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Internet Resources: Health Sciences and Culture

Library Instruction Program
Spanish and Portuguese 499
Health Issues in the Hispanic World - M. Estrella Sotomayor
Spring 2008

Table of Contents

  1. Research tips
  2. Library and Research Assistance
  3. Finding Health Sciences Information
  4. NEW! Saving Searches and Search Results
  5. Using the Web Wisely

Research Tips

  • Use the Library Catalog to locate books and documents and to determine if the Library owns the journals.
  • Use Indexes/Databases to locate articles within journals.
    Articles may be available full text on-line or in the bound journals on the shelves.
  • Check "Electronic Journals" link to determine if the article is available online

Tips for Constructing a Search

  • Write down research question and underline key concepts
  • Think of synonyms and alternate terms for each of the main concepts
  • Think broader, or narrower, depending on results of initial searches
  • Consult a thesaurus or index, if available, to narrow and focus the search

For example: Is family stress a predictor of job loss?

Sample searches:   family stress and employment                  family relations and work*

Library and Research Assistance

Proxy Server
This link allows UWM students, faculty, and staff with Internet access to connect to most of the Libraries' subscription databases and electronic journals from home (a few titles are licensed for on-campus or in-library use only).
AskaLibrarian
An email and at times chat service, AskaLibrarian provides a forum for questions at all hours. Check this web page for chat room hours.
InterLibrary Loan
When materials cannot be found at the UWM Libraries, use this link to pursue the many options available.
Research Consultation
Though this service is primarily an in-person one, Distance Education students may arrange to have a consultation via telephone or chat.
Finding Health Sciences Information

The Library Catalog

Panther Cat
Truncation symbol is ?    For example work? searches work, works, working, worked...
Sample Keyword (and, or, not) search in the catalog:   "family stress" and work?

Indexes and Databases

On the UWM Libraries home page under "Find Articles", the Resources A-Z link leads to an alphabetical list of databases. Some index journals, magazines and newspapers from various subject disciplines. Others are collections containing the electronic full text of such journals. The ones listed below relate to Health Sciences and multicultural studies. They each have online guides and CINAHL also has an online tutorial.

CINAHL
The Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, or CINAHL, indexes over 1,200 journals in the areas of nursing, allied health, physical and occupational therapy, alternative therapies, biomedicine, consumer health, and health administration. Full-text of articles is available for more than 260 journals. For further information there is both a *tutorial and an online *guide to this database.

MEDLINE via PubMed
The most comprehensive index to the medical literature, MEDLINE indexes over 5000 journals in medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine and the preclinical sciences. There is world wide free access to MEDLINE via PubMed. Guide | Tutorial

Ethnic NewsWatch
1990-present; a full-text comprehensive collection of over 250 newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic and minority press. Guide

HAPI Online [Hispanic American Periodicals Index]
1970-present; covers political, economic, social, and cultural issues of Central and South America, Mexico, the Caribbean as well as Hispanics in the United States. It includes citations to articles, books reviews, and documents indexed in over 500 international journals. Guide

GenderWatch
1970-present; full-text collection of international journals, magazines, newsletters, regional publications, special reports and conference proceedings devoted to women's and gender issues. Guide


Nursing and Health Related Internet Resources

There are many places to get medical and health information on the Internet. Deciding what is reliable, however, is a critical distinction in the health fields. The following resources offer a sampling of critiqued web sites.
Multicultural Studies Subject Guide
This guide gives a sampling of resources in African American Studies, Hispanic/Latino(a) Studies, American Indian Studies, Asian/Asian American and Diversity Studies,as reflected on the Internet. These include search engines, guides to electronic and print resources, government resources, electronic journals and indexes in these subjects. It is maintained by the Multicultural Services Librarian.

Life and Health/Biological Sciences Subject Guide
One of thirty subject guides created by UWM Libraries staff, the Life and Health/BiologicalSciences guide lists indexes, databases, other research guides, and selected web sites in biology, medicine, nursing, and other health fields.

Multicultural and Health Information, Associations and Agencies

Saving Searches and Automatic Updates

  • MEDLINE via PubMed
    • My NCBI [formerly My Cubby]

      • My NCBI

      My NCBI allows you to save both searches and lists of citations. First, register for an account, picking a User ID and password. Then name the search and decide how frequently, if at all it is to be run.

    • Saving searches and running them automatically

      • my ncbi searches

      Clicking on a search (A in the image above) runs your saved search again but does not change the date displayed in the Last Updated column (B). If you have set up an email schedule for receiving search updates, this information is displayed in the Details column (C).

      For searches that you have not set up a schedule or which were run in databases that do not offer this feature, you will see No Schedule displayed in the Details column. To check for new results, select a search and click on What’s New for Selected (D). This action will update the information in the Last Updated column.

    • Saving citations
      Individual article citations, or groups of them, can be saved as a Collection in MyNCBI. More citations can be added to an existing collection at a later date.

  • CINAHL
    • My EBSCOhost
      • My EbscoHost

      To save a search in CINAHL or other EBSCOhost databases, create an account by signing in to My EBSCOhost. Choose the "I'm a New User" link and pick a User ID and password that is easy to remember (perhaps the same as your My NCBI ID and password!)

    • Ebscohost alert Choose a name and/or description for your search. It can be permanent or temporary, and can be run automatically at set times as an 'alert'.

 

  • RefWorks -- Managing your citations
    • RefWorks is a web-based tool that helps you manage citations, create bibliographies, and import references from databases. It can convert stored citations into formatted bibliographies. Formatting styles include APA, Chicago, and MLA.
      • refworks
    • Library workshops [see Workshop Schedule]

Using the Web Wisely

Though not specifically related to the health fields, the first three resources are Subject Directories to web sites evaluated by people (as opposed to "selected" by a computer). The other sites listed give some general guidelines to evaluating and citing web sites.

Librarians' Index to the Internet
Search by keyword or look through the directory - keyword can lead to directory sections to search further

Internet Scout Report
Subject Directory maintained by UW Madison

Infomine - Scholarly Index Resource Collections
Contains over 20,000 well-selected and described links to scholarly resources on the Internet. Searchable. 

How to Evaluate and Cite Web Sites

Evaluating Websites (from Colorado State University Libraries)

Citing Web sites (from Bedford / St. Martin's)