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Food and nutritional sciences: E-resources

A guide to finding information in food and nutritional sciences. Includes links to key resources and sources of help.

Use the databases listed on this page to find relevant information on topics in food and nutritional sciences. They will give you access to both primary and secondary sources of information.

  • Primary sources - these are first hand accounts of research that has been undertaken written by the researchers themselves.
  • Secondary sources - describe, summarize, or discuss information or details originally presented in another source. Books are usually secondary sources. As are review articles which summarise the current state of the knowledge on a topic (many databases allow you to restrict search results to this type of article). A more specialised secondary source are systematic reviews which use the existing literature to try to answer a specific question, often including a meta-analysis of the all the studies included in the relevant articles.

Search Summon discovery service

Search Summon to find online journal articles and book chapters.

Key databases

Specialist databases for specific topic areas or types of information

Resources for finding articles on business and marketing

Market research (UK)

These resources cover UK market information only.

Market research (global)

Company info

Key database

Additional resources

Foodlaw-Reading

THE portal for sources of food law compiled by Dr David Jukes from the University of Reading. Includes links to the main sources of legislation and key legal topics including additives, flavourings and labelling.

UK legislation

LexisLibrary and Westlaw UK provide the text of Acts and Statutory Instruments in force. The UK's Government's official Legislation.gov.uk website provides free access to original and revised versions of legislation, but this is not as up-to-date as LexisLibrary and Westlaw UK.

Legislation from other countries

This can be harder to find. The following are useful portals.

Key database

Additional resources

See also our guide to finding statistics:

Sources of specific types of information

For other sources see our guide to finding statistics:

These resources might help with experimental protocols.

A standard is an officially approved specification covers requirements for the properties, dimensions, performance, qualities and testing of products and services. Standards are particularly useful for methods of analysis.

Getting articles not held at Reading

Map of the south of the UKOur Inter-Library Loans service can get articles not held at Reading from other libraries (usually from the British Library).

For more information see our webpages:

Video: searching Food Science and Technology Abstracts (FSTA) on Web of Science

This video was created by IFIS (International Food Information Service) showing how to do a basic search on their FSTA database on the Web of Science.

There's also a PDF guide explaining how to use the thesaurus to select your search words:

IFIS have also produced a best practice guide for literature searching:

Accessing online Library resources

If you are on campus you will be able to access most e-journals and e-books, and some databases, without entering a username and password because your IP address identifies you as being at the University of Reading.

For any that require a login, see the Off-campus tab.

Terms of Use

When you use our e-resources you are agreeing to our Terms of Use. Please take a moment to look at these by following the link below:

When you are off-campus you will need to login to identify yourself as a member of the University of Reading to gain access to our protected databases, e-books and e-journals. 

Your login details

You login in the same way as for Blackboard - via Microsoft. Just enter your University username followed by @student.reading.ac.uk (e.g. ab123456@student.reading.ac.uk) and your password. If this is the first time you have logged in via this method when off-campus you will be asked to complete a Multi-Factor Authentication. For more information see:

Getting to the login page...

  • For most resources, if you follow a link from our website or catalogues your login will be picked up automatically or you will be prompted to login straightaway. 
  • If you access resources via another route you will need to look for a login option once you reach the resource you are trying to access. Look for an institutional or shibboleth login option and pick 'University of Reading' from a list of institutions. This will then pick up your login or prompt you to login. For more information about institutional login, please see the link below:
Logging in to Library resources

Watch this short video on how you login to use Library resources.

If you are unable to view this video on YouTube it is also available on YuJa - view the Logging in to the Library video on YuJa (University username and password required)

Video: discovering online articles and book chapters with Summon

If you are unable to view these videos on YouTube they are also available on YuJa:

Literature searching guidance

This series of three videos (available via the tabs in this box) cover:

  • What is a literature search, including tips on getting started
  • Analysing your topic and search techniques for creating a comprehensive search
  • Evaluating and summarising the literature

You will need to login using your University email address and password to view the videos.

This video covers:

  • analysing your topic
  • search techniques for creating a comprehensive search (using AND/OR, truncation and wildcards)
  • an example search on Web of Science

This video covers:

  • evaluating journals (peer review)
  • evaluating articles (citation counts and altmetrics)
  • critical reading
  • using tables to help summarise literature
  • referencing and reference management using EndNote (brief summary)

Doing a systematic review

An introduction to planning your systematic review.

You will need to login using your University email address and password to view the videos.

See also our detailed guide to doing a systematic review:

This video covers the first four steps in doing a systematic review, including creating a protocol and searching for literature.

This video covers the fifth and sixth steps in doing a systematic review. It focuses on using Desktop EndNote to manage references and screening the literature.

The final in a series of four videos on systematic reviews which covers writing it up.

Using SciFinder-n to find chemical information

For support and videos covering specific aspects of using SciFinder-n, see the following website: