Course resource help for Digital Media Production

This list contains details of electronic databases available to Oxford Brookes staff and students on the web. First listed are the databases that allow you to search for references for journal articles and other publications in your subject area. Some databases provide an indexing service only, some also provide abstracts (summaries) and others are full text.  For more information on using these services see the How to search catalogues and databases page.

Also listed in this section are databases for:

• specialist information
• industry and market information
• newspapers and
• audio-visual databases.

Note: Databases are usually available on and off-campus. Most will prompt you to log in with your Brookes ID and password. The Library Electronic Resources pages provide details of passwords for resources not covered by this.

Academic Search Complete

Multi-disciplinary database for academic articles, reports and conference proceedings. Full text access to more than 5,800 scholarly publications, including more than 5,350 peer-reviewed journals. Coverage includes media arts, with key journals in film, computing, and music. EBSCO.

Communication & Mass Media Complete

Full-text links to over 450 journals and indexing and abstracting for over 770. Covers fields of media studies, film studies, communications, advertising, and new media. Particularly good for journalism, photojournalism and the social aspects of photography. EBSCO.

Performing Arts Periodicals Database

Key database for articles on film. Also includes computer games and television. ProQuest.

ACM Digital Library

Full text of every article ever published by ACM and bibliographic citations from major publishers in computing

IEEE Xplore Digital Library

High quality technical literature published since 1988 in the fields of engineering and technology. Includes journal articles, transactions, conference proceedings and standards.

MLA International Bibliography with Full Text

An index and full-text database covering leading publications in a range of subjects including film, publishing, media studies, and digital media. EBSCO

RILM abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text

Comprehensive bibliography of writings about music. Covers the whole range of musical literature with over one million publications from the early 19th century to the present on traditional music, popular music, and classical music. Also good for digital and all aspects of soundtracks for film and television. EBSCO.

Science Direct

Contains around 2500 full text journals published by Elsevier, mainly in science, technology and medicine. Full text coverage for most journals in the collection is available from 2002 to present.

MarketLine

Worldwide profiles,analysis, case studies and data for many sectors including Media & Digital Entertainment. Provides accurate and up-to-date marketplace research reports on companies, industries and countries.

Mintel

UK market research data. Information on consumer lifestyles as well as useful industry, leisure, retail, technology and media intelligence reports.

Factiva

A multi-use, international news database covering national and regional newspapers, trade  and professional journals, company profiles and share data, and transcripts of world radio broadcasts. Covers 152 countries in 22 languages. Covers US newspapers and entertainment magazines such as Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety; good for film reviews. Includes images from Reuters.

Box of Broadcasts (BoB)

An online archive giving you access to thousands of recorded radio and TV programmes including films. It allows users to record programmes which will then be stored on the database. Log in when prompted with your Brookes username and password.

The library subscribes to both print and online journals relevant to Digital Media Production. There are also some open access journals online. Find them in these ways:

• The best way to find individual journal articles, relevant to your topic, from a range of publications is to use a Database, see section above.
• Journals for Media Arts is an annotated list of the library’s print journals relevant to your subject, and includes some ejournals.
• Browzine is an excellent way to find ejournals in your field and stay-up-to-date with the latest issues.
• LibrarySearch provides details of all the print and ejournals the Library subscribes to. Use the Journal titles tab or filter results to journals.
• See the library’s journal page for more information.
• A number of free online Digital Media Production journals are listed in the Internet section below.

Find all our books and ebooks using LibrarySearch (the search box on the Library homepage). Search, and then select 'Book' from the filters menu on the left. You can further limit your search to 'eBook' if you want.

You can also:

• Browse a list of newly acquired books for Digital Media Production 
• Explore Module reading lists: helpful recommendations from your lecturers.

Print books

LibrarySearch shows call numbers so you can find specific books on the shelves. If you'd like to browse, the printable guide at the top of this page gives some helpful call numbers to visit. For example, 006 covers computing, 620 is for sound tech, and 794 video games; but many other books of interest will be found elsewhere in the Library.

There are maps on each floor in the staircase area showing which call numbers are in which zones. You can also download a library floorplan (PDF).  Oversize books are shelved separately near the book sequence. The Short Loan Collection next to the welcome desk contains books in heavy demand.

See also: How to borrow and return items

E-books

• O'Reilly Safari Learning Platform  : a collection of e-books, videos, tutorials (Learning Paths) and Case Studies on various aspects of information technology. The selection includes desktop publishing, digital media, e-commerce, programming, IT management and business applications. O'Reilly titles can also be found via LibrarySearch. Access with Brookes login. 
• EBooks Central :  a collection of academic e-books for a range of subjects, including many business books. Individual titles appear on LibrarySearch. Access with Brookes login.
• Open Research Library and this list on Project Muse are examples of Open Access e-books, which are becoming increasingly available.

The Library's Ebooks page gives further information. 

There are a large number of Digital Media Production resources available on the Internet, just a few selected sites are listed below. There are many other useful and relevant sites available. Please evaluate web sources carefully.

Journal sites

• Mix - news, industry analysis, features and technology updates for the professional audio community. Topics covered include studio (recording, post-production and mastering), audio for broadcast, installed sound and liv/touring sound. Subscription to news alerts is free.

Software

• Autodesk - free software for the education community.
• Brackets.io - free, open source text editor made by Adobe which can be used as an alternative to Dreamweaver.
• Unity - tutorials, documentation and networking. Free Unity licences for students.

Film

• See the list on the Course resource page for Film.

Sound

• A Sound Effect - blog for the sound effect community.
• Audio Cookbook - recipes for sound design.
• Sound and Music - for contemporary British music
• Soundtrack.net - the art of film and television music - film and television soundtrack information and reviews

Creative industries

• Arts Council England
• BFI Film Fund
• British Council: Film
• Creative UK - not for profit company which supports talent and ideas across tech, games, film and television.

The Library has a small selection of video games for Xbox and Playstations 3 & 4. These can be found at call number 794.8.

The library has thousands of DVDs. If you don’t have a DVD Player, you can borrow an external DVD drive from the library welcome desk to plug into the USB port of your computer. The bulk of our DVDs are shelved around 791, but there are many others shelved throughout the collection. They are discoverable on LibrarySearch. Run the search, then use the format filter on the left of the results page to see just DVDs.