 Reliable Search Engines and Data Bases

 Information literacy is defined as knowing when and why you need information,
where to find it, and how to evaluate, use and communicate it in an ethical
manner. The familiarity with the publication culture of your scientific discipline is
an essential part of information literacy.
 The choice of information sources depends on the need: do you need, for
example, articles, statistics or official information? Is it a matter of collecting
extensive scientific data about the research topic or finding a single piece of
factual information? An extensive information search might involve many
different kinds of searches.

 SLIDE 2
 Databases and search engines are both capable of search for data and
handling queries. Each technology relies on different paradigms to organize and
retrieve information.
 While databases can store and retrieve a vast amount of structured
data, search engines can search unstructured text.

 SLIDE 3
 WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A DATABASE, A SEARCH ENGINE,
AND WIKIPEDIA
 DATABASES
 ACADEMIC SEARCH ULTIMATE PSUNCINFO ETC
 USUALLY A COLLECTION OF PUBLISHED JOURNALS AND MAGAZINES
ARTICLES. DISSERTATIONS, REVIEWS, AND ABSTRACTS
 A database is a large collection of information that is organized for easy
searching retrieval.
 Databases are so useful information is organized articles and other types of
information are collected organized and made available by the database provider
because it has been organized.
 You can usually search for information by keyword subject heading author title
and more, this can make your results very relevant.

 SEARCH ENGINES
 GOOGLE BING ETC
 A SERVICE THAT UTILIZES A COMPUTER PROGRAM TO SEARCH THE INTERNET
AND IDENTIFY ITEMS THAT MATCH THE CHARACTERS AND KEYWORDS
ENTERED BY A USER.
 Search engines are answer machines. They scour billions of pieces of content
and evaluate thousands of factors to determine which content is most likely to
answer your query.

 Search engines do all of this by discovering and cataloguing all available content
on the Internet (web pages, PDFs, images, videos, etc.) via a process known as
“crawling and indexing,” and then ordering it by how well it matches the query in
a process we refer to as “ranking.” 

 WIKIPEDIA
 A FREE, ONLINE ENCYCLOPEDIA WITH ENTRIES THAT CAN BE CREATED,
ADDED AND EDITED BY ANYONE

 BENEFITS
 DATABASES
 PURCHASES BY THE LIBRARY
 SEARCH FOR INFORMATION IN AN ORGANIZED COLLECTION
 MORE RELEVANT RESULTS
 INFORMATION IS STABLE
 CONTENT IS REVIEWED AND RECOMMENDED BY LIBRARIANS

 SEARCH ENGINES
 FREE TO ANYONE WITH COMPUTER ACCESS
 USEFUL FOR FINDING INFORMATION ON GROUPS AND ORGANIZATIONS
 USEFUL FOR FINDING PERSONAL WEB PAGES

 WIKIPEDIA
 GOOD FOR GATHERING BACKGROUND INFORMATION
 HELPS GENERATE SEARCH TERMS
 CONSULT THE WIKIPEDIA BIBLIOGRAPHIES TO FIND THE POTENTIAL
SOURCES
 SLIDE 4
 CRITERIA FOR DATABASE CHOICE
 Databases can be divided into reference, full text and factual databases. They
can be multidisciplinary or they may concentrate on one single discipline or topic
area. When running an information search, one should also keep in mind how
broad or deep the results should be in terms of, for example, time span or
geography.
 The choice of suitable database(s) for your information search is affected by
many factors. Here are the major factors:
 SUBJECT MATTER - Some databases are multidisciplinary, but others focus on a
particular discipline or subject matter. For example, the Web of Science covers a
number of disciplines. Often one has to perform searches in two or more
databases to be sure that the subject matter is covered.

 RELIABILITY OF INFORMATION - When evaluating the reliability of an

information source, it is important to establish the background of the source of
information. Does it come from a scientific or professional expert, or is it
functioning from ideological or commercial considerations? University libraries
make their choices about databases with a view to their suitability for gathering
scholarly information. The quality of a database can also be assessed by looking
to see if, for example, it offers tools for analysis. There is also variation in the
quality of references which databases contain

 TIME SPAN - There is variation in the time span covered by reference databases.
The majority of e-journal databases contain information from the 1990's to the
present day. It is also worth noticing how often the database is updated.

 GEOGRAPHIC COVERAGE - The geographic coverage of databases varies. For

example, the economics database ABI/INFORM is rather US centred, whereas
ProQuest European Buisness focuses on Europe.

