Over the past couple of years, we have been working to create a suite of tutorials to help our users search for good quality academic resources and literature effectively. Our latest two tutorials have recently gone live.
Finding and using open research materials

This tutorial provides some background information about open access publishing to help our users understand and interpret the open access content they might come across during their studies. We also highlight some of the different types of open access scholarly outputs, such as articles, book chapters, working papers and research data, before turning to some of the tools available to help our users locate them. It covers:
- What do we mean by ‘Open Access’ and ‘Open Research’?
- Why is open access important?
- How do authors make their research open access?
- Different forms of open access publication
- Tools to help integrate open access content into literature searches (e.g. Unpaywall and Google Scholar Button)
For more information about Open Research, see our guide and keep up-to-date with monthly activity and news
Google Scholar

This guide looks at how best to use Google Scholar, as well as its limitations. It covers:
- What “exactly” is Google Scholar?
- Setting up Google Scholar’s “Library Links” to use Durham’s resources
- Advanced Search
- How does Google Scholar compare to Discover, our Library catalogue?
- The scope and limitations of Google Scholar
Both of these new tutorials can be found via our Develop Your Skills webpages, as well as in the Develop Your Skills tab on every subject guide
Leave a Reply