Search for information in different kinds of library catalogues, databases or on the Internet. Your choice of which finding tool, search engine or database to use will depend on how you have formulated your problem.

The most common information sources are books  and articles from scholarly journals and newspapers.

You may also need to use statistics, research reports or conference and seminar papers and historical source documents. Use the Library's subject guides for finding this kind of information.

The most recent findings in any subject can most often be found in research reports or in journals. To find reports and journals within your area, check out our subject guides.

Library catalogues are usually used for finding books, reports and theses.

In databases you'll mostly find articles from journals and newspapers, but also chapters from books and conference papers. Some historical source materials can be searched for electronically.

Databases are either multi-disciplinary or they focus on a specific subject area.  In order to find a database that addresses your needs, have a look at our subject guides.

Bibliographic databases give references to articles.

Full text databases give references to articles which you can read on your screen.

Some databases contain facts, for example statistics, encyclopaedias or reference works. 

The Internet is a vast source of information. You should be aware of how to search using the various search engines and be observant about what answers and references you obtain from them. It is always important to evaluate information sources critically, but it is particularly important when using the Internet. 

Search engines are finding tools for information on the Internet. A couple of examples are Google and Yahoo Web Search. 

The Library has a large number of quality assured databases. You can also find quality assured resources freely available on the Internet. Two examples of search engines specialised in scholarly material are Google Scholar and Scirus.

Note that many of the references in Google Scholar use databases provided by libraries. To open these websites you must be connected to a university with access to them. 

Some online catalogues of Internet resources are also useful for searching among quality assessed and organised academic documents, e.g.  Infomine, Academic Info and Infoo - the official Swedish web catalogue.