Counseling and Therapy in Video

Today I looked at the Counseling and Therapy in Video Database. This database is a collection of videos that cover social work, psychotherapy, psychology, and counseling. There are 353 videos currently included in the database. Users can look at actual counseling sessions, lectures, demonstrations, and more. The videos are collected from universities, renowned scholars, and other psychological associations. I did a search on the site for counseling sessions, specifically sessions dealing with marriage. 186 videos were returned to me. I like how they are displayed because you get the title and link to the video as well as sections of the transcript that have your keyword, in this case marriage, in them. This allows users to quickly see if the video has content they may be interested in. Once a user finds a video they want to watch they can also follow along with the dialogue by the transcript that is printed beside the video. There is a sign in option that works like a folder system. Users can also get a link to the video to share with other people or they can make clips of the video. This is allows them to cut parts of the video that may not be relevant to what they need. I think this could be really useful for students. I had to do a speech that included a video. If I could have clipped the video just leaving the parts i needed for my speech it would have been really handy. I think this database is pretty cool. I could see it maybe being a little small and not having exactly what a user might need, and some of the videos are very dated, but other than that it is good.

American Chemical Society

Today I looked at the American Chemical Society Database. The database is a collection of cited and peer reviewed journals that have to do with chemical and other related sciences. The American Chemical Society publishes more than 35 journals that are made available through this database. Some topics covered by the journals are agriculture, nanoscience, toxicology, energy and fuels, and many more. Operating the database is fairly simple. There is a search bar in the top right hand corner where users can type in a topic, citation, or digital object identifier (a number assigned to electronic documents that does not change for the life of the document). I typed in Nanoscience. 5323 sources were returned to me. 81 of the were from chapters in actual books, the rest were articles made available by the database. There is a sidebar where users can limit there search by choosing different publications that offer information on the topic, or author, or publication date, or manuscript type. Once I found an article I wanted to read I hit the full text option and the article was brought up. There are many extra options on the article page. Users can make a permalink to the article, email to a colleague, order prints, and many other things. There is also a folder system that patrons can utilize by adding the document to "favorites". At the bottom of an article page the database includes reference citations used by the author. This could really come in handy for some one writing a research paper needing more than one source. The article page also had a history section that gives background information on the article such as publication date, author, and the journal the article was written for. There are links to similar articles and a list of publications written by that specific author on the page as well. I like this database because it is clean and easy to use. I may not know the terminology but it provides an easy and effective way for me to find out.

SPORTdiscuss

Today i review the ebsco host product, Sportdiscuss. It is like every other ebsco database as far as the set up goes, and the content is well...sports. :) I did a search on volleyball and it returned over 13000 entries so I would definitely recommend that patrons narrow their searches down when using this database. There is A LOT of content. Users can search in the opening search bar or do an advanced search that will limit by language, peer review, publisher, and much more. On the side bar patrons can select articles held by swosu and limit the year as well as subtopics. One new thing I did notice is the search history bar at the top of the page. Users can here view all of their previous searches and even combine them with Booleans to make their search more efficient. I think this is a really great little tool. Users can not only keep track of all their searches for future use but the combination option is really great, especially if a user isn't really sure what they are looking for. There is a folder system where patrons can save articles as well and a print, email, and export option. Ebsco is always very thorough and this database is no exception.

Facts and Comparisons

Today i looked at the Facts and Comparisons Database. It is a compilation of drug facts and drug comparisons. This database is fairly easy to use if the user knows drug names. There is a search option where users can search specific drugs. The advanced search option allows users to search certian fields of the database like cancer chemotherapy manual or the review of natural products section. On the home page there is a dosing tool that has different calculators on it. Users can type in the drug and the patients age and weight and get correct dosing infromation. There is also a drug identifier where users can type in a description of the drug, like the color or shape or imprit on the pill and the database will list possible matches for the drug. The database also provides a list of drug names that sound alike and are easily confused. There is also a list of drugs that look alike and may be confused. When users pull up a fact sheet on a drug the information is split into sections like drug interactions, adverse reactions and dosage information. This way users can just glance at the page and click on the section that they want to read about. The type is short and consise which is nice because users do not have to spend time sifting through information to find something useful. There is also a link at the top of the facts page that says related documents. Once clicked a list of other documents that may be helperful or that relate to the first drug is shown. this database offers an imunization schedules page that lists from birth to death when people should be imunized. I think that this database is really helpful. Besides all the drug information there are many tools and gadgets that even the everyday little drug knowledge person could use. The database is clean and very easy to use, and even though i am not a medical expert it seems to me like they really have a lot of helpful information.

National Guideline Clearinghouse

Today I looked at the National Guideline Clearinghouse database for healthcare professionals. The objective of the database is to provided healthcare providers with information, guidelines and even purchasers. The database is put together by a board of health care professionals. Healthcare providers can submit guidelines that are then reviewed by the board and even annually reviewed to insure that the information is up to date and still relevant. The database is user friendly but does not have alot of bells and whistles. There is a download option where users can open documents in other programs like word. One really neat option is the compare guidelines button. A patrons can select two or more guidelines and then hit the compare button and the database will line the guidelines up next to each other and compare the two against one another in each catagory. The database provides articles, guideline sheets and expert commentaries where users can comment.
After reviewing this database, I will say that it seems like it was not intended for people with little or not medical background. The information is cery technical and I can honestly admitt that more often than not I had no understanding of what I was reading. I think it could be very helpful for healthcare professionals or students that are at the end of their degree program, but probably not the beginners or someone in lets say, education. It did seem to me that there was alot of information. So for the right users I think it could be very helpful.

Family and Society Studies Worldwide

Tonight I looked at The Family and society studies worldwide database. The database includes articles about culture, families, education and much much more. This is an Ebsco Database so everything is pretty straight forward and easy to use. There is the basic search and then the more advanced search. One search i don't remember ever seeing before is the visual search. Users type a subject into the search bar and a search map appears. It breaks the results down into subheadings and even those subheadings have subheadings. You can limit just a few times and be down to one or two searches. Once you find a few that you may be interested in users can click it and see a summary at the side of their screen. It saves a little time going in and out of article pages that may or may not be useful. It is a really easy and visual way to narrow searches, and it is great for students who work better visually. One thing I did notice that makes browsing this database much easier is hitting the full text option on the side. My first search returned tons of results many being articles that i could not view. After limiting only full text articles the results were much more manageable and I actually found things worth my time. I also came across a few things that seemed a little amateur in their nature or just full of opinions so I think for class purposes it would be wise for patrons to also click the peer reviewed limiter. I think this database is a really great resource. It is easy to use and has a lot of information that could really be helpful to patrons.

Environment Complete

today i looked at the Environment Complete database. It is an Ebsco product so the screen is very clean and easy to understand at first glance. Users can choose to search using boolean or other search methods like "find all my search terms". There is also a limit option where users can choose to limit their searches by references held by swosu or full text results and others. I did a search on the Lynx. 36 results were returned which is pretty good, not too overwhelming. then i limited my search even more by cutting the publication date down to things published within the last ten years. I could have limited more by publication type, geography, or theasaurus terms. Once a user finds an article that intrests them they can open it and navigate their way through it using the "inside this work" bar to the left. By clicking the headings users can go right to the paragraph that may be useful to them. Users can print save and share articles right from the article page. there is also a folder and export system. This database is really easy to use but its not really too exciting, just useful :)