LibGuides: Real estate and planning: E-resources

Search Summon discovery service

Search Summon to find online journal articles and book chapters.

Key databases

RICS (Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors)

BCIS Online This link opens in a new window
BCIS is provided by the Building Cost Information Service, which is part of Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. The service aims to provide current, accurate information on UK building costs and tender prices.

Important note about accessing subsequent BCIS products
If you wish to access other BCIS products after this, you will need to click on 'Log out' in the top right-hand-corner of the screen, otherwise the browser will remember the first BCIS product you accessed.
BCIS Running Costs Online This link opens in a new window
A central database of building running costs: lifecycle costing, benchmarking, planning, budgeting, forecasting, estimating, and cost control.

Covers life expectancy of building components, lifecycle cost of buildings and market trends in private housing, public housing and private, industrial, commercial and public non-housing.

Important note about accessing subsequent BCIS products
If you wish to access other BCIS products after this, you will need to click on 'Log out' in the top right-hand-corner of the screen, otherwise the browser will remember the first BCIS product you accessed.
Radius Data Exchange [full-text] This link opens in a new window
Online news, research and analysis for the UK commercial property market.

Includes:

-the latest UK commercial property news
-a news archive
-UK market data, building reports, company reports and town reports
-EGi’s planning, availability and deals database
-coverage of UK property law including case summaries, law reports and planning policy guidance

Please note, Radius Data Exchange does not include access to Estates Gazette magazine. For this title, please clickhere.

Help and guidance
Tip sheets
Frequently asked questions
isurv [full-text] This link opens in a new window
isurv provides access to RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) documents including official guidance, forms and case studies.

-building defects
-building surveying
-commercial property
-construction
-construction contracts
-environment
-estate agency
-legal aspects
-planning
-valuation

Help and guidance
Guide to isurv

Estates Gazette
We subscribe to Estates Gazette electronically, and content is available from a few different databases. Please follow this catalogue link to locate articles.

Other useful resources

IBSS (International Bibliography of the Social Sciences) This link opens in a new window
Gives references to journal articles, books, reviews and selected chapters in subjects including anthropology, economics, political science and sociology.

Also covers related subjects, such as: agriculture, social policy, archaeology, business studies, criminology, education, environmental issues, history, law, and social work.

Gives references to journal articles, books, reviews and selected chapters. Good coverage of international material.

Help and guidance
ProQuest LibGuide: IBSS
Lexis+ [full-text] This link opens in a new window
use to find articles and law reports

Full-text of UK, US, EU and Commonwealth legal sources. Contents include:

-UK cases including The Law Reports, All England Law Reports, and English Reports
-Cases of the Irish, Northern Ireland, and Scottish Courts from 1945.
-All current Public General Acts and Statutory Instruments of England and Wales
-Halsbury's Laws of England
-Hill and Redman Law of Landlord and Tenant
-European Union cases from 1954
-European Union legislation
-Commonwealth cases and legislation, particularly from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa
-US Federal and State case law
-US Federal legislation
-Comprehensive collection of US law reviews from 1982
-UK broadsheets as well as local newspapers in the UK

Help and guidance
-For comprehensive guidance see the LexisLibrary support site which includes training videos, tips and user guides.
-A range of training videos are available on the LexisNexis UK YouTube channel.
-Complete the LexisLibrary research certificate.
ScienceDirect [full-text] This link opens in a new window
Access to articles in journals published by Elsevier from 1995 to the present, plus access to older articles in some subject areas. Also gives access to Elsevier e-books we have purchased.

Covering sciences, economic and social science, and some arts and humanities titles.

We also have access to older articles from 1896 onwards in the following subjects:

-agricultural and biological sciences
-economics, econometrics and finance
-environmental science
-social sciences

Help and guidance
ScienceDirect help
Scopus This link opens in a new window
Gives references to journal articles, books, conference proceedings and patents in all subjects. Also offers extensive tools to analyse results, and measure impact for articles, journals and authors.

Scopus gives references to peer-reviewed literature in all subject areas. It includes journal articles (including 'in press' items), books, conference proceedings and patents.

It is possible to search for topics, authors (including by ORCID ID), author affiliation and funders.

Extensive analytical tools also allow you to:

-analyse your search results by year, source, author, affiliation, country or territory, document type and subject area
-compare journal impact to help you decide where to publish
-see the citation impact and scholarly community engagement for an article
-analyse the citation trend for any given article, set of results or for a list of author documents
-view an author profile to analyse and track an individual's citation history

Help and guidance
Scopus Quick Reference Guide (PDF)
Tutorial of creating alerts
Scopus learn & support site
Social Sciences Citation Index This link opens in a new window
Gives references to journal articles in the social sciences. Part of the Web of Science Core Collection.

Includes: Anthropology; History; Industrial relations; Law ; Linguistics; Philosophy; Political science ; Psychology and psychiatry; Public health; Social issues; Social work; Sociology; Urban studies; Women's studies.

Help and guidance
Web of Science Training Portal
Westlaw UK [full-text] This link opens in a new window
use to find articles and law reports

Contents include:

- UK cases, including The Law Reports, Weekly Law Reports and English Reports
- Fully consolidated laws in force, including Acts from 1267 and Statutory Instruments from 1948.
- European Union cases from 1954
- European Union legislation
- Index to British legal journals from 1986 (with links to full-text where hosted on Westlaw UK)
- Full-text British and American legal journals (varying date coverage)
- Comprehensive collection of US law reviews from the 1980s and selected journals from common law jurisdictions, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
- US Federal and State case law
- US Federal legislation

Help and guidance
For basic, introductory guidance see the Westlaw getting started guide (PDF).
For more advanced guidance see the further resources on the Westlaw customer support site.
Complete the Westlaw UK certification training, an interactive walk-through of Westlaw UK, to demonstrate your skills by becoming a Certified user.
WorldCat This link opens in a new window
Use to find books.

Covers ca.1000 BC to the present.

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:

Terms and conditions of use for Library e-resources

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:

Find out more about multi-factor authentication

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:

Find out more about the Institutional login

Logging in to Library resources

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

Property market information

There are a number of specialist resources in this area, located in the Henley Business School Library. For all these resources go to the Henley Business School Library BlackBoard organisation and sign up in advance of using (the information is all there). Passwords and usernames will either be provided or emailed. These resources are ONLY available to Real estate and planning staff/students.

Property market reports
The Henley Business School Library has a collection of printed property market reports, indices and other research publications by chartered surveyors and related professions, but these are now moving online via Property Week. Many companies now make their research data available in the internet.
CoStar Suite
CoStar Suite provides comprehensive information on the UK commercial property industry . It is only accessible from the Henley Business School Library.
EPRA

EPRA website offers access to up to 20 years of listed real estate data index and company performance data in a range of buildable & downloadable charts/graphs.

IPD

IPD is a performance analysis database specialising in the real estate investment sector across 32 countries.

Revo formaly BCSC (British Council of Shopping Centres)

Provides access to the BCSC online directory of 2600+ retail property professionals, BCSC research and guidance notes, and industry conferences and events.

Videos: doing your literature search

This playlist of two videos shows you how to prepare for and perform a literature search. The first video introduces literature searches and their role. The second video covers using the search operators AND and OR to create a search statement, and explains the role of wildcards and truncation in constructing a comprehensive search. This information is also available in written guides - see the links below.

Related guides

Literature searching
A guide to finding articles, books and other materials on your subject
Guide to searching databases

Real estate and planning: E-resources