Researcher support

We offer a “package” of 3 x 60-minute literature search consultations:
An initial session at the start of the project, in the process of working on your project if there’s a need for it, and finally when you’re nearing the end of your project.
You will get a contact person at the library who will follow you through all of the different literature search sessions.
Fill in a form to book a consultation from the website Book a literature search consultation.

On our EndNote-site you will find information about getting started with and using EndNote. If you need help getting started, you can book an EndNote consultation with a librarian. It’s an advantage to have a literature search consultation before booking an EndNote consultation.
You’re also very welcome to contact us if you have questions about or problems with EndNote in your work. If the question is more technical, it’s best to contact the IT department. You will find contact information for both the library and IT support under EndNote help and support.

If you need literature that is not available from us, we do our best to get what you need from another library. Search in the base «Norwegian Academic Libraries» in Oria and enter your request there. If you can’t find what you’re after in Oria, you can send an e-mail to the help desk and ask for help.
We work closely together with the other HE institutions in Norway, and we also have contacts abroad. The delivery time will vary. We usually receive article copies via e-mail, so we receive these relatively quickly. For books and other printed material, you have to allow for a delivery time of minimum one week.
The source library decides loan periods and other lending regulations. In some cases, you are not allowed to bring the material home.

BrowZine is a service which gives you access to e-journals that your library subscribes to. BrowZine can be downloaded as an app for tablets, mobile phones and Amazon Kindle, or be used directly from your web browser. You can:
-    Browse academic journals
-    Make your own journal shelf
-    Receive alerts about new articles
-    Download PDFs, share articles and export to, e.g., EndNote and Zotero

How to use BrowZine:
-    Find journals via «Subjects» or search in the alphabetic list
-    Save the journals you want to follow in «My bookshelf»
-    Save articles you want to read later
-    Read articles in the app, share, send to EndNote, etc.

Staff at VUC can publish their articles open access in most journals in databases we subscribe to. The agreements include Elsevier (ScienceDirect), Sage, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis and Wiley. You can find more details here:
https://www.openscience.no/en/publisering/apen-publisering.

If you have questions, you can contact Bente Gunn Lien.

You can find a complete list of the databases we have access to in the database list. It might be worth noting the following central, international bases:

Academic Search Elite
Full text database with access to scientific and general journals including social sciences, humanities, languages and literature, art, technology and science.

ERIC
International database of pedagogical literature. Includes literature on pedagogy and education for most subjects, topics and education levels. Mainly journal articles but also books, dissertations and conference reports. Over two thirds of the content is full text.

JSTOR
Archive of international scientific journals in full text, mainly within humanities and social sciences. The database usually does not cover the last 3-5 years of a journal.

MEDLINE (Ebsco)
References to journal articles in medicine, nursing and other health subjects. Same content as PubMed.

PubMed
References to journal articles in medicine, nursing and other health subjects. Same content as MEDLINE.

SAGE Premier
Full-text journals in many diverse fields of study including sociology, media, education and criminology.

ScienceDirect
Elsevier's leading platform of peer-reviewed scholarly literature giving access to e-journals within physical sciences and engineering, life sciences, health sciences, social sciences and humanities.

SpringerLink: Books
We subscribe to a selection of packages: Mathematics and Statistics, Behavioral Science and Psychology, Education, History, Literature, Media and Culture, Political Science and International Studies, Religion and Philosophy, Social Sciences.

SpringerLink: Journals
Full-text journals A-Z.

Taylor & Francis
We subscribe to the following electronic journal packages:
S & T collection (Science & Technical) 425 titles, and SSH collection (Social Science & Humanities) 1165 titles.

Web of Science
Citation Database. Contains references to articles from leading journals in science, technology, social sciences and humanities. Gives statistics about how often articles are cited.

Wiley Online Library
Full-text scholarly journals in many diverse fields of study.

Rayyan is a free web-based tool for screening references for a systematic review or other types of reviews. You start off by performing literature searches in selected databases, and then load your search results into a reference manager such as EndNote. From there you can generate a file for import into Rayyan.

In Rayyan two or more researchers can go through these references independently and decide which to include in your review and which to exclude, based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. This process is called screening.

Go to https://www.rayyan.ai/ to register.

More information about how to use Rayyan:
https://stavanger.instructure.com/courses/8697/modules (University Library of Stavanger)

Are you a PhD candidate at an institution other than Volda University College? Then you can log in to your doctoral institution's network and access the databases and resources they have there. Perhaps they have other or more databases than Volda University College.

PhD on Track
Resource for PhD candidates and early career researchers at Norwegian universities and university colleges. Here, you will find answers to most of the things you are wondering about when it comes to literature searches, writing and publishing. The site also gives a good overview of important information about open access publishing.