User Education Programme – Literature Search Strategies (18 March 2021)

18 March 2021 Last Updated: 23 September 2021 Hits: 3309

On 18 March 2021, the UMP library was invited by a lecturer from the Center for Mathematical Sciences, Dr. Noratikah Binti Abu to present a briefing on literature search strategies to students who took the subject of Research Methodology (BSD2712). The session was held at 10 a.m. via the Google Meet. A total of 25 participants attended this session. Puan Affida Abu Bakar from the Education & Research Section has conducted the session.

The main objective of the session is to give participants an overview of how to search for resources and how to use the library’s search platform. Before starting the session, participants were shown how to identify search terms or keywords based on the title of their writing or research. This technique can help participants to further expand search results on any platform such as library subscription databases. In addition, systematic search of all types of published literature can help them to identify good quality research relevant to a specific topic.

Participants also did a hands-on search for materials in the library collection using eFind. It is also explained how to use EzProxy for searching and downloading journal articles, e-books, and theses. EzProxy has also been used to do searches in numerous databases for topics relevant to mathematics studies. In addition, participants were exposed to the search for scholarly works of UMP staff and students in UMP-IR as well as explained the guidelines for the submission of articles or publications to be included in UMP-IR.

Before the session ended participants were shown about basic citing & referencing (APA Styles & Mendeley). The purpose is for participants to understand the importance of citation in each writing and use reference management software to make it easier for them to manage reference sources. Hopefully, all participants will be able to understand and then use all the facilities and collections available in the library.