Transcript medlab - Mercer County Community College

Finding & Using Information
from the MCCC Library
Martin J. Crabtree
MCCC Library
Agenda
• The College’s Card Catalog
• Electronic Searching
– Keywords & Boolean Searching
• Electronic Databases at Mercer
– What’s a database?
– Databases available through Mercer Library
– Accessing the databases
• Some things to consider when using the web
Using The Card Catalog
•
The catalog is available
online. Used to find books,
videos and other material
both in the MCCC collection
and the Mercer County Public
(MCL) libraries.
•
You can have materials from
MCL brought to the college.
Deliveries arrive Tuesday and
Friday afternoons. (DVD’s not
available from MCL)
•
You will need to have your
student ID card to borrow
books or use the library’s
computer lab
Finding Books
• Unlike school and public libraries,
MCCC uses the Library of
Congress (LC) system.
• The LC is an alphanumeric
system, the “R” section is
medicine.
– RB37.3: Medical laboratory
technology as a profession
– RC109-216: Infectious and
parasitic diseases
– RC121.A6: Anthrax
The link to the catalog is on the
library’s web pages.
Periodicals
• Periodicals include:
– scholarly journals
– newspapers
– Magazines
• Periodicals represent the bulk of
published scholarly information.
• The library has a number of periodicals available in print,
on microfilm, and especially via electronic databases.
• The library staff can help determine if a specific
periodical is available from the library.
Medical Laboratory Technology
Periodicals at Mercer
• Journal of Laboratory & Clinical Medicine
• Laboratory Medicine
• Medical Laboratory Observer
Searching Electronic Databases
And The Web Too
Starting An Electronic Search
Keywords
• Keywords are used when searching electronic
databases and web search engines
• First step - Generate a list of words (keywords) that
describes or is commonly used when discussing your
topic. For example:
– Ozone
– Layer
– Depletion
– Atmosphere
– Hole
Starting An Electronic Search
Boolean Searching/Logic
• Boolean searching - Connecting keywords with
the terms
– and
– not
– or
• For example
– eagles NOT football
– (car or automobile) and exhaust
• More Terms = Fewer “Hits”
Searching More Than Just Keywords
Phrases & Truncations
• To search for a phrase, use quotation
marks
– “survival of the fittest”
• Truncations allow for searching related
words all at once
– The * is usually used. For example:
• “child*” would include: child, children, childhood,
childproof, etc.
Electronic Databases at the
Mercer Library
What are electronic databases?
• A collection of electronically searchable
information (frequently, but not limited
to, periodical articles) that is accessible
via the internet
• Access to this information is by
subscription only, paid by the library.
• It is accessible via the internet, but it is
not truly web information.
Electronic Databases
In General
• Over 60 databases available
• Not every article is available full text
though many are
• Abstracts (summary) is often available
when full text is not
Electronic Databases
In General
• Accessible at any computer
on the MCCC & JKC campus
network
• Most are available off
campus, need to request a
password (forms available
after this class).
• Can print/e-mail/download
articles
Getting to the databases
• Use the library quick link at mccc.edu to get to
the library’s homepage
• Go to the “Online Databases & Search Engines”
link (in the left column) of any of the library’s
web pages.
Databases with useful information
• CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and
Allied Health Literature)– One of the premier
databases for medical field information.
Drawback many articles aren’t in full-text.
• Health Source: Nursing Academic Edition –
Less comprehensive than
CINAH but still contains
many scholarly journals in
much more than just nursing.
Some of these databases may be
helpful too
• Biomedical Reference Collection
• MEDLINE
• Nursing & Allied Health Collection
Let’s look at some of the
databases
• Topic: Botulism
Searching the World Wide Web
How can I find what I want?
Some things to consider when
searching the web
• Everything is NOT on the web and may never
be
• No search engine searches the entire web
• The “invisible web” is huge!
• Though there has yet to be consensus,
estimates put the size of the invisible web
between 2 and 500 times bigger than the
“visible” (or surface) web.
Searching the World Wide Web
Search Strategy
• Searching the Web is much like database
searching:
– Use keywords and Boolean logic (and, not, or) to better
define your search, use double quotes for phrases, etc.
• When searching the web, also consider:
– Different search engines yield different results. You
may want to try using more that just your “regular”
search engine
– Use the search engine’s “advanced search” to select
limiting parameters (language, date, domain, etc.)
Searching the World Wide Web
Search Engines & Meta Sites
• Become familiar with your search engines features:
– http://www.infopeople.org/search/chart.html
– http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/features/
– http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Inter
net/SearchEngines.html
• Meta search sites (like Ask Jeeves, Dogpile):
– Allow you to search more than one search engines at
once.
– Can generate more “stuff” to sift through
– Limited to only basic searches, can’t use advanced
search features
– Some results can be from “paid for listing” search
engines
The Invisible Web
Why is so much being missed?
• When using a search engine, you are searching
a database that represents what is known to
be on the web
• Spiders or crawlers roam the web from link to
link generating this database
• Works extremely well for static all text
pages in the HTML language
• The problem arises when pages are ever
changing or not in HTML
So where is all of this stuff hiding?
• By far, a great amount is contained in
databases (both paid and free)
• Other places include:
– Non-text information such as photos or
audio
– PDF formatted documents
– Very new web pages
– Password only access information
Finding the invisible stuff
• The key is knowing when you need
“invisible” information and then where
to find it.
• Not every web search requires looking
in the invisible web.
• Search engines work best when looking
for a narrow, focused topic.
Some helpful invisible websites
• http://www.cdc.gov – The Centers for Disease
Control & Prevention
• www.lii.org - searchable annotated directory of
Internet resources
• www.freepint.com/gary/direct.htm - Direct Search,
large listing of free databases
• infomine.ucr.edu [NO www] - good for searching
academic information
• completeplanet.com [No www] blend of database,
directory, & search engine information.
• www.firstgov.gov - search federal government sites
• http://www.mccc.edu/~crabtrem/mlt/mlt.htm MLT Resource Guide from the MCCC Library
Evaluating Web
Information
Is this
stuff any
good?
Evaluating Web Sites
• Quality varies greatly from site to
site
• YOU are the sole evaluator of the
quality of information a site
provides
Five Evaluation Criteria
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
•
Accuracy - is it reliable?
Authority - is author qualified on subject?
Objectivity - is the information biased?
Currency - is the information “new” enough?
Coverage - does the info completely cover
the topic?
Search engines may put you out of context,
go the home page or the “about us” page to
help evaluate the site
The Bottom Line…
Buyer Beware
• The web contains a vast amount of information…
but not everything
• Anyone can put information on the web, hence the
quality of web information varies greatly
• YOU will often be the only person to decide if
the quality of the info you find on the web is good
Let’s take a look at a website…
Still people can get fooled…
Now let’s try out the
databases…