can save searches
and create alerts.
1/ On the top right click on the ‘sign in’
option.
2/ On the next page on the right hand
side click on ‘create new account’.
3/ Fill in all the required fields. When you
have done this, click on ‘sign in’ with your
username and password. NB. This is the
password you have just created – not
your BUCS one.
A/ Creating and saving a search in BSP
There a number of different approaches you can take to searching. One useful approach is to begin with a
wide general search and use the search limiters to narrow down your search as you go. Another method is
to begin with an article that you have found and then follow up the references in the article and the citing
articles – more about this later.
We will try to find articles on globalisation and marketing strategy using advanced search and refining
options.
1/ Search simply for globalisation and marketing as shown below. Leave the ‘select a field’ as it is; it will
automatically search for your words in the article title, subject, keyword and abstract fields. Click search’.
Tip
Different spellings:
BSP will automatically search for US and UK versions of many words but not all! In our search
it will return articles spelling globalization with a ‘z’. But if you search for the word
“organisational” it will NOT return the word spelt with the ‘z’ instead of the ‘s’. To ensure
nothing is missed, you can use the question mark ? as a wildcard character to find either
spelling - “organi?ational”.
Different word endings:
To search as broadly as possible there are times you might want to use the asterisk (*) to find
alternatives e.g. emotion* will find emotions and emotional.
2/ The search retrieves thousands of articles,
so narrow down your search using the ‘refine
your results’ options on the left. Choose just
scholarly journals and move the date bar to
select the last 10 years. Click ‘update’.
3/ Refine further by scrolling down to ‘Subject:
thesaurus term’ (you may need to click to
expand this option) and tick the words you want
to add e.g. ‘globalization’ and ‘marketing
strategy’ and click on ‘update’.
4/ If you wanted to narrow down by geography
or industry code (SIC) you can choose the
options on the left to do this. Adding in China
reduces the results to around 40. To remove
limits you no longer want in your search, click
on the
to remove from your limiters box
shown
here.
5/ When you are ready to look through
your results, click on an article title to
view more details. The listed keywords
can be useful to give you ideas for
future searches.
6/ If you want to save an article to read later, click on the
button on the right. Any articles you mark in
this way will be stored in your folder permanently providing
you are logged in. To see them click on
from the
top right hand menu. Select ‘back’ from the top left to
return to the previous screen.
7/ To return to your search results click on ‘result list’. You can add articles to your folder from this
list by clicking on the
option under each article. If you are happy with your search and
want to keep it for another time, click on the
option under the search boxes.
8/ Tick the search you want to keep as shown below and click on the
button.
9/ Give your
search a name
and description
and choose to
save it as a
search.
10/ When you have finished and have saved your
search you will see this
icon on the top right of
your screen showing that you have things in your
folder. Click on it to see any saved searches, alerts or
articles.
B/ Using SmartText searching to find articles on executive compensation in times of recession.
1/ Click on
on the top left to clear the search screen.
2/ Then from the search options
choose SmartText Searching. This
opens a large text box in the search
area. You can put in as many words
as you like that describe what you
are trying to find, even whole
sentences.
3/ Try putting as many words as you
can think of that are associated with
our search. See some suggestions
opposite.
4/ As before, you
will need to refine
your results to
focus on your
interests. E.g. try
selecting ‘chief
executive officers’
under the ‘subject:
thesaurus term’
heading. And click
‘update’
6/ To save this search as an alert, click on the
want as shown below and then click on
Fill out the form and click on ‘alert’
option as shown in the screen shot.
The form will expand and you will be
asked to specify the frequency of the
alert e.g. daily/weekly and you will
need to give your email address. When
you have completed the form click on
and at the next screen
click on
5/ Then under
geography
select Great
Britain and
click’ update.
button, tick the box by the search you
C/ Cited reference searching in Web of Knowledge
Web of Science is a multidisciplinary index covering all subjects studied at the university. No full text is
given in the database, but our library
button will find the full text if we have access via another
source. A very useful feature is cited reference searching. Use it to look up an article that matches your
search and then find articles by other authors who have referred to this article. This is a great way of
finding related material.
1/ Example article: Mehran, H., Executive-compensation structure, ownership and firm
performance, Journal of financial economics, 38 (2) 163-184. Enter the details in the Web of
Science search screen as shown below and click on ‘search’. (Although ‘cited reference search’ is
given as a separate search option, it is easier just to use the usual search box.)
2.The article will appear as follows with the search words shown in yellow. Click on ‘times cited’ number
of 245 to see all citing articles. Older and more popular articles will have more citations.
dd
D/ Author searching in Scopus
Scopus is a huge index of peer reviewed journals covering around 18,500 journal titles. It has many
features - we will look at author searching.
1/ Click on ‘author search’
and enter Mehran H into the
search fields as shown here
and click on ‘search’.
2/ Choose the correct author from
the list of possible matches – subject
area is a good one to check. Click
on the author’s name.
3/ The author summary pages will open as shown below, giving lots of useful information including
the total number of all citations (the number of times Mehran has been cited by others), all
references he has used in his articles and his H Index (a way of quantifying an author’s research
output). To see all the documents written by H. Mehran, click on the number 16 as indicated by the
arrow below.
4/ Now you can see all 16 articles authored by Mehran, with the most recent ones showing
first. Click on the ‘links’ button to see the full text.
Tip
To get the best out of Scopus create a
personal profile like we did for
Business Source Premier and save
your searches and create alerts.
E/ Zetoc – creating journal alerts
Zetoc is listed in the Library’s A-Z of databases. See the link from the resources for management web
pages.
1/ On the Zetoc page, click on Zetoc alert to create a user profile or manage existing alerts.
2/ Fill in your University of Bath email
address and give your list a name e.g.
dissertation and click on ‘create’.
3/ At the next screen click on ‘add
journals’.
4/ Either browse journals by subject, or search for the journal you want e.g. Harvard
Business Review. Click on ‘search’ and then click on the ‘add’ button.
5/ You will then see the following message
6/ If at a later date you want to add more journals simply open Zetoc, enter your list name and click
on ‘add journals’. You can add a single title as before or choose to browse a collection eg.
Management and click on the ‘add’ button next to the journals you want to select.
This session has introduced you to a selection of our databases. For a full list of management databases,
please see our website: http://www.bath.ac.uk/library/subjects/management
Contact details for your Management Librarians:
Jane Hill and Helen Rhodes
Location: Library level 5, room 5.04
Phone: 01225 385029
Email: [email protected]
Webpage: http://www.bath.ac.uk/library/subjects/management
I:\library\Level 5\Management Librarians\Teaching, publicity and promo\Student Inductions and Info skills\postgrads\2011-2012
inductions\Research skills with screenshots\literature searching alters and TOC\