 AVAILABILITY OF MATERIAL - E-journal databases offer full-text articles,

depending upon the terms of the access rights agreement. The availability of the
sources contained in the search results from the reference databases (from Oulu
University Library or other libraries in Finland, the Internet or abroad) must be
checked separately. If only a citation found in a database, with SFX you can see
whether the item is available electronically and link directly to the full-text.

 LANGUAGE OF A USER INTERFACE AND CONTENTS - English is the language for

searches in most international databases used at the University of Oulu.
References and their abstracts are in English, even though the publication itself
might, for example, be in Japanese.
  THE USABILITY OF A DATABASE AND THE AVAILABLE TOOLS - To which fields
can one limit a search? Is it possible to combine more than two search terms in a
search string? Is it possible to combine results lists from separate searches?
Does the database contain an in-built thesaurus? Can references be exported to
a reference management program etc.?

Educational search engines

Examples of search engines
 SLIDE 5 AND 6
 GOOGLE SCHOLAR
 GOOGLE SCHOLAR WAS LAUNCHED BY GOOGLE IN NOVEMBER 2004 TO MUCH
PUBLICITY, WITH THE AIM OF MAKING ACADEMIC CONTENT EASILY
AVAILABLE
 GOOGLE SCHOLAR SEARCHES PUBLISHERS’ DATABASES AND OPEN ACCESS
REPOSITORIES, THEREBY MIMICKING THE ATTIRIBUTES OF A METASEARCH
ENGINE, WHICH SEARCHES ACROSS PARTICULAR RESOURCES AND BY MEANS
OF OTHER SEARCH ENGINES AS OPPOSED TO RANDOMLY SEARING THE WEB
 Google Scholar was created as a tool to congregate scholarly literature on the
web. From one place, students have the ability to hunt for peer-reviewed papers,
theses, books, abstracts and articles from academic publishers, professional
societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.

 SLIDE 7
 MICROSOFT ACADEMIC
 MICROSOFT ACADEMIC TAKES A DIFFERENT APPROACH AND GENERATES FOR
EACH PAPER THAT IS INDEXED AN OVERVIEW PAGE THAT ALLOWS TO EASILY
EXPLORE TOP CITING ARTICLES AND REFERENCES OF THE ARTICLE
 Operated by the company that brings you Word, PowerPoint and
Excel, Microsoft Academic is a reliable, comprehensive research tool. The
search engine pulls content from over 120 million publications, including scientific
papers, conferences and journals. You can search directly by topic, or you can
search by an extensive list of fields of study. For example, if you’re interested in
computer science, you can filter through topics such as artificial intelligence,
computer security, data science, programming languages and more.
 SLIDE 8
 SCIENCE GOV
 SCIENCE.GOV SEARCHES OVER 60 DATABASES AND OVER 2,200 SCIENTIFIC
WEBSITES TO PROVIDE USERS WITH ACCESS TO MORE THAN 200 MILLION
PAGES OF AUTHORITATIVE FEDERAL SCIENCE INFORMATION INCLUDING
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT RESULTS
 Science.gov is operated and maintained by the Office of Science and Technical
Information, the same department that collaborates on WorldWideScience.org.
This search engine pulls from over 60 databases, over 2,200 websites and 200
million pages of journals, documents and scientific data. Search results can be
filtered by author, date, topic and format (text or multimedia).

 SLIDE 9
 TOP LIST OF RESEARCH DATABASES FOR MEDICINE AND HEALTHCARE
 PUBMED - This site is perfect for those studying anything related to healthcare or
science. PubMed Central is operated by the National Center for Biotechnology
Information, a division of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. The database
contains more than 3 million full-text journal articles. It’s similar to PubMed
Health, which is specifically for health-related research and studies, and
includes citations and abstracts to more than 26 million articles.

 COCHRANE LIBRARY - (named after Archie Cochrane) is a collection

of databases in medicine and other healthcare specialties provided
by Cochrane and other organizations. At its core is the collection of Cochrane
Reviews, a database of systematic reviews and meta-analyses which summarize
and interpret the results of medical research. The Cochrane Library aims to make
the results of well-conducted controlled trials readily available and is a key
resource in evidence-based medicine.

