LibGuides: Film and Media Studies: Home

Step 1: Search the library catalogue for books

LibrarySearch
Search the library catalogue to find books on your topic.

Search tips:

Choosing keywords. Try searching on alternative keywords if you don't get the results you expect.
Phrase searching. Try putting common phrases in quotation marks, e.g. "industrial revolution".
Truncation/wildcard. Put an asterisk at the end of the stem of the word to search for any letters which come after it, e.g. film* will find film, films, filming, etc.
Refining to ebooks. Use the ebook filter.

Finding a Book (video)

Step 3: If the library doesn't have the book/article

Document Delivery Service
Use the Document Delivery Service to borrow books the library does not have.

Requesting articles
You can request articles we don't have via LibrarySearch. Articles are emailed to you, usually in 24 hours. See the slide for tips.

Suggest a Book for the Library

Help with academic skills

Short Guide to Writing about Film by Timothy Corrigan
ISBN: 9780205236398
Publication Date: 2011
Studying Arts and Humanities by Catherine Bates; Abigail Matthewman
ISBN: 9780230205475
Publication Date: 2009
Academic Essay by Derek Soles; Graham Lawler (Editor)
ISBN: 9781842850657
Publication Date: 2005
How to Write Better Essays by Bryan Greetham
ISBN: 9781137293282
Publication Date: 2013
The Study Skills Handbook by Stella Cottrell
ISBN: 9781137289254
Publication Date: 2013

Step 2: Search databases for research articles

The databases listed below contain research in Film and Media Studies (journal articles and book articles). Choose a database appropriate for your specific topic. Communication Source is a good general database in this subject.

Search tips:

Choosing keywords. Try searching on alternative keywords if you don't get the results you expect.
Combining search terms. Combine concepts with AND. Combine alternative keywords with OR, e.g. (film OR cinema) AND (horror or suspense)
Phrase searching. Try putting common phrases in quotation marks, e.g. "industrial revolution"
Truncation/wildcard. Put an asterisk at the end of the stem of the word to search for any letters which come after it, e.g. film* will find film, films, filming, etc.
Refining search. Refine your search using the filters available, e.g. date, language
Evaluating results. Read the abstract and subject headings to decide whether the article is relevant to your research.
Finding full text. If you don't see a PDF link, look for the Find@Stir button - this may take you to the full text. You can also download the LibkeyNomad browser plug-in, which will provide access to articles. If we don't have the article, see Step 3 below (If the library doesn't have the book/article).

Communication Source This link opens in a new window
Provides full text access to articles related to communication, linguistics, film & media
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
Full text archive of US and UK trade magazines covering film, music, broadcasting and theatre
Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
A business, management and economics database with full text for more than 2,300 journals with more than 1,100 from academic titles. This database provides some full text back to 1886, and searchable cited references back to 1998.
Web of Science Core Collection This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Provides access to the Citation Indexes for: Science; Social Sciences; Arts & Humanities; Conference Proceedings and Books. Use for finding journal articles and conference papers. Databases can be searched simultaneously or select specific databases using the More Settings option.
MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
Index to articles, books and dissertations on literature, language and film.
Humanities Index - previously British Humanities Index This link opens in a new window
Covers 1962 to date. Abstracts from over 400 sources in the areas of literature, the arts, cinema, economics, history, current affairs, popular science, religion, music and architecture.
PAO : Periodicals Archive Online This link opens in a new window
Full text backfiles of international academic journals in the humanities and social sciences. Files run from the late 18th century to the late 20th century.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Project Muse provides full text access to a wide range of journals. We subscribe to the Humanities Collection only.
SocArXiv - Open archive of the social sciences This link opens in a new window
SocArXiv is a free open access archive for the social sciences. It holds working papers, preprints and published papers - some documents have links to data and code. (A pre-print is: "a manuscript draft that has not yet been subject to formal peer review, distributed to receive early feedback on research from peers").
OOIR (Observatory of International Research) This link opens in a new window
Tracks “social science” journals to continually list their latest papers. Covers Anthropology, Area Studies, Communication, Geography, History, Law, Political Science and Sociology.
TRILT :Television and Radio Index for Learning and Teaching This link opens in a new window
Database of UK TV and radio programmes, including terrestrial, cable and satellite TV, and all national and many local radio stations from 1995 onwards.

Step 4: Evaluate web sources

It is important to critically analyse information before you use it in an essay, report or assignment.

Some recommended websites

TRILT :Television and Radio Index for Learning and Teaching This link opens in a new window
Database of UK TV and radio programmes, including terrestrial, cable and satellite TV, and all national and many local radio stations from 1995 onwards.

