LibGuides: Visitors' guide to the Library: Electronic resources

Free online resources

Although the majority of Sheffield Hallam's electronic books and online journals are only available for staff and students of the university, there are a range of free resources that can be accessed by members of the public, on and off campus.

Photo credit: 'Working from home' by Dave Morris (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Open access book collections

Bookshelf from the NCBI
The National Center for Biotechnology Information bookshelf includes a range of eBooks relating to the Life Sciences and Health. You can search and read the content of these books but some content may not be browsable. Please refer to the copyright statement for each title regarding the terms of use.
IntechOpen Books
This is an open access collection of science eBooks.

Search tools

Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Google Scholar is a search engine that covers scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and technical reports from broad areas of research. You can use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, as well as scholarly articles available from across the web.
Be aware that Google scholar will find results from sources that SHU does not subscribe to so you may not automatically be able to get full text online. You can take advantage of the SHU subscriptions by going to Scholar Preferences and adding Sheffield Hallam University when prompted for a library name. This will add a SHU Links link to your Google Scholar searches which will identify what you can get via SHU subscriptions. However, we still advise that you access Google Scholar via Library Gateway as this will give you access to the full range of subscribed resources.
Semantic Scholar This link opens in a new window
A free, academic search engine for scientific articles

Free journals databases

BioMed Central This link opens in a new window
BMC has an evolving portfolio of high quality peer-reviewed journals including broad interest titles such as BMC Biology and BMC Medicine, specialist journals such as Malaria Journal and Microbiome, and the BMC Series.
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) This link opens in a new window
An online directory that indexes and provides access to quality open access, peer-reviewed journals.
Currently includes over 5200 journals. DOAJ is multidisciplinary and includes journals in several languages. Updated regularly.

Education evidence portal
EEP is a freely accessible portal for UK education resources allowing searches across its partner organisations. It is very useful for Government and Government sponsored organisations but some partner organisations only return limited information through EEP and are better searched directly.
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As an alternative to searching across partner organisations EEP also contains a selected and classified catalogue of resources that can be searched by keyword or author or by selecting for document type, phase (educational level), or thesaurus terms. Currently keyword searching of selected resources is only applied to the document record but in future will be extended to search the full text of documents.
Education-Line
Education-line is a freely accessible database of the full text of over 6,000 items, mostly but not exclusively, conference papers, presented to the BEI by their authors.

ERIC (Free version) This link opens in a new window
The ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) database is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education to provide extensive access to educational-related literature.
The ERIC database corresponds to two printed journals: Resources in Education (RIE) and Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE). Both journals provide access to some 14,000 documents and over 20,000 journal articles per year. In addition, ERIC provides coverage, often with full text) of conferences, meetings, government documents, theses, dissertations, reports, audiovisual media, bibliographies, directories, books and monographs.
HighWire This link opens in a new window
This database contains over 6 million articles, a third of which are free to anyone to read scientific articles.
HighWire Press hosts 1275 peer-reviewed journals from 140 scholarly publishers in science, social sciences and humanities. Includes 71 of the 200 most frequently cited journals. Register for a free My HighWire Press account and set up email or RSS alerts for new journal content, or create a My Favourite Journals list.
PubMed Central This link opens in a new window
PMC contains links to nearly 2 million articles and all are peer reviewed and free to view.
PubMed Central (PMC) is produced by the National Library of Medicine and provides biomedical and life sciences information. The archive also contains links to other scientific databases and book reviews.

RS Online
Online catalogue of electronics, computing and engineering components, including datasheets and engineering calculators. You will need to register to the site to access some resources, but this is free.
Teachers TV
Teachers TV was a UK government–funded website and former free-to-air distance education television channel which operated from 2005–2011. The website provided video and support materials for those who work in education, including teachers, school leaders, governors, teacher trainers, student teachers and support staff.

All content produced by Teachers TV remains available for free through the TES website.

VADS-Visual Arts Data Services This link opens in a new window
Visual arts digital resources with over 100,000 images freely available to UK Higher and Further Education sectors. The collection covers a wide range of visual arts, including fine art, fashion, design, public art, posters. Free - registration required
Material may be duplicated for your research use or educational purposes in electronic or print form. You must obtain permission for any other use.

Free electronic journals

Bright Lights Film Journal
An online film magazine featuring popular and academic articles about current and classic films from around the world
International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring
Free to access, international, peer-reviewed journal hosted by the International Centre for Coaching and Leadership Development at Oxford Brookes University Business School
Journal of Sport for Development
This journal reviews evidence and best practices for the use of sport to promote development, health and/or peace.
Taylor and Francis journal article search
Search for open access journal articles on a wide range of subjects, including social sciences.

