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From LibWiki

1 Intro
2 Database Search Tips
3 Recommended Databases
4 APA Style
5 To Find Books
6 To Find Multimedia (for presentations or research)
7 Download and Print
8 Korey's Contact Info

[edit] Intro

Because health science is a broad discipline that spans multiple academic subjects such as medicine, psychology and current events, there are many methods of accessing scholarly articles, books and web resources. Use the following search techniques and recommended databases to gather information about your topic.

[edit] Database Search Tips

Keyword Searching is a good way to begin researching a topic in a subject database (articles) or the library's catalog database (mainly books & videos). With this type of searching the database will try to match your terms with article or book titles, abstracts or chapter & section titles.

Use “OR” to broaden your search. This will find articles with either one or both terms (good for synonymous & related terms; works well for acronyms).

Example: HDL Cholesterol OR Good fats

This will retrieve all citations that reference either phrase.

Use “AND” to narrow your search (in most cases you can do this by adding individual terms & concepts to separate search boxes)

Example: Trans Fatty Acids AND Cholesterol

This will retrieve only those citations that contain both the phrase “Trans Fatty Acids” and the word “cholesterol.” If both are not in the record, you will not retrieve it.

Use truncation. The * is the truncation symbol. When you use it, the computer will search for other natural endings on the word. For example, if you search parent*, you will retrieve parents, parenting, parenthood, etc.
Set limits. Most databases allow for different types of limit-setting, a technique that allows you “weed out” inappropriate material. Some limitations you can place:
- Language (English, Spanish, etc.)
- Peer-reviewed or Reference Available
- Publication type (journal, book, conference proceeding, etc.)
- Date of publication

Subject Searching takes advantage of database-assigned descriptive headings to increase the power of your search. Subject terms are assigned to describe what something is about, whether or not your keywords appear in the titles or abstracts of your search results. When you find a good subject heading, click on it to find like materials.

Subject or Thesaurus terms vary according to which database you are using, but are usually accessible from a menu option at the top of the screen. In EBSCO databases (Academic Search Premier, CINAHL & Business Source Premier) headings will appear in a yellow column to the left of your search results.

[edit] Recommended Databases

IMPORTANT You must access these via the library’s homepage for the system to recognize you as a CSUEB student. You will be prompted to login with your netID and last name if you are off-campus.

[edit] Academic Search Premier

Broad coverage of various topics including health & medicine. Over 8,000 journals Indexed, many full text. A good “first stop” in your search process.

[edit] PsychINFO (1985-present)

Covers Psychology and related social and behavioral sciences. Indexes 1,300+ journals, book chapters and records.

[edit] PubMed (1950-present)

The National Library of Medicine’s vast database covering medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and the preclinical sciences. Indexes approx. 4,800 journals and growing.

This is a free database accessible to anyone on the web, so you don't need to access via the library database page. BUT, be sure to create a User Account for PubMed, which allows you to hook in to CSU East Bay's full-text offerings.

[edit] CINAHL Plus w/Full Text (1937-present)

CINHAL covers primarily nursing but also allied health professions. Try searching CINAHL headings for your clinical topic. Extensive limiting options including research articles (under “publication type”) and Evidence Based Practice (under “special interest”).

[edit] Business Source Premier

Indexes approximately 7,600 publications, some peer reviewed. This is a good choice if you are investigating the business & administrative end of a health care topic. Look here for company profiles.

[edit] APA Style

Noodletools & citation resource web sites

APA Tip Sheet

Research and Documentation Online (inludes sample APA paper)

[edit] To Find Books

Use HAYSTAC, our library catalog

You can search HAYSTAC by

Title
Author
Keyword
Library of Congress Subject Headings such as:

- Health Services Administration
- Medical Economics
- Medical Care—United States
- Community Mental Health Services
- Medical Policy—United States

If we don’t have a title you need (or you want to see what other academic & public libraries have in your topic area) remember to repeat your search in LINK+, our accelerated interlibrary loan service. We can usually get items in 3-4 days.

[edit] To Find Multimedia (for presentations or research)

Video

Haystac: Limit your keyword search to material type--video. Also, run a keyword search on "streaming video" to see our collection of streaming videos, some health related.

PBS: Some PBS programs, notably Frontline and NOVA, offer free streaming, which allows you to watch complete programs online. These high-quality documentary series may offer relevant programming for your research topic.

Blinkx: The video search engine combs through many online video collections from from networks to youtube.

Images

Flickr Creative Commons: Find images for presentations here. Creative Commons licenses give you permission to use images in accordance with any restrictions.