tips for searching (and finding!): library elevenses
DESCRIPTION
A broad assortment of search tools with relevance to hospital or health careTRANSCRIPT
“Library Elevenses”
“…... And if the community is hungry for more than just
knowledge, then maybe it’s about time to open a snack bar.”
― Scott Douglas
Searching – the basics
• Browsing/surfing – serendipity
• Searching – plan ahead– Use PICO (Population or Patient; Intervention;
Comparative intervention; Outcome)– Identify key concepts– Keywords/synonyms
PubMed PubReminer:
http://hgserver2.amc.nl/cgi-bin/miner/miner2.cgi
What type of information?
• Guidelines: use NICE, SIGN, TRIP, National Clearinghouse, G.I.N., Associations/ Organisations
• Diagnosis: point-of-care tool e.g. UpToDate; OvidMD• Evidence-based research: Cochrane Library,
PubMed/Medline, CINAHL, PeDRO, Embase, PsycINFO, TRIP, Scopus, Scirus etc
• Management/Governance: Emerald Management Plus• Care measurement tools: HaPI (Health and
Psychosocial Instruments)
Get the most from databases
• Controlled language: MeSH (PubMed), CINAHL Subject Heading, Emtree (Embase). – know any limitations
• “pearl gathering”, “snowballing” & “forward tracking”
• Customisation and personalisation features– Save searches/create alerts, collections, filters etc
“Deep Web”searchingYou never get access to the full extent of the web, e.g.
- Paywall protected content
- Confidential data e.g. Patient records
Image: inventionmachine.com
Searching the Deep Web
Topic-specific databases:• http://aip.completeplanet.com
• http://infomine.ucr.edu/
• http://directsearch.net/
• http://scienceresearch.com/scienceresearch/advancedsearch.html
Statistics/calculations/data analysis & comparisons:http://www.wolframalpha.com
Other toolsMetasearch:• http://www.polymeta.com/ • http://www.webcrawler.com/• http://www.dogpile.com/ • http://mednar.com/mednar/ Grey Literature:• http://www.opengrey.eu/ National/Institutional Repositories:• http://www.lenus.ie (Irish healthcare)• http://www.opendoar.org/ (directory of open access
repositories)
Web Archives: http://archive.org/index.php
Other resources
• http://www.cdc.gov/datastatistics/ (tracking epidemics)
• http://clinicaltrials.gov/ • http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/NIHR_PROSPERO/ • http://findzebra.compute.dtu.dk/
Patient Information Sources
• UpToDate:http://www.uptodate.com/contents/table-of-contents/patient-information
• CINAHL: Evidence-based care sheets to assist healthcare staff when discussing condition with patients.
• HONcode:http://www.hon.ch/HONcode/Search/search.html
UpToDate – patient info
Ref:http://www.theonion.com
Google extra
Google custom search: http://www.google.com/cse/
http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=009086512607993835352%3Ao0xi0hcchga
This icon appears after you have completed a search
Click here for advanced
scholar search
Security/Privacy
• https://duckduckgo.com/• https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere• http://fixtracking.com/ - a guide to privacy
when searching (Firefox)
Social MediaYou choose what information comes to you. Be very selective – regular culling required.• Follow max. 25 on Twitter. Separate Twitter work
account.• Blogtrottr/feedly/netvibes• http://scienceroll.com/about/ • http://www.slideshare.net • http://
www.netvibes.com/keeping-up-to-date#Specialist_Bulletins
Ignore this
Ask a Librarian“Librarians like to search while others like to find” (Roy Tennant)
…we do like to find too.
Contact:[email protected]@[email protected]