About the Library

Library Resources

Resources for Optometry Postgraduates

How to access library resources off campus

Getting Started

Borrowing & Renewals: postgraduate entitlements
Exam papers: access point for online papers.
Program Documents: access point (Library PIN required).
Research theses are viewable via DIT's Institutional Repository ARROW. Theses are also available in hardcopy for viewing at the library desk.
How to use the Library: full help guides listing

Literature Reviews

A literature review is part of the introduction to an essay, research report, or thesis. It provides an overview and critical analysis of relevant published scholarly articles, research reports, books, theses etc on the topic or issue to be investigated.

See the Kevin St Library guide Getting started with literature reviews, the textbooks in Bookstack 10 (808.042 shelf number) or some of the following links:

Databases

Databases for Postgraduates & Researchers

Journal Citation Reports	Proquest Dissertations and Theses: Worldwide
Proquest Dissertations and Theses: UK & Ireland	Papers Invited

Subject Databases for Optometry

Academic Search Complete	IEEE Xplore Digital Library	Royal Society Archive
ACM Digital Library*	MathSci Net	Science Direct
NSAI Standards: IS, ISO & EN	IOP Science	Web of Knowledge

To access the Databases remotely you need a current student number and a Library PIN. See the Access from Home link for more information.
*NB Please note the ACM Digital Library core subscription includes full-text access to ACM journals and transactions, but not ACM conference proceedings, letters etc. See the Fulltext Options section below for more inforrmation.
See also the full DIT Library database subscription listing

Search Engines

Summon

What does Summon search? Summon is a search engine that provides relevance ranked results from DIT Library's online collections in a one single search. It includes records and citations from the DIT Library's databases, eJournals eBooks and theses collections.

Summon and Google Scholar search different bodies of scholarly content. There is overlap, but there is content in Summon not in Google Scholar, and vice-versa. Results in Summon are reflective of DIT Library's collections — as a DIT Library patron, you have access to most full-text you can find in Summon.

Google Scholar

Some features unique to Google Scholar:

Cited by information e.g. “Cited by 43 publications"
Google Books content
Issues accessing full-text not subscribed to by DIT Library. See Inter Library Loans for more information.
Set your Google Scholar Preferences to Dublin Institute of Technology Find @DIT to link to DIT subscribed full-text.
For more information see the Kevin St Library Guide How to use Google Scholar

Science Search Engines

Scirus (science specific)
SciVerse Hub
Science Accelerator
ScienceResearch
SciSeek
WorldWideScience
Zanran (stats & numerical data)

eJournals

The DIT Library eJournals can be searched by journal title or subject. Search the entire journal collection including hardcopy titles on the Library Catalogue using Journal Title Search. Or use the Kevin St Library guide Finding fulltext journal articles
To access the eJournals remotely you need a current DIT student number and a Library PIN . See the Off Campus Access link

eBooks

Browse via the eBook link - most of the physics and biomedical ebooks are in the NCBI or MyiLibrary sections. Or carry out a specific title search on the Library Catalogue and click on the ebook content links.

Subject Links

Try the Pinakes Subject LaunchPad or some of the following links:

ARVO	EBO	Macular degeneation	SCIRUS
CLAO	Infomine	Review of Ophthalmology	SciCentral
Digital Atlas of Ophthalmology	Internet Physicist	Review of Optometry	US National Eye Institute

Open Access Resources

What is Open Access?

Open Access is unrestricted access to online scholarly information via digital and institutional repositories.

Advantages of Open Access:

Greater visibility and impact of research
Increased opportunity for collaboration and innovation via the digital environment
Easier and faster access to research information than traditional publishing

Information about Open Access:

Open Access Scholarly informaton Sourcebook (OASIS)
SPARC Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition
Open Access Overview
Types of Open Access

Open Access Science Resources

Institutional Repositories

Arrow containing the fulltext of DIT's theses & publications	RIAN Irish Research Portal: from 7 unis & DIT
DART-Europe E-Thesis Portal : full text research theses from 276 unis	Research Scope : TARA, LENUS & RCSI
ROAR : Registry of Open Access Repositories	Sherpa & OpenDoar IR directories

Current Awareness & Professional Networking

Register with a selection of these collaborative tools to keep up with research trends. See also the Kevin St Library Keeping research up-to-date guide:

Research Metrics & Impact Factors

Amongst the most commonly used bibiometric measures used to assess the impact of a particular journal publication are Impact factor, Eigenfactor and SCImago The impact of a specific reseacher can be measured by h-index, e-index and Times Cited (amongst others). Some tools to assist with this are:

Academia
Altmetrics
Cited Reference Search (access via Web of Science, DIT Library Databases)
Journal Citation Reports (access via DIT Library Databases)
ResearcherID (access via Web of Science, DIT Library Databases)

The MyRI etutorial is a good place to get started. Designed by Irish academic library staff it provides an introduction to bibliometrics as well as advanced use of impact factors and related tools.

See also the Kevin St Library introductory guide Bibliometrics & Research

Referencing, Citing & Endnote

Citing and referencing the information sources used in research is essential to avoid plagiarism. Each subject has its own citation style and the School of Physics often uses the Harvard Referencing Guide (DIT)

Bibliographic citation software allows you to store, organise and share your references using a choice of citation style.