I need a little help with some homework. No, I don’t need you to do it for me! I just need your help in figuring out how I can do it myself.
The Situation: I’m currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Counselling in Singapore. The Problem: I need…okay, fine!..WANT…to accompany my husband on his business trip to the UK. Thing is, we’ll be there two months. I will not be missing any lessons owing to the course logistics and the way I plan to arrange my flights. However, I’m wondering how the heck I’m supposed to write my papers/essays while in London. I need access to a comprehensive journal database with fulltexts available, books and magazine articles, the whole shebang. Possible Solution: I plan to subscribe to Questia.com because they seem promising in terms of their content database. Fairly decent selection of Journals, fulls texts of books, whatnot.
Advice me, please. Are there any similar online databases that I can subscribe to? Any other avenues I can pursue with regard to getting thorough research done?
Well, if you want to get it for free, Google Books is always an alternative, but they don’t have full texts; some pages are omitted (nonetheless, these pages are searchable although you can’t view them, IIRC). Not the ideal thing, but it can be sufficient if you just need a quick cite or similar.
With regards to subscription-based databases, I used ProQuest when I had to write a paper on money theory in university. They seem to cover the economics and business administration journals pretty well, but I can’t compare it to Questia or other databases because PRoQuest was the only thing in that field offered by my university. YMMV.
BTW, I guess this thread is going to be moved to IMHO.
Thanks for replying, Schnitte. I’ll check out Google Books definitely.
Being free is not a criterion for me, although being affordable is. Questia, for instance, has a monthly fee which I am happy shell out. Also, I’m not looking for a quick cite; more an exhaustive read up from a variety of (preferably peer-reviewed) sources. Questia qualifies and I am looking for more along the same lines.
ProQuest is, of course, one of the go-to journal databases for libraries, but I doubt it’s something an individual can reasonably afford.
Any alternatives to Questia that you guys have used or heard of?
Does your school offer access to any journals and/or databases? At UNLV, the library website offered access to a huge number of journals and databases; you just had to put in your library card’s number and your PIN.
Are there any threads on the Dope that discuss the Deep Web at all? I’m sure there must be, but my searches are not showing anything. Deep web - Wikipedia
Or you might be able to get the info from your library in Singapore for VPN /proxy access to have access to the same stuff you would if you were on campus.
My university (University of Copenhagen) has this service as well. One of the more useful journal databases in my research is JStor, which contains >1000 journals in electronic form.
Many universities have online catalogues, and even e-journal copies of many, many journals and periodicals, so you wouldn’t have to worry about getting hard-copies of those. Look into your university’s library service to see what’s available to you.
Alternatively, contact a university or two in London and ask them about gaining access to their collections as a visiting student/member of the public. I know for a fact that my university has a set up where students from other schools can get a library card, and the public can pay a fee to have access to the library services. I’d be very surprised if schools in London didn’t offer the same! Talk to an employee, since it might not be on their actual website.
Oh, the University does indeed have a subscription to a few journal databases. I’m working on the paranoid assumption that for whatever reason I will not be able to access those while in London. I basically want a backup plan that works equally well.
Checking for temp access to a library in London is something that slipped my mind completely. I’ll definitely look into that before I even step out of Singapore. Thanks for the reminder, mnemosyne.
I am currently enrolled in the MAFT program at ULM. My library provides excellent support via online (I can view most of my journal articles via PDF download and what is not available for view, they just email me.).
Unfortunately, not all libraries are created equal and technology is not always fail/fool proof.
I would locate a university in London that is offering a masters in counseling. By explaining your situation, I feel certain that you could obtain a visitors pass to access their campus library resources. Also, as a student from another country (I assume), your opinion and the access that you have to specific resources may be very valuable to them. I would not underestimate the value of your contributions to any research that they may be conducting.
If you get in a bind, just post the need for an article. It sounds like there are enough of us students here to hopefully get whatever resources emailed to you that you need! In the meantime, good luck with all of the reading assignments, they are killing me!!!