The Library's Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service provides access to materials not held in our collections to current students, faculty and staff of PolyU for their research or private study. The Library will source the requested items from local UGC-funded libraries or other libraries overseas.
Interlibrary loan is integrated into OneSearch. To know more about the service, please refer to the guide below.
Generally, there are three ways to find articles:
To search for articles with a specific title or some keywords from the Library, you can:
1. Select Articles tab.
2. Choose the field you would like to search for (e.g. Keywords & Title)
3. Type in the related information and conduct a search.
4. Filter the results by Type, Date or Subject...etc. (If appropriate)
5. Click on Full text available and then select one source to get the full text.
To get the full text of the articles found in Google Scholar, it is recommended to access via Google Scholar@PolyU. For articles within PolyU library subscriptions, the full text can be accessed by clicking PolyU eLinks on Google Scholar.
1. Choose Articles tab from Library homepage.
2. Click on Google Scholar@PolyU. (Login with your NetID and Password for off campus access)
3. Search for your desired topic/ title and click on PolyU eLinks to get the full text for those within Library's subscriptions.
You may also change the setting in your Google Scholar to link it up with Library subscribed databases. This is identical to clicking on Google Scholar@PolyU via Library homepage.
Search in a database
Searching within a database helps you narrow your search as the coverage of the database can be very selective. Some databases focus on one specific area, which can help you filter out the contents that are not relevant to the subject; some may cover peer-reviewed journals only, to ensure the articles covered are of certain quality. Almost all databases will provide an Advanced Search option, which allows you to search in a more precise way, e.g. search within article title, journal title, or subject terms (that are tagged to each article). This helps you find the most relevant results quickly and effectively.
Note that login with NetID is required to access the following databases off campus.
Search in a citation database (Find more related papers)
Web of Science and Scopus are two large multidisciplinary citation databases. They do not provide full-text articles, but they are very helpful for exploring related articles by looking at citing articles (who cited the article) and references (who have been cited by the article). If you do not have an idea which databases or journals should go for, start with these two.
Sometimes you may be unable to get the full text of a journal article because the library does not have a journal subscription. In this case, you can request a copy of the article via our Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service.
Details can be found at the below guide.
Follow the steps below to install the bookmarklet to your browser.
Watch a short video to learn how to install bookmarklet in Chrome:
EndNote Click (formerly Kopernio) is a free browser plug-in which helps you to get full-text PDF faster by securely connecting you to the Library’s journal subscriptions and open access content. Follow the steps below to install the plug-in in your browser.
LibKey is a free browser plug-in which provides instant links to full-text content for articles subscribed to by the Library - or open access alternatives - as you do research on the web and come across literature. The service covers thousands of scholarly publisher websites, Wikipedia and major databases such as PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science.
Unpaywall is a free browser plug-in which helps you to skip the paywall on millions of journal articles and get permissible full-text PDF. Follow the steps below to install the plug-in in your browser.