 EMBASE - Embase (often styled EMBASE for Excerpta Medica dataBASE) is

a biomedical and pharmacological bibliographic database of published literature
designed to support information managers and pharmacovigilance in complying
with the regulatory requirements of a licensed drug. Embase, produced
by Elsevier, contains over 32 million records from over 8,500 currently published
journals from 1947[1] to the present. Through its international coverage, daily
updates, and drug indexing with EMTREE, Embase enables tracking and retrieval
of drug information in the published literature.
  SLIDE 10
 SIGNIFICANT USE IN HEALTHCARE
 THE INTERNET IS NOW THE MAJOR WORLDWIDE MEDICAL COMMUNICATION
TOOL. TO AVOID WASTE OF TIME, IMPROVED SEARCH ENGINES ARE NEEDED,
IN TERMS OF ACCURACY AND EFFICIENCY. THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY HAS
BEEN FACING THE PROBLEM OF INFLATION OF MEDICAL INFORMATION. DUE
TO INFORMATION EXPLOSION, IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO FIND ACCURATE
INFORMATION.
 Healthcare databases are an important part of running the entire operations.
Such systems include labs, finances, patient identification, tracking, billing,
payments, among others. The reality is that almost everything runs on a
database system and we cannot underscore the importance of technology in
healthcare.
 SOME BENEFITS INCLUDE EFFICIENCY. WHY? LET ME GIVE YOU A SCENARIO
Every time a patient visits a medical institution, there is a lot of information that
is collected. Where the patient requires seeing many different practitioners, the
diagnosis, procedures, drug prescriptions, or any other intervention, needs to be
on record. This process will require the safe storage of data.
Now, imagine a typical day and the number of patients who come to the
hospital. Well-designed hospital databases are important for the collection of
patient information. It will also assist in achieving efficiency due to the
processing of data, thus giving the Healthcare provider relevant information with
a click-of-a-button.

 SECOND, In the case that a patient needs the services of healthcare providers in
different hospitals, a system needs to be in a place that helps in the exchange of
information. Hospitals need to exchange healthcare data anytime there is a
requirement. It is therefore important that there is function integration through
things like patient identification, healthcare access control, and order
management services, among others. Technology is essential because standards
for the workflow are an important requirement.

HEALTHCARE DATABASES HAVE A WIDE RANGE OF OTHER USERS

INCLUDING:

• Provision of accurate, up-to-date patient information

• Increase in efficiency due to quick access to records
• Safety of patient information
• Help with diagnosis and prescription. It will help in reducing medical
errors
• Improving patient and healthcare interaction
• Assists with documentation and billing
• Reduction in medical facility running costs due to less paperwork and
clerical staff
 All of these freely available search engines have their limitations, and they rarely
give you the perfect answer to your clinical query. But they do at least help to
reduce the obstacles to finding medical information online. 

 A database is a large collection of information that is organized for easy

searching retrieval.
 Library database includes information from magazines journals newspapers and
electronic books.
 The library subscribes to many different databases much like subscribing to
individual magazines or newspapers.
 What makes library databases so useful information is organized articles and
other types of information are collected organized and made available by the
database provider because it has been organized.
 You can usually search for information by keyword subject heading author title
and more, this can make your results very relevant.
 How do databases different from a search engine? information on the open web
is not collected and organized in any meaningful way.
 Search engine scour an immense amount of articles ads propaganda opinions of
every variety full text books government documents and so much more.
 But they lack the advanced search capabilities provided by most databases.
 Searching this vast pool of information using only a simple keyword search can
make finding relevant results more difficult.
 When it comes to reliability, library databases provide you with online access to
thousands of high quality full text magazines journals newspapers and more.
 Most information included in databases has gone through an editorial process if it
checked for accuracy and reliability.
 information you find using a search engine often has not gone through an
editorial process.
 Anyone can publish whatever they like on the web, which means there is no
guarantee that the information found on the web is credible or reliable.
 Using the library's databases, essentially there are two basic types of databases
made available by the library. One is general and the other one is specialized.
 General databases provide access to thousands of books and articles for
magazines newspapers and journals cited virtually all subjects. Some examples
include research proquest and academic search complete.
 Specialized databases collect and organize information based on specific subjects
or disciplines such as business health, art history. Some examples include
business source.
 Databases are organized by subject to help you select an appropriate one for
your topic.
 You can find these by going to the database this link and the library's homepage.
 Librarian can also help you select the database because librarians are expert
searchers and are here to help you find the information you need to be
successful so contact a librarian if you ever get stuck or have a question.