December 12, 2005

Technology + PubMed Searching Tips

The University of Washington Health Sciences Libraries has created a very cool set of training “videos” online for PubMed. They use the Camtasia software to capture both actions taken on the screen as well as accompanying audio to create an online training “video.”

The Libraries have divided the videos into 18 categories, with each lasting 30 seconds to almost 5 minutes. Topics include Clinical Queries, the MeSH database, and Basic Search.

Now that I’m at UConn, I need to learn to be more proficient in PubMed – from this video, I learned how to limit my search to humans (or animals). And this is a great way to explain PubMed (and other databases’) advanced features to undergraduates, public library patrons, and even library school students.

Thanks to Greg Notess’ “On the Net” column in the Nov/Dec. 2005 issue of Online magazine. (Note: the article isn’t freely available online, but most major databases offer this in full-text, including Expanded Academic and Academic Search Premier).

1 comment:

emily said...

Very nice! There are also PubMed tutorial videos available from the National Library of Medicine.