Nursing Information from the MCCC Library

Martin J. Crabtree

MCCC Library

August 30 & September 1, 2005

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

• A few 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.– RT1 – RT120: Nursing– RT108: Red Cross Nursing– RC607.A26: AIDS

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.

Nursing Periodicals at Mercer

• Advances in Nursing Science• American Journal of Nursing• MCN – The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing Cancer

Nursing• Journal for Specialists in Pediatric Nursing• Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing• Journal of Gerontological Nursing• Journal of Neuroscience Nursing• Journal of Nursing Administration• Journal of Nursing Education• Nurse Education• Nursing• Nursing Outlook• Nursing Times• Pediatric Nursing• RN

Periodical at Mercer

• Other related periodical include:– American Journal of Clinical Pathology– Emerging Infectious Diseases– The Gerontologist– Journal of Clinical Pathology– Laboratory Medicine

• The library subscribes to more nursing & medical periodical than any other subject.

Searching Electronic Databases

And The Web Too

Starting An Electronic SearchKeywords

• 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 DatabasesIn General

• Over 40 databases available• Not every article is available full text

though many are• Abstracts (summary) is often

available when full text is not

Electronic DatabasesIn 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 nursing information

• CINAHL– THE nursing database . Drawback many articles aren’t in full-text.

• Health Source: Nursing Academic Edition – Less comprehensive than

CINAH but still contains many scholarly journals.

Let’s look at some of the databases

• Topic: Fever and vomiting

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!

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/Int

ernet/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

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 Criteria1. Accuracy - is it reliable?2. Authority - is author qualified on subject?3. Objectivity - is the information biased?4. Currency - is the information “new”

enough?5. 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

Now let’s try out the databases…