We have a range of resources to support you when researching for your assignments or exploring your discipline. There are books covering different aspects of digital media, including technical handbooks and theory texts. We also have academic articles, which will help you understand current research.
Welcome to our guide on Digital Media. As the Learning and Research Librarian for Creative Arts and Industries, I am here to support you in your learning and assignments.
Learning & Research Librarian for Creative Arts and Industries
We have numerous books on the shelves and online, which provide an overview or introduction to a topic. Don’t forget, our library houses lots of resources covering a variety of subjects which are also here for you to access, check LibrarySearch to see if there are other areas that could be useful. Below are suggestions of useful subject areas:
To find a book, use LibrarySearch either by typing in words from a title or a topic. Once you have found a book, remember to check if it is available and if it is a 7-day loan or 4-week loan. This is important as the shorter loan books are on the open shelves in the middle of each floor and the 4 week loans are in the moving shelves.
Kanopy is a great video-streaming service which includes a number of documentaries such as Night Photography: Episode 11 of Fundamentals of Photography II. Plus, we have access to Box of Broadcasts (BoB) which archives British TV and radio broadcasts. You can search for a topic such as animation and find BBC, Channel 4 and Sky documentaries. Another great feature is that you can take clips of programmes and put them in your presentations or analyse the transcripts.
Journals are regular publications and include articles written by different authors on their specific research. These can be challenging to read; however, they are great for finding up-to-date information for your literature reviews and for learning about current developments in your field. Here are examples of Digital Media journals:
You can find journal articles online via LibrarySearch. Try searching for a key word or phrase connected with your research topic e.g. “augmented reality” or “motion graphics”. See our LibrarySearch quick guide for more information.
The Directory of Open Access Journals includes journals such as Film Criticism. Open access journals are often scholarly, but the difference is, they believe in making their research accessible to anyone with an internet connection. This means that you (or your institution) don’t have to have a subscription to the journal to be able to read the articles they publish.
For information about online newspapers read the blog Read all about it! to find out more about how you can use online news sources in your assignments.
You can access online transcripts of newspaper articles through our database Lexis Library+ Newspapers UK. Read our guide to learn more: Lexis Library+ Newspapers UK guide
Databases are available via the Find databases link in Library Search.
ACM Digital Library A comprehensive collection of full-text articles and bibliographic records covering the fields of computing and information technology. Access is provided to the full-text of all ACM journals, magazines, newsletters and conference proceedings. [Access is limited on on-campus only]
Art Full Text An index of art journal articles from periodicals published throughout the world. Some journals are available in full text. See the Art Full Text guide to find out more.
Artstor Artstor features millions of high-quality images and media from some of the world’s top photo archives, museums, libraries, scholars, and artists, including rare materials not available anywhere else. All content in Artstor is rights-cleared for education and research — you are free to use it in presentations and assignments. See the Artstor guide
Business Source Premier A major business research database, providing access to over 2,100 full text journals covering the subject areas of marketing, management, finance, accounting and economics.
IEL: IEEE Xplore The collection includes content from IEEE, as well as the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) covering approximately one-third of the world’s current literature in electrical engineering, communications, and computer science. [Access is limited to on-campus only]
JSTOR A full-text archive of core scholarly journals, dating from the first issue up until two to five years ago. Subject coverage includes Arts and Sciences.
MiNTEL Contains market research reports, news items and analyst data. Gain an overview of categories such as mobile or e-commerce including statistics, consumer data, market data and brand research. Investigate the Technology sector to read reports on consumer attitudes towards online security or smart homes.
Project Muse An online database which provides full-text access to high quality journals from scholarly publishers.
ScienceDirect Searches across 2,500 peer-reviewed titles – or over 9.5 million articles. Useful for articles about mathematics, software, human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence (AI), signal processing and forensic computing.
https://www.creativebloq.com/computer-arts-magazine Creative Bloq: Art and Design inspiration
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/
GDC Vault (Free Content) access to design, technical and inspirational talks from influencers in the game development industry.
Media.info UK – A directory providing links to the UK media industry, including television, radio, newspapers and magazines.