Course Documents

Current Location: Section VII - Identifying the Appropriate Databases -- Journal Articles through FirstSearch

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Course Documents

 

SECTION VI

Identifying the appropriate databases- FirstSearch for Journal Articles

 

I.  FirstSearch: Many, if not more, of the research sources we need, will come from the non-book category (journals, newspaper articles, government documents, etc.)  It is true that we can find out if the University has a particular journal from Library Online Catalog or WorldCat, but we cannot search for specific articles in these databases.

 

For this, we must use other databases, and there are quite a few.  For the seasoned and some what removed doctoral student who has spent 30 years in the library working on his dissertation, these databases are as different as night and day.  Each one has strengths and weaknesses and he/she knows what they are and how to use them to the best advantage.  For normal students, however, who work and/or have families and a life, the choice of databases is almost overwhelming.  Hence, we will not try to learn or use them all.  We will only look at a few of the most powerful ones in our field. 

 

Just as we had a dichotomy in the literature (books versus non-books) there is a dichotomy developing in the non-book world, and I must say this one has even me excited!  It is electronic - versus non-electronic journals.  The former refers to Journals who's articles are available in full-text over the Internet.  More and more, it is becoming unnecessary to trudge across town in the wee hours of the evening to get a journal article, only to find it gone because someone has cut it out with a razor.  For DE students in particular, full text journal articles (and soon full text books) are the greatest invention since the wheel, if not cable TV.  We are not totally there yet, however, so we must still rely more often than not, on the databases for journals whose articles are not yet on-line.  We will look at them, the non-full text journal databases first.

 

You may have noticed on the DE Communication Disorders. Library Home Page…

 

http://library.csun.edu/mhenry/de-comdis.html

 

…in the left hand column, that two other databases are listed along with WorldCat under FirstSearch.  They are: Medline and Eric (see below).

 

 

Communicative Disorders Distance Learners:  Databases and Document Delivery (Left hand Column)

 

 

 

Medline and Eric are two very powerful databases for our field. We can access them directly from these links.

 

However, while we were in WorldCat through First Search, for example, we could access any of these databases  by clicking on the "DATBASES" tab link (see below)…

 

 

 

 

                                               

First Search (featuring WorldCat)

 

…and getting a list of all the databases in First Search.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Search (List All Databases)

 

                                   

 

We might note in passing that FirstSearch also has some additional databases that are very useful to the field of Communicative Disorders.  They include…

 

CINAHL--Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature

 

ASTA--Applied Science and Technology Abstracts, and

 

ArticleFirst – A review of the index of articles from nearly 12,500 journals

 

We can click on the database you wish to use.  But, please note also that you can actually click on a maximum of three of the databases to search all at the same time.   This will substantiallty increase the range of our search!

 

And remember that the little graphic  " " after many entries  in FirstSearch means that the journal is owned by the CSUN Library!  Equally important is this graphic, “” which indicates that the article is available online in full text!

 

Pursuing the search using Medline this time, and the search terms, “communication,” “disabled,” and “devices” …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Search (featuring Medline)

 

 

…we can obtain at this time 465 article references.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Medline Search Results

 

The first three listed references are flagged to be in Journals that are owned by the CSUN Library.  But none are indicated to be full text articles online.  Clicking the cursor on the first reference we get the full reference:

 

 

In addition to the typical Title, Author and Source information that is provided, Medline gives us a useful abstract and some Descriptive Terms that are helpful in expanding our search if necessary.

 

The search could also be further expanded by using the same search words with three (maximum) data bases, such as:  medline, eric and CINAHL:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Search (List All Data Bases)

 

Using the same search word terms (communication, disabled, devices) as we did before with Medline alone…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Search (MEDLINE, CINAHL, ERIC)

 

…we come up now, using three databases, with a total of 1,189 references.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Search Results (MEDLINE, CINAHL, ERIC combined)

 

We could reduce this number of references by perhaps sorting the list by date, so that we get the most recent articles first; and/or by using a more sophisticated Boolean search strategy.

 

An important database that is not accessible through First Search for Communication Disorders Students is Ingenta.  We will discuss that database in the next section.