Welcome to UVA from your library! Here are five tips to get your semester started right:

1. Looking for articles? Install the LibKey Nomad browser plug-in. It will Iink to PDFs (one click!!) while browsing certain sites including PubMed, WOS, publisher websites, and Wikipedia.
2. Speaking of PubMed, use our PubMed link - this will give you the "Find@UVA" option to find articles (a good option to the LibKey plugin above).
3. Working from home (who isn't these days!?)? Visit our Connecting from Off-Grounds page to learn how to access library resources.
4. Need to use library printers? Get your laptop or phone set up now on the new PaperCut system.
5. Ask Us! We are here to help you. What questions do you have for us?

Selected Resources to Find Books, Articles, and Protocols

Find Print and Online Books

• Virgo UVA’s Library Catalog - search for print or online books at any of UVA's libraries (choose Limit by Resource Type Books after searching)
• Additional collections of online books, by vendor

Find Article Citations and Preprints

• PubMed
  • PubMed toolkit (we recommend the Handouts and the Quick Tours)
• Web of Science
• medRxiv (health sciences preprints)
• bioRxiv (biology preprints)

Search full-text articles by collection

• PubMed Central (PMC) (collection of publications resulting from NIH funding)
• Europe PMC (worldwide collection of life science publications and preprints and repository for many international funders)

Search full-text articles by publisher

• ScienceDirect (Elsevier)
• SpringerLINK
• Wiley Online Library

Find Protocols and Other Resources

• See our full guide on Finding Protocols, including UVA-licensed resources

There are several ways to connect to the libraries' online books, journals, and databases from off-Grounds:

Citation Management

See our Citation Management Guide for information on popular citation managers. We have guides on the following tools, including links to instructions on installing and configuring for use at UVA:

• Zotero
• Sciwheel
• EndNote (fee-based software but also a free "lighter" version through our Web of Science subscription)

Free Expert Consultations

• Research @ HSL - Expert assistance with biomedical literature search and data discovery, organizing and managing your research project and bibliography, creating presentations and posters, and disseminating and sharing your research.
• Data @ HSL - Data consultation services and biomedical data and statistics training opportunities. Get expert consultations by appointment on statistical software such as R, python, Stata, SAS, and SPSS
• PHS @ the Library - Free consultation service to address introductory statistics and research methods questions.
• UVA Research Computing - help with cutting-edge computational resources and issues around optimization, parallelization, workflow, etc.

Software at UVA

• UVA Software Gateway: list of licensed software provided by UVa

Online Learning

• Online courses through UVA's subscription to LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com)
• E-books through O'Reilly
• Take an online course through Sage Campus on topics like basic research approaches, navigating information, data literacy, and data science skills 

Writing and Teaching Resources

• UVa Center for Teaching Excellence 
• UVa Writing Center

Theses & Dissertations

• Libra: UVA's electronic dissertations and master's theses repository. Also contains other UVA scholarly works and datasets.

 Posters and Presentations

•   Our guide to creating a poster in PowerPoint, including links to UVa logos

How can you distinguish Primary, Secondary and Tertiary information?

Primary Scientific Literature

Original information/materials on which research is based on and it is usually published in a peer-review journal.  It includes original research, dissertations, technical reports, conference papers, and patents. It may also include data sets, pre-prints or preliminary reports. 

How to locate primary literature?

1. Begin your search in a subject-specific database such as PubMed, or choose one from the A-Z Databases.
2. Perform your search on a topic.
3. Once you have a set of search results, look for articles where the author has conducted original research. A primary research article will include:  a ) an introduction with a statement of the research objective, b) a methods section that details exactly how the research was performed, with enough information that another researcher could replicate it, a c) results section that describes the data collected, including charts or graphs and statistical analysis, and a d) discussion section that interprets the results within the context of the research objective

Secondary Literature

Secondary sources of information are based on primary sources. They describe, interpret, analyze and evaluate primary sources of information.

Examples of secondary sources include: 

• review articles or analysis of research studies about the same topic (also often in peer-reviewed publications), systematic reviews.
• biographies, reviews, or critiques of an author

How to locate Secondary Literature?

1. From the Library's homepage, begin your search in Virgo or select a subject-specific database from the A-Z Databases. Example databases could be PubMed, Web of Science, etc. 
2. Use the filters (PubMed) or Refine (Web of Science) to publication types such as Reviews, or Systematic reviews or Meta-analysis. 

Tertiary Literature

Tertiary literature synthesizes information from primary and secondary literature. Tertiary literature can include books, textbooks, encyclopedias, and dictionaries.

How to locate Tertiary Literature?

1. From the Library's homepage, begin your search in Virgo
2. Limit by Resource Type Books. 

Upcoming Workshops

See all HSL Research & Data Services workshops

See information and data workshops from University Library's Research Data Services + Sciences