Health Care Administration 105
Survey of the Health Professions
Spring 2008
Library Instruction Program - Research
and Instructional Support Department
For more information about this topic contact Mary
Boulanger
Table of Contents
- Research tips
- Library and Research Assistance
- Finding Life and Health Sciences Information
- Library catalog [PantherCat]
- Indexes and Databases
- Life and Health Sciences Related Internet Resources
- Using the Web Wisely
Research Tips
- Use the Library Catalog to locate books and documents and to determine if the UWM Libraries own 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. - Use the "Find It!" link [available in many UWM databases] 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: What ethical questions are raised by human cloning?
Sample searches: human cloning and (ethics or morality) medical informatics and careers
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 chat service, AskaLibrarian provides a forum for questions at all hours. Check this web page for chat room hours.
Electronic Reserve
E-reserve materials generally consist of scanned journal articles, book chapters, lecture notes, and sample exams. These printable materials may be accessed from off-campus computers using the proxy server [see above].
InterLibrary Loan
When materials cannot be found at the UWM Libraries, use this link to pursue the many options available.
Research Consultation
This is an in-depth advisory service about specific library research processes offered by librarians of the RIS Department to the students, staff and faculty of UWM. Use this link to find out more or to request an appointment.
Finding Life and Health Sciences Information
PantherCat
Truncation symbol is ? For example work? searches work, works, working, worked...
Sample Keyword (and, or, not) search in the catalog: "family stress" and work?
Selected 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 first three listed below relate to the Life Sciences; the fourth is a tool for managing journal and other citations. They each have online guides.
- Academic Search
- 1984-present; indexes over 3,400 scholarly journals, magazines, and newspapers in the areas of business, social sciences, humanities, general academic, general science, education, and multi-cultural studies. Full-text is available for 2,000 journals starting with January 1985. Guide
- CINAHL Plus with Full Text [Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature] Tutorial
- Dates vary; CINAHL Plus with Full Text provides indexing for over 3,000 journals from the fields of nursing and allied health, with indexing back to 1937. CINAHL Plus with Full Text also contains searchable cited references for more than 1,155 journals and provides full text for hundreds of journals, plus legal cases, clinical innovations, critical paths, drug records, research instruments and clinical trials. PDF backfiles to 1937 are also included. Guide
- MEDLINE via PubMed
MEDLINE via EBSCOHost- 1950-present; indexes over 4,800 journals in medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine and the preclinical sciences. PubMed is the National Library of Medicine's search service that provides access to over 14 million citations in MEDLINE, and other related databases, with links to participating online journals. Guide | Tutorial
- RefWorks
- 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. Quick Start Guide
Life and Health Sciences Related Internet Resources
There are many places to get Life and Health Sciences 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.
MEDLINEplus
Created by the National Library of Medicine, MEDLINEplus contains carefully selected links to Web resources with health information. This includes information about the health professions, over 630 diseases and conditions, drug information and a medical encyclopedia.Life and Health/Biological Sciences Subject Guide
One of over one hundred subject guides created by UWM Libraries staff, the Life and Health/BiologicalSciences guide lists indexes, databases, other research guides, and selected web sites in various biological sciences, medicine, nursing, and other health fields.Health Careers Information Center
Produced by the Wisconsin Area Health Education Center, this site has information on over 60 healthcare occupations, professional organizations, Wisconsin educational institutions which teach health careers, government agencies and health career programs in Wisconsin and nationally.Selected Health Related Internet Sites
This guide gives a sampling of various aspects of medicine and the health professions as reflected on the Internet. These include search engines, guides to medical specialties and general medical sites, nursing, health and disease topics, government resources, electronic journals and indexes in the health sciences. It is maintained by UWM Libraries staff.
Using the Web Wisely
The first resources listed are Subject Directories to web sites evaluated by people (as opposed to being "mined" 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
Citing Web sites (from Bedford / St. Martin's)
Bonus Assignment:
Find a reliable, authoritative health-related web site NOT currently on the Selected Health Related Internet Sites page or the Life and Health/Biological Sciences Subject Guide, [hint: web sites are near the bottom of that page]. Send a link to your site, along with reasons you think it is reliable, authoritative, etc., to the email address given in class. Anyone who sends such a site with a good enough defense of it will receive a...
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