Skip to Main Content
London Metropolitan University

Finding information

Statistics

Statistics can be a useful source of information to include in your research.  But as with all research you need to think carefully about who has complied the data and for what purpose- is there any bias there?  Is it up to date and from a reliable source? What is the sample size?  A cartoon of a student beside a screen filled with infographics and charts

Some sources of statistics are freely available, some you need to access via our databases, and some are restricted because they contain contain confidential or commercially sensitive information.  

Here we've listed some general sources of statistical information.  Your subject guide may also include some key resources specifically for your subject area.

Images

Images are protected by copyright law, here are some general rules to bear in mind:A cartoon of a student looking at an oversized screen which shows the image icon.  There is a camera attached to the screen.

  • Always acknowledge and correctly reference your sources- see our referencing guide for more intormation.
  • Use collections which are licensed for educational and research use, see the next tab for some of our library databases.
  • If searching online, look for images which have Creative Commons licenses- learn more about Creative Commons and what it allows you to do. Use a Creative Commons search where possible.
  • Never publish or post any images online without permission from the rights holder.

 

 

Moving images, film, TV & sound

Rolls of film with a digital play film symbol pointing to themAs with images above, remember that audio-visual material will also be protected by copyright law.  If you want to use moving images and sound in your work always make sure you have permission to do so and you have correctly acknowledged and referenced your sources.

You can find some general sources on the next two tabs.  See also your subject guide for suggestions of resources specific to your subject.

Newpapers

A cartoon of a student sat on a chair looking at her phone, in the background there is an oversized newspaper indicating what we are seeing on her screenNewspapers, whether in paper or electronic format, are useful for current information and keeping up to date with daily local and international events. There are a variety of newspaper titles of varying content quality in publication in the UK.

Newspapers are divided into Broadsheets newspapers such as "The Times", "The Independent", "The Financial Times" and "The Telegraph".  They provide coverage and analysis on national and international news.  Articles are longer than those in the "popular press" publications and provide editorial comment.  Other newspaper types in publication are known as "Tabloids" or defined as "popular press".  The well known UK tabloids are "The Daily Mail", "The Sun" and " The Mirror".

Using broadsheet newspapers in your research will:

  • show that you are keeping up to date with developments and news in your chosen area

  • allow you to pinpoint or highlight new developments and issues

  • demonstrate that you are aware that there are always changes and new developments and how they impact on the future

To find and search a particular newspaper, go to Library Search and in the main search box, type the name of the newspaper.

To search for newspaper articles across a range of publications, try the library databases below:

Special Collections

A cartoon of two students sat at a desk workingThe University's Special Collections contain a number of collections and archives of primary source material spanning a range of subject areas. This material can be searched on the Special Collections catalogue. The oversized books (mostly related to art and design) and Artists' Books are also kept here too. 

London Met students can visit the Reading Room during opening hours without an appointment, but if you want to look at something in particular, it's best to get in touch in advance in case it is something which requires retrieval. You will find further visitor information, including opening hours for the Reading Room, on the Special Collections guide

The Special Collections team has created some online resource lists to highlight material in the collections around different topics and themes. 

Reference material

A cartoon of a student looking at an oversized book, there is a pile of books beside it with a dictionary on topSometimes you may need to check out a fact or confirm a detail about a person, country or subject.  Never guess or rely on memory, always consult a well known reference resource online, like Credo Reference.

Company and industry information

A cartoon of a company office with people working at different desksLibrary resources can provide you with a range of information on companies and industries. Using these materials can help you research your career path and provide you with information on specific companies and industries. By researching your potential future employers you will not only be preparing yourself for job applications and interviews, but you will also be developing your commercial awareness.

Commercial awareness is an essential graduate skill, particularly for students going into the business sector. Some graduate recruiters have identified that commercial awareness is a skill often lacking in graduates applying for jobs. Therefore, improving your knowledge in this area could give you the edge over other candidates.

Bloomberg   

Major industry-level source of current and historical global data on markets, economic indicators, companies, equities and news. 

The Bloomberg Suite is located in Holloway Road campus, Tower Building and can be found on the mezzanine area, room T1-20.  Students who require access need to ask their lecturer to contact IT via (ask@londonmet.ac.uk).

Add Bloomberg Certification to your skillset with Bloomberg Market Concepts (BMC).  This is an eight hour self-paced e-learning course.  

Theses and open access repositories

A cartoon of a student working on a laptop, there is an oversized thesis in the background and a speech bubble with an image of a mortar boardA list of, and links to, collections of theses and open access repositories. Other types of open access academic work can also be found via the repositories and search engines listed here, such as working papers, research reports, case studies and datasets.

London Met Repository: the University's own digital archive of research produced by staff and researchers here.   

Theses

Print theses: these are available in print in the Holloway Road Library Store. Use the Library catalogue Advanced Search feature and choose ‘Thesis’ from the Material Type options to find details.  Please complete a Thesis copyright declaration form and we will notify you when it is ready for collection.  All print theses are reference only and cannot be removed from the Library. 

E-theses: Library staff are in the process of uploading digitised theses to the Institutional Repository, in line with Library policy. This will take time and the thesis you want may not yet be digitised. In this instance, use EThoS, the British Library e-thesis online service. See Finding UK and European Theses, below, for full details of the EThOS service.

  • EThOS
    EThOS is the British Library e-thesis online service. It offers free access to the full text of digitised UK Doctoral theses. Users will need to register to download a thesis but can search without registering. Ethos FAQ
    If the thesis you require has not been digitised yet, the British Library will obtain it and digitise it, and you'll be informed when it is ready to download. In some cases, if you are the first person to request a thesis and so it has to be digitised for you, you may be asked to pay towards the costs of digitisation. Library Services will normally cover the cost of digitisation for London Met staff and students.
     