BBC Programme Index
Historical BBC TV and radio listings going back to 1923. Also includes links to programmes playable online.
Internet Movie Database (IMDB)
Plot summaries, credits listings and reviews of films, ranging from early moving pictures to recent releases.
British Film Institute
Box Office Mojo
Box office data website. Contains information for different countries and individual films.
Researcher's Guide to Screen Heritage
A directory of publicly available resources relating to the history of moving images and sound in the UK. It is produced by the British Universities Film and Video Council.
News on Screen
Index of British cinema newsreel releases between 1910 and 1979. Contains 160,000 records, some of which include digitised documents such as souvenir programmes to accompany recording and links to Pathe newsreels.
Who's Who of Victorian Cinema
Describes itself as "a biographical guide to the earliest years of moving pictures, 1871 - 1901". Search by name, country of group (actors, women, etc.)
JustWatch
Use JustWatch to find out where you can view a film or TV series in the UK. Covers streaming providers and cinemas. Also includes film synopses and cast lists.
European Film Gateway
Access to historical archival materials from 16 film archives across Europe. Provides a cross-searchable database of digital content including selected films, film posters and images.
Cineuropa
Useful source of news about European cinema. Includes an index of films and profiles of the film industries of European countries. Site is available in English, Spanish, French and Italian
UniFrance
UniFrance supports, analyses and raises the profile of French films worldwide. The website is available in French and English, as well as Spanish and Japanese.

Channel 4 Press Packs This link opens in a new window
Digitised versions of 'press packs' - information supplied to the press about forthcoming broadcasts on Channel 4. Covers the period 1982 - 2002.

Public Moving Image Archives and Research Centres
Listing of public moving image archives around the world
Ad*Access
Based at Duke University, USA, Ad*Access presents images and information for over 7000 advertisements printed in US and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955.

Advertising America This link opens in a new window
The J. Walter Thompson Company Archive documents the history, operation, policies and accomplishments of one of the world's largest and oldest advertising firms. The papers here reveal many aspects of twentieth-century cultural, social, business, marketing, consumer and economic history while investigating the human psyche.

Google Trends
Find out what people search for on Google. Provides charts showing breakdown by city, region and language. Useful for tracing the impact of a news story.
PAMCo
Readership statistics for newspapers and magazines in the UK

CESSDA (Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives) This link opens in a new window
An umbrella organisation for social science data archives across Europe. The CESSDA Catalogue provides access to research data from archives across Europe covering around 6000 studies distributed by members of the CESSDA European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC). The Catalogue enables users to locate datasets, as well as questions or variables within datasets. Data collections include sociological surveys, election studies, longitudinal studies, opinion polls, and census data from the European Social Survey, Eurobarometer and the International Social Survey Programme.

Contact your librarian/make an appointment

Helen Beardsley

Email Me

Subjects: Faculty of Arts and Humanities

Step 5: Cite your references

Audio-Visual Resources

Box of Broadcasts This link opens in a new window
Licenced for UK only. Archive of TV and radio broadcasts dating back to the 1990s from BBC channels, ITV, Channel 4, Film 4 and more, as well as 10 foreign language channels (Italian, French and German). Works best in Chrome or Edge. Requires registration with name and email address.
MediaPlus This link opens in a new window
Previously known as MediaHub, this new service incorporates all of MediaHub's audio visual content.
Screenonline This link opens in a new window
Screenonline provides access to video clips from British film and television programmes. It is produced by the British Film Institute. It is possible to browse by time period, genre or location

National Archives Public Information Films
View a collection of public information films online. Topics covered include public health promotion, the NHS, the welfare state, the Cold War, the Berlin airlift, the Festival of Britain and the 1948 London Olympics
British Council Film Archive
Access to over 100 films showing life in Britain in the 1940s.
Roundabout
Over 600 short films made in the 1960s and 1970s by the Central Office of Information to promote British manufacturing and showcase the Commonwealth to cinema audiences in Asia.
British Pathe Collection
Access to over 85,000 historic films covering the period 1896 - 1976.
The Reith Lectures 1948-2011
Podcasts of the Reith Lectures from the BBC from 1948 - present

Socialism on Film: the Cold War and International Propaganda This link opens in a new window
This collection of films from the communist world reveals war, history, current affairs, culture and society as seen through the socialist lens. It spans most of the twentieth century and covers countries such as the USSR, Vietnam, China, Korea, much of Eastern Europe, the GDR, Britain and Cuba.

EU Screen
Access to freely available multimedia resources (video clips, images, audio and texts) from European broadcasting bodies and film and TV archives.

Film and Media Studies: Home

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