articles

Making finding full-text easier

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Whether you've got the title of an article you're looking for, want to look at the latest issue of a journal, or want to be able to access full-text articles when searching the web, there are a number of ways library and knowledge services can help.

From searching within the NHS Knowledge and Library Hub, using BrowZine, using LibKey Nomad, or using Google Scholar Library Links, our short guide and video show you how to make finding full-text a bit easier.

And if there is no full-text available, it's easy to request items from the library and let us do the leg-work!

Watch the video

Experience of Care Week

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Experience of Care Week is an international initiative to celebrate the work that is happening across health and social care to keep improving experiences of care for patients, families, carers and staff.

Experience of Care Week runs from the 25th to the 29th April 2022, and to celebrate the library will have displays with posters, books and useful information available at both sites.

Our librarians have put together a guide with links to useful journal articles about patient experience which is available to download - Experience of care week materials or you can pick up a paper copy from the library.

Changes to advanced searching for articles

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At the end of March 2022, the Healthcare Databases Advanced Search (HDAS) interface provided by NICE for advanced searching for articles is going to be turned off. The same quality databases will still be available however (Medline, CINAHL, EMBASE and more) but these will then be searched via their provider interfaces (EBSCO, Ovid or ProQuest).

This does mean that there are new interfaces to learn (though the principles of searching remain the same) and you may need to search across two or even three different interfaces for comprehensive coverage of a topic using different databases (for example, if you're doing a systematic review).

The good news is that for many searches, the NHS Knowledge and Library Hub provides an easy way to search for articles and grey literature across a range of databases and information sources.

For more advanced searching needs, we will be producing search guides and offering training on how to make the best use of the provider interfaces.

We already have some guides that may be helpful.

We have a guide to Searching Medline and CINAHL via EBSCO, and we also have a guide to the use of different Search Operators across a wide range of healthcare databases (including how to access the thesaurus, how to do proximity searches, and whether a databases offers Boolean operators). If you're unsure of even which database to start with, we have a rough outline of the coverage of the main healthcare databases for literature searching.

 

 

 

Evidence at your fingertips with the new NHS Knowledge and Library Hub

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The NHS Knowledge and Library Hub is a new way to search for journal articles. Covering a wide range of databases, including Medline and CINAHL, the Hub allows you to perform simple or more complex searches, and access the full-text with a single-click (where available). Where we don't have access to the full-text, it is easy to request a copy, and the details of the item are automatically added to the request form.

The Hub offers a range of features to make searching for knowledge and evidence easier:

  • Search across a wide range of databases simultaneously to locate journal articles and grey literature such as reports and conference proceedings
  • Filter your search by date, publication type or by database
  • Access the PDF full-text with a single-click where available, or request a copy
  • Repeat your search with a single-click in a range of evidence resources such as UpToDate (SaTH only), BMJ Best Practice, Trip database, the Cochrane Library, or in our book and e-book collections
  • Access individual databases such as Medline, CINAHL and EMBASE for advanced searching including thesaurus terms
  • Email, print or save references with formatted citations in formats such as Harvard

The Hub requires an NHS OpenAthens account for access, and it is available to all NHS staff and learners.

Download our Guide to Searching the NHS Knowledge and Library Hub for more information on making the best use of the Hub and all its features.

Finding full-text in Google Scholar

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Whilst we don't advocate relying on Google Scholar for finding articles (much better resources are available, such as HDAS) we know that it can be useful for quick searches, citation searching, or sometimes just to see if it throws up things that might be further down the search results in other databases.

If you do choose to use Google Scholar, it's possible to select a library's journal holdings so that when you search it, you'll see links to any available full-text articles.

To enable this feature, click on the menu button at the top left (the 'hamburger' icon) and select 'Settings'. Click 'Library Links' and then enter a search term (e.g. 'keele'). Library links are available for Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust, Keele University and Staffordshire University. Up to five libraries can be selected.

If you're using a SaTH PC, library links for Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust are already automatically added, but you can select other ones.

To ensure your preferences are saved for next time, you'll need to be logged in with your Google account. Don't forget, you'll also need an NHS OpenAthens account, or your university login to access the full-text once you've found it!