LibGuides: Publishing 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
Guide to using the Document Delivery Service

Suggest a Book for the Library

Help with academic skills

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

Step 2: Search databases for research articles

The databases listed below contain research in Publishing Studies (journal articles and market reports). Choose a database appropriate for your specific topic. Business Source Complete 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).

Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
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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
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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.
Publishers Association Export Toolkit This link opens in a new window
Includes international market reports for publishing. It's possible to sign up to receive alerts on new developments in different countries.
British Education Index This link opens in a new window
An index to articles and reports on research, policy and practice in education and training in the UK. Particular strengths include aspects of educational policy and administration, evaluation and assessment, technology and special educational needs. Covers material from 1975. It can be cross searched with ERIC, a large American education database.
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").
Nexis This link opens in a new window
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A collection of databases containing the content of over 23,000 news and business resources from all over the world.

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

Publishers Association Publishing Yearbook This link opens in a new window
Access to an online version of the above book. Only available to University of Stirling staff and students, please enter your network username and password for access.

Publishing in 2021
A shortened version of the annual industry statistics, Publishing in 2021 features key numbers and commentary around sales income, formats and key export markets.

Figures are available for the whole industry, as well as the consumer, education and academic sectors.
The Bookseller
The Bookseller's website offers book industry news, bestsellers lists and advertisements for jobs in publishing.
Book Industry Communication
A gateway for book industry, which provides, amongst other things, useful links to publishers' and booksellers' home pages and professional associations in the book industry.
Libsyn- Independent Publishers Guild
Podcasts by the Independent Publishers Guild
The spread of Scottish printing
This site, from the National Library of Scotland, provides access to digital versions of materials published on the first 33 printing presses in Scotland between 1508 and 1900.

Literary Print Culture: The Stationers' Company Archive, 1554-2007 This link opens in a new window
The Stationers’ Company Archive is one of the most important resources for understanding the workings of the early book trade, the printing and publishing community, the establishment of legal requirements for copyright provisions and the history of bookbinding. Explore extremely rare documents dating from 1554 to the 21st century in this resource of research material for historians and literary scholars.
John Johnson Collection This link opens in a new window
This collection provides access to over 67,000 items selected from the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, which will be of interest for anyone studying British social history. The collection offers unique insights into the changing nature of everyday life in Britain in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Categories include nineteenth century entertainment, the booktrade, popular prints, crimes, murders and executions, and advertising.
Nineteenth Century Literary Society: the John Murray Publishing Archive This link opens in a new window
Discover the work of one of the world’s most important publishing dynasties through this collection from the historic John Murray Archive. From book history to travel writing, politics to poetry, this resource introduces an unparalleled repository for nineteenth century culture and the literary luminaries who shaped it.

UK Reading Experience Database
A database containing information about who read what and how in the UK between 150 and 1945. Use this to study the reading habits of Britons for five centuries. Reading Experience Databases for other countries are available from this site too.

Children's Literature and Culture This link opens in a new window
A collection of rare books, games, ephemera, and artwork from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that reveals the socio-cultural history of these times. Showcasing innovative new publishing methods characteristic of the golden age of children’s literature, from mass-produced chapbooks to richly illustrated ‘book-beautifuls’, this resource examines the way in which new concepts were introduced to young readers, encouraging an engagement with the imagination which went on to fundamentally shape established notions of childhood.

Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature
Catalogue of children's literature books at the University of Florida, many of which have been digitised

Contact your librarian/make an appointment

Helen Beardsley

Email Me

Subjects: Faculty of Arts and Humanities

Step 5: Cite your references

General Guide to Referencing

Chicago Manual of Style Online This link opens in a new window
Guide to the Chicago style. Look at Part III on Source Citations and Indexes (Notes and Bibliography) for help with referencing in this style.

Chicago Referencing Style
Comprehensive guide to Chicago referencing style produced by the University of York
Guide to RefWorks

Social media

Images Sources

Flickr Creative Commons
See the explanation on the website for what you can do with the images on this wesbite.

SCRAN : Scottish Cultural Resources Access Network This link opens in a new window
Searchable online database of 1 million text and multimedia records from museums, galleries and archives. Use it to find images, sounds and movies relating to culture, history and science.

Publishing Studies: Home

Welcome