University of Paisley Library Literature Searching

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University of Paisley Library
Literature Searching

• Introduction

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Get to Know Your Topic

• Background reading nursing and medical
  dictionaries. Textbooks, reference books. Refer
  to your tutors reading list. Keep the details
  for your reference list.
• Familiarise with terminology, vocabulary, ideas,
  models, research, authors.
• Use the library catalogue (TALIS). Keyword search
  for books and reports. Reading Lists are also
  available from Talis. Try NetLibrary e-Books when
  off campus.

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Sources Where to Search

• Databases, electronic journals, internet sites.
  Go to the University Library web page and click
  on Resources.
• Databases allow you to search through thousands
  of journal articles on specific topics of your
  choosing.
• Electronic journals (ejournals) are digital
  versions of the printed journals you find on the
  shelves. You can search these and view the
  full-text of the article on screen. You can print
  the articles too.
• Find printed journals and books on our Talis
  catalogue and the shelves.

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Books and JournalsBooks - 1

• Books are published in a particular year. New
  editions may be published in later years. Have
  one or more authors or editors. Cover a single
  topic or topic area. May be general or
  specialised. Can go out of date or may remain a
  classic.
• Books have a unique number, the ISBN. Talis calls
  this the Control Number.
• Books on the shelves are in the library catalogue
  (Talis). Books are held in Dewey Number order.
  All books on the same topic are held at the same
  number on the shelves. For example, Health
  Promotion books are at 613. Midwifery books are
  at 618.2 onwards.
• This is called the Shelfmark on Talis. (Also
  called the Class Number). This number is marked
  on the spine of the book.

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Books and JournalsBooks 2 Electronic Books

• Electronic Books (eBooks) are on-screen versions
  of the printed titles. Nursing, Midwifery and
  Health Care books are available through
  NetLibrary on the Library Web Site Resources
  page.
• An Athens username and password is required for
  NetLibrary access. On the NetLibrary page, click
  on the Athens Users, log in here link. Do not
  log in directly.
• eBooks can also be accessed via Talis and you can
  limit your Talis Advanced Search to Electronic
  Books.
• You can search for books on NetLibrary by Author,
  Title or Keyword.

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Books and JournalsJournals - 1

• Also called serials and periodicals. (Never
  called magazines). Published periodically
  weekly, monthly, 3-monthly, etc. Up to date with
  the latest research, practice and news.
• Published in Volumes and Parts (or Issues). Each
  journal article has a volume number, part number
  and page numbers.
• Different types. Some have news, features,
  training and PREPP, e.g. Nursing Times. All have
  articles written by authors on particular topics.
  Most important are research articles. Some
  journals specialize in these, e.g. Journal of
  Advanced Nursing.

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Books and Journals Journals - 2

• Some journals are general, e.g. Nursing Standard.
  Others are specialised, e.g. Journal of Nursing
  Management, British Journal of Surgery.
• Printed journals are held on the shelves with the
  books. Find printed journals on Talis by limiting
  the Advanced Search to Serials.
• Electronic journals are held in an A-Z list of
  journal titles in Resources on the Library web
  site. If you know the name of the journal you are
  looking for then this is where to find it. The
  University subscribes to thousands of electronic
  titles.

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Databases - 1

• Databases hold details of thousands of articles
  taken from hundreds of journals. These can be
  searched in a variety of ways.
• Different databases are appropriate for different
  subjects. Databases likely to be useful to
  Nursing, Midwifery and Health Care students are
  collected together on the Resources web page.
• An Athens username and password is required to
  access most of these resources from off campus.
• Another link on the Resources page is to
  Statistics databases. These are official
  statistics databases and web sites which provide
  a wealth of health-related information.

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Databases - 2

• Full Text and Bibliographic. The library
  subscribes to these two types of database.
• Full text databases cover fewer journals (though
  still hundreds) and may not go so far back in
  time. The benefit is that they offer the full
  text of the journal articles to read and print.
  They are a good place to start searching and you
  may find you get all you need without having to
  try a bibliographic database.

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Databases - 3

• Bibliographic. These databases do not offer the
  full text of articles. Instead they give the
  citation details that is, the journal name,
  date, volume number, part number, author(s),
  article title and page numbers. An abstract, or
  summary, of the article may also be available.
• The coverage is generally larger than the full
  text databases.
• There are often more powerful search features.
• Use the SFX button to connect to full text or go
  to the Find eJournals List (A-Z list)

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Databases - 4

• Before beginning a search read through the
  database list and think about which database is
  appropriate to your needs. Different databases
  cover different health subject areas
• clinical and general topics - Cinahl, PubMed,
  Full Text resources
• research - Cinahl, Cochrane,
  National Research Register
• midwifery - Maternity and Infant
  Care (was MIDIRS)
• social sciences - ASSIA, Social Science
  Citation Index
• mental health - PsychInfo, Cinahl,
  PubMed, Full Text.

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Online Searching See Searching Online Resources
slides for detailed guide.

• Choose keywords carefully. Your topic may have
  several. Use broader and narrower terms. Use
  synonyms.
• Check your spelling. If you dont spell it
  correctly it wont be found. Be aware of British
  versus American spelling, for example
  paediatric/pediatric, tumour/tumor.
• Many databases are published in the USA and have
  a lot of US material. Cinahl can be set to look
  for UK journals. Using UK as a keyword can work
  sometimes. Using British rather than American
  spellings and terminology can eliminate US
  material.
• Use the word AND to combine keywords, e.g.
  diabetes and myocardial infarction

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References See References and Bibliographies
handout for detailed guide. Printed copies are
available in the library.

• Keep details of all the references you use
  books, chapters, journal articles, web pages,
  etc. You will need the citation details of any
  materials you use in your assignments.
• For a book, citation details are
  Author(s)/Editor(s), Author and page numbers of
  chapter (where a book has chapters by different
  authors), Title, Edition (if not first edition),
  Year of Publication, Publisher, Place of
  Publication, and if you are using direct
  quotations page numbers of the quotes.
• For a journal article you need Author(s), Title
  of Article, Name of Journal (sometimes called
  Source), Date or Year, Volume, Part or Issue
  number, page numbers.