Practical research skills, explained like a librarian would explain them
Free guides, lecture notes and reading paths for finding sources, evaluating journals, and writing research work — written the way a subject librarian and a teacher explain things at the desk, with the primary sources linked so you can check for yourself.
Start here
The three guides most people need first.
How to Find a Paper When the Journal Website Has Disappeared
A librarian's step-by-step method for tracing articles from journals whose websites, archives or PDF links no longer work — with the free…
Read →GuideHow to Evaluate a Journal Before You Cite It or Submit to It
A librarian's framework for judging whether a journal is trustworthy: identity, peer review, ethics, indexing claims, fees and preservation…
Read →Lecture NotesWriting the Literature Review for an Engineering Project: Lecture Notes
Teaching notes for final-year and master's engineering students: how to search, read, organise and write a literature review that examiners…
Read →Reading paths & reference
Structured routes into a topic, and quick-reference cards for citation and identifiers.
Glaucoma Detection with Image Analysis: A Reading Path
A structured reading path for engineering students working on automated glaucoma screening: the clinical background, imaging modalities…
Read →Reading PathRobotics Research: A Reading Path for Engineering Students
Where to start reading robotics — foundational textbooks, the main journals and conferences, open sources, and how to find project-level…
Read →ReferenceIEEE Citation Style: A Quick Reference with Examples
How to cite journal articles, conference papers, books, theses, standards and web pages in IEEE numbered style — patterns, examples and the…
Read →ReferenceDOI, ISSN, ISBN and ORCID: What Each Identifier Tells You
A short explainer on the four identifiers every researcher meets — what each one identifies, what it does not prove, and how to check it.
Read →How this library works
Verified data only
Every factual claim links to a primary source. We'd rather leave a field empty than guess.
No fabricated citations
Examples used to show a citation format are clearly labelled as fictitious. We never invent papers, DOIs or quotes.
No paid placement
We don’t accept payment to recommend a journal or service, and we don’t label named journals as "predatory" or "fake".
Editorial policy
How we source, review and correct this library, in full.
This domain previously hosted files for other journals under a different owner. See its history and our archive notice.