I.  Introduction

A. Nurses at Methodist Hospital have a variety of resources available for use in their professional and educational research.  The
following definitions will help make sense of terms that we use in today's instruction. 

1. Online databases—Collections of electronic copies of articles from journals and magazines that are provided by companies like EBSCO.  These are different from "web pages" as they are the published articles—not someone's unsupervised web site.
2. Index—Some databases do not allow you to read full articles, instead they act as a list—or index—of articles.  These articles are listed by subject, by author's name, and by title.
3. Full Text—The full article is available.  Many databases just list articles, to read full length articles look for those listed with the term "Full Text."
4. Abstracts—Short synopsis of an article; in some databases like MEDLINE the bulk of the articles listed are available only as abstracts.
5. Catalog—A library catalog is a list of the books, videos, DVDs available through that library; online catalogs allow you to find what a library has without physically going to the library.
6. Interlibrary Loans—When a library doesn't have an item (usually a book or article) and someone needs that item, the library will ask other libraries to provide it on short term loan.  The library at Methodist Hospital can get interlibrary loans from around the country.

B.  The Hartfield Library contact information:

1. Phone: 270-831-9760
2.  Email addresses: mike.knecht@kctcs.edu, Kevin.reid@kctcs.edu, Saundra.voegel@kctcs.edu

II.  How to access online resources at Methodist Hospital

 A.  What is the KYVL (Kentucky Virtual Library—www.kyvl.org)?

 B.  Accessing databases through the KYVL page (there are two methods)

 1.  Accessing databases directly from the KYVL page

a.  Go to the Methodist Hospital home page, select "Favorites" then choose "KYVL."

i.  Image of Methodist Home Page

aa.

ii.  Image of KYVL page

aa.

2. Select "Find Books, Articles, and More"

i.  Image of "Find Books…."

aa.

3. You can connect directly to a database by clicking on its icon, for example, to go directly to "CINAHL with Full Text," just select
that icon.

i.  Example of connecting directly to "CINAHL with Full Text."

4.  The other databases are generally available directly through the "EBSCO Host" icon.  After you choose this icon, you then need
to click on "EBSCOHost" and select any  database from those displayed.

i.  Example of connecting to "EBSCO Host."

ii.  Example of clicking on the option, "EBSCOHost"

iii.  Example of the display of available databases.

iv.  Example of a search screen from a selected database, in this case "CINAHL with Full Text."

   

 

C.       Alternately you can access databases through MetaLib

1.       Example of the KYVL link to MetaLib.

2.       Example of MetaLib search page.

3.       At the MetaLib search page you can choose a set of databases, for example the group titled "Health Care Professionals."

i. Example of choosing the "Health Care Professionals" set.

ii. Example of what the "Health Care Professionals" set looks like.

iii. Example of choosing one database from within a set.

iv. When connecting to a single database, sometimes a window appears with the button, "Connect to the Native Interface."  Here is an example of such a screen.

III. Searching basics

 A. These hints are for Basic Searches; for Advance Search options, refer to the KYVL Tutorial or the appropriate Help screens.

 B. Searching on EBSCO's CINAHL with Full Text:

1. Connect to the CINAHL with Full Text search screen.

2. Example of a search for "blood borne pathogens."

Image

3. Example of a page of results from a search.

4. Explain how to tell the difference between articles available only in abstracts or in full text

5.  Explain the difference between "HTML Full Text" and "PDF Full Text"

a. Example of HTML Full Text article.")

 b.      Example of PDF Full Text article

6.       How to Reduce the number of articles with on-screen tools (must also click on "Update Results")

a. "Linked Full Text"

b. "Filter by Publication Date"

c. "Narrow Results by" column on left of page

7. Searching for articles by periodical

a. "Publications" search

               i. Select "Publications"

                 ii. Search by Publication title.

 8.  Searching through multiple databases

                  i.  Go to the MetaLib screen and choose "Cross Search"

aa.  Screen capture of "Cross Search" tab

        ii. Select the sub category "Health + Nursing"

aa. Screen capture of "Health + Nursing" group of databases

                   iii.  Type in search term(s) in "Simple" or "Advanced" tabs

1. Note the difficulty of linking Full Text articles when searching multiple databases

2.  Advanced with search term "blood borne pathogens"

 3.  Advanced, "blood borne pathogens" and "full text"

 

 4.  Screen capture of a full text article and it's link

IV.  Selecting from among the databases

 A.       The KYVL "Health Care Professionals" or "Health + Nursing" collections are good places to start, but it is easier to control Full Text availability by choosing individual databases.  The databases below are listed in descending order of probable utility.

1. CINAHL with Full Text (Cumulative Index of Nursing and Health Literature)—This is the biggest and best nursing database in your package.  Many articles are available in full text (although many are only available in abstract form) and the articles date from 1981 through today, and a high proportion of the articles come from journals.
2. MEDLINE—This is the index for the National Library of Medicine.  As an index, it is more of a list of articles that were published than a smorgesboard of full text articles.  Full text articles are available as "Linked Full Text," and many come from journals. 
3. Lexi-PAL Drug Guide—This is a collection of pharmacological articles.  Each article includes brand names, purpose, side effects, instructions for storage and use, etc.  Note: the searching on Lexi-PAL is just a bit different from the searching in the other databases.
4. Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection—This features full text articles dealing with psychology that come from over 600 periodicals, many of which are journals.  This database also has linked full text articles from the PsychInfo database which is an index of articles.
5. ERIC (Educational Resource Information Center)—This is a database of education related articles, many from journals.  While primarily an index, ERIC also has many full text articles and documents.
6. Sociological Collection—This database has full text articles from over 500 periodicals focused on sociology.
7. Health Source Consumer Edition—This has full text articles from 80+ health magazines.  Note that this is a poor source for journal articles.

V.  Searching in Lexi-PAL

A. Lexi-PAL assembles articles by year, and does not offer a general search box.

1. Image of Lexi-PAL page

B. Click on the phrase "Search within this publication" in the right side of the green banner above the Lexi-PAL title. 

1.  Image with arrow to "Search within this publication."

 C. When the search screen opens add whatever term(s) you want after the phrase located in the box.  (Note: add the term using the word "and.")

1.  Look at the example of a search for information on gout medications.

2.  Image of this search. 

VI. Helpful Tips

A. Boolean operators

1. AND

Finds sources with the term "poverty" AND the term "crime" – this  narrows your search.  Unless the documents has BOTH words, it will not be selected.

2. OR

•Used to join synonymous or related terms

•Instructs the search tool to retrieve any record that contains either (or both) of the terms

•Broadening your search results.

3. NOT

NOT logic excludes records from your search results. Be careful when you use NOT: the term you do want may be present in an important way in documents that also contain the word you wish to avoid.

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