  • DART-Europe E-theses Portal
    DART-Europe is a partnership of research libraries and library consortia who are working together to improve global access to European research theses.
  • AIM25 
    AIM25 is a major project to provide electronic access to collection level descriptions of the archives of over one hundred higher education institutions, learned societies, cultural organisations and livery companies within the greater London area. New collections are regularly added.
     
  • Archives Hub
    This resource brings together descriptions of thousands of the UK’s archive collections. Representing nearly 300 institutions across the country, it is an effective way to discover unique and often little-known sources to support your research.
     
  • Discovery at The National Archive
    Discovery holds more than 32 million descriptions of records held by The National Archives and more than 2,500 archives across the country.

A selection of open access e-journals.

Bentham Open Bentham Open publishes over 100 plus peer-reviewed open access journals. These free-to-view online journals cover all major disciplines of science, technology, medicine and social sciences.
Bioline International Bioline International provide open access peer reviewed bioscience journals published in developing countries.
BioMed Central BioMed Central is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher of 276 peer-reviewed open access journals.
BMJ Open BMJ Open is an online, open access journal, dedicated to publishing medical research from all disciplines and therapeutic areas.
Dialnet (Spanish Journals) Arts and Sciences Open Access journals in Spanish.
Directory of Open Access Journals DOAJ is an online directory that indexes and provides access to quality open access, peer-reviewed journals.
European Geosciences
Union
Open access peer-reviewed journals in the geosciences and planetary sciences.
Free Medical Journals Open access medical content.
Hikari Publishers of Science, Technology and Medicine journals.
Hindawi Publishing Corporation Hindawi Publishing Corporation publishes over one hundred peer-reviewed, open access journals in the fields of science, technology, and medicine.
Indian Academy of Sciences Indian Academy of Sciences publishes several open access ejournals.
Intech Open Access journals in Science, Technology and Medicine.
Internet Library of Early Journals ILEJ makes available substantial runs of digitised 18th and 19th century journals.
Internet Scientific
Publications (ISPUB)
ISPUB is a publishing house which offers free access to over eighty ejournals on various medical topics.
Nature Communications Nature Communications is an open access journal that publishes high-quality research from all areas of the natural sciences and has an Impact Factor of 10.742. Note: only submissions received after 20th October 2014 are open access.
Open Humanities Press Open Humanities Press is an international open access publishing collective in critical and cultural theory.
PeerJ PeerJ publishes the world's scientific knowledge through open access licensing.
PLoS PLOS publishes a suite of influential journals from all areas of science and medicine that contain rigorously reported, peer reviewed Open Access research articles.
Project Euclid Project Euclid provides free access to journals, conference proceedings and monographs in the field of theoretical and applied mathematics and statistics.
Sage Open SAGE Open is a peer-reviewed, "Gold" open access journal from SAGE that publishes original research and review articles in an interactive, open access format.
Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) SciELO is an electronic library covering a selected collection of Brazilian scientific journals.
SpringerOpen SpringerOpen includes Springer’s portfolio of 160+ peer-reviewed fully open access journals.
SSRN A large collection of articles devoted to the Social Sciences and Humanities, many in preprint format.
Virginia Tech Digital Library and Archives Digital Library and Archives (DLA) provides access to scholarly electronic journals that are peer-reviewed, full text and accessible without cost.
Wiley Open Access Wiley Open Access publishes authoritative peer reviewed open access journals across many research disciplines.

A selection of open access e-books.

Directory of open access books Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) is a discovery service that points to Open Access books that can be found elsewhere.
Bloomsbury Open Content Bloomsbury ebooks in a range of disciplines.
Bookboon Bookboon focuses on publishing educational material for students and business professionals.
Brill Open Established publishing house providing ebooks, mostly for the Humanities.
Clacso Ebook content from the Latin American Council of Social Sciences.
Computers and Composition Digital Press Computers and Composition Digital Press (CCDP)is committed to publishing innovative, multimodal digital projects.
Digital Culture Books An imprint of the University of Michigan Press dedicated to publishing innovative work in new media studies and digital humanities.
Electronic Poetry Center A central gateway to resources in electronic poetry and poetics.
Flying Publishers

Free medical content.

   
HathiTrust Digital Library Hathi Trust is a partnership of academic and research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitised from libraries around the world.
Hikari Hikari is a publisher of international journals and books in science, technology and medicine.
Intech InTech is a pioneer and world's largest multidisciplinary open access publisher of books covering the fields of Science, Technology and Medicine.
Internet Archive and Open Library The Internet Archive is a non-profit project that was founded to build an Internet library.
National Academies Press Over 5000 titles from the US National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council to read online or download in PDF format.
NCBI Bookshelf Provides free access to books and documents in life science and healthcare, (National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine).
Oapen The OAPEN Library contains freely accessible academic books, mainly in the area of Humanities and Social Sciences.
The Online books page The Online Books Page is a website that facilitates access to books that are freely readable over the Internet.
Online Literature Library A selection of classics.
Open Humanities Press Open Humanities Press is an international, scholar-led open access publishing collective whose mission is to make leading works of contemporary critical thought available worldwide.
Open Research Library Over 20,000 peer-reviewed Open Access books on one platform.
O'Reilly open books O'Reilly has published a number of Open Books--books with various forms of "open" copyright--over the years.
Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks.
re.press re.press publishes work in contemporary philosophy.
Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works The Web's first edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
Taylor & Francis open access e-books A range of Open Access books and book chapters covering subjects in the humanities, social sciences and behavioural sciences as well as technology, engineering and medical titles published under the CRC Press imprint.
UCL Press UCL Press is the UK's first fully Open Access university press.