Electronic library resources for Hallam alumni

Sheffield Hallam graduates can continue to access a selection of online library resources off campus, including some electronic journals. Please visit the Alumni Use our libraries page for more information. You don't need to become an Associate Member of the Library if you want to access these online resources but don't intend to visit the libraries.

Arts and media

BUCVC Researcher's Guide
A database of over 650 film, television, radio and related documentation collections and artefacts in the United Kingdom and Ireland, designed by the British Universities Film and Video Council for use by researchers

Internet Movie Database (IMDb) This link opens in a new window
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is a freely accessible website providing information on films, of interest to either the serious researcher or to anyone looking for the latest movie news.
Although most entries are American, IMDb covers British, European, Asian and other international films. Thousands of directors, actors and actresses, producers, writers and members of film crews are listed on the database and can be searched by name or film. For many of the people biographies, filmographies, images and links are provided and for the films the credits, reviews and synopsises are shown, with the opportunity of buying online if available.

Internet Movie Scripts Database (IMSDb)
Movie scripts online free for reading and downloading. Hundreds of popular movie scripts available

Business

The Charity Commission
News, guidance and statistics from the regulator for charities in England and Wales.
Companies House Webcheck
A directory of information on UK companies
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS)
New stories, government policies and statistics from BIS
The Economist
Digital newspaper focusing on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture.
Euromonitor International: YouTube channel
Market Research video summaries from Euromonitor (publisher of the respected Global Market Information Database)
HM Treasury
Economics news, policies and statistics
ICO
Information Commissioner's Office covers use of information in organisations including data protection and freedom of information. Follow the links on the right hand side of the page to guides on marketing, charity, business etc
IMF Country Information
Reports and publications from the International Monetary Fund. Arranged alphabetically by country
Kompass: worldwide company search engine
Free business-to-business company directory. Contains details of over 4 million companies around the world
Studying Economics: video clips
Selected video clips from a variety of sources to help students understand economics and statistics. Provided by the Economics Network of the Higher Education Academy

National and international statistics

BBC Country Profiles
Guides to the history, politics and economic background of countries from the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Europa
EUROPA is the portal site of the European Union. It provides up-to-date coverage of European Union affairs and essential information on European integration. Users can also consult all legislation currently in force or under discussion and access the websites of each of the EU institutions
Nationmaster
Website allowing you to compare country statistical data taken from numerous sources. Provided by Rapid Intelligence (an Australian web technology company)
Local Statistics
Offical UK Government website providing local statistics.
UK Data Service - international data
Links to the websites of major international organisations, such as the IMF, the UN, the World Health Organisation, and the World Bank
UK Data Service (registration required)
UK and international survey and statistical data drawn from a range of respected sources including: United Nations, IMF, OECD, World Bank, International Labour Organization (ILO), International Energy Agency (IEA), Eurostat and UNIDO. Free registration required to access some parts of the database
UK National Statistics publication hub
The main gateway to UK official statistics. Provides direct access to tables of data, full text publications and the latest official releases. Covers Britain's economy, population and society at national and regional levels. Updated daily
CIA World Factbook
Broad overviews of countries, briefly describing geography, people, government, economy, communications, transport, military and transnational issues

Social sciences

NCJRS Abstracts Database
The NCJRS Abstracts Database contains summaries of the more than 220,000 criminal justice, juvenile justice, and substance abuse resources housed in the National Criminal Justice Reference Service Library collection

Sport

Sport England
The organisation responsible for developing and maintaining the infrastructure of sport in England and distributing National Lottery funds for sport
Department of Culture, Media and Support
The DCMS website contains information on the Olympics and the government's programmes and projects in the sporting sector.
Youth Sport
The Youth Sport Trust is an independent charity devoted to changing young people's lives through sport.
UK Sport
UK Sport is the strategic lead body for performance sport in the UK. The website includes information on individual sports, a news and media section and information on International projects

Tourism

UNWTO: Vimeo channel
Official videos from the World Tourism Organization
Visit Britain: insights and statistics
Market intelligence, including the latest inbound visitor statistics, tourism trends, forecasts, analysis and commentary
UN World Tourism Organisation - Tourism Statistics
Tourism statistics for all the countries and regions around the world. Data on inbound, domestic and outbound tourism is available, as well as on tourism industries, employment and complementary indicators.