Trip Database

Today I researched the Trip Database. It is a database that is designed for medical professionals to find supporting evidence on clinal practice. It gives the user articles that review medical studies. It shares the outcome and any cmplication along the way. It is almost like an overview of medical experiments. You can filter your searched on the side bar. Filters include things like evidence based Synopses, Guidlines, Systematic reviews and more. This is a really easy database to use and the more I think about it, the whole idea of this database is brilliant. It is one big place where all kinds of cutting edge medical information is all stored. Its a great way for medical professionals across the world to get information of what other people are doing and what is working and what is not. This database also has a community notice board that users can sign up to use so that they can be updated in their area of intrest. It also has a facebook myspace and twitter to keep users updated. This is a great database.

ArticleFirst

Tonight I researched the database ArticleFirst. This database is mcuh like many other databases as far as it's features go. It's basic search includes a keyword search as well as a time limiter, you can also search by relevance and by date. It has an advanced search and expert search that gets a little messy with all the truncations and plural signs. I used the basic search and found just what i was looking for. I did a pediatric oncology search and and found a little over 10,000 articles which was a little overwhelming but it did do tha job. There are tabs at the top of the page that will search for articles, books, and resources. You can do interlibrary loans right from the database, and even search the Swosu database for articles that we hold in our library. ArticleFirst has a folder and account system that works very well and it also keeps track of your previous searches. You can aslo email and export articles which is a nice feature. I think this database is a little confusing and and it takes a little bit of time really sifting through it it figure out exactly how to seach and ise the features. All in all though it works pretty well.

Biography Reference Center

Today I researched the Biography Reference Center Database. I was really impressed by how easy this data base is to use. Basically all a patron does is type in a person of intrest then hit search and that persons biography comes up. I searched Cheif Roman Nose, and it brought up his biography. If I were writing a paper about him this database would be very helpful. It gives information about his physical appearance as well as a time sketch of his life and the big events that took place during his life time. It gives geological information as well, describing places he settled and so on. This database, like many others, offers a folder system. On the home page it has a featured biography section. Each biography gives you citations and the source that the biography came from. It isn't the most exciting database I have visited but it definately does the job!

Zoological Record

Tonight my research project was the ISI Web of Knowledge Zoological Rocord Database. The more data bases I research the more simularities I see between most of them. This on like many others has a very effective avanced search. There are many limiters a patron can add to his or her search which makes for very particular search results. You can limit the search by species or by the type of resource you might be looking for, like books, articles, chapters, and meeting papers. You can search by author, title, year, and subject area. This database also allows you to export articles to endnote. One thing I thought was super neat was the language limiter. You can limit your search results to only show results in a specific language. This site does not seem as high tech and savvy as some I have seen in the past but it does the job. It isn't really fun and it doesn't get me excited about aminal records, but if someone needed the information, it would do the job.