
With the changes at Welch, a question we get asked often is “How ever will I be able to browse?” Browsing online is possible in many, many ways, and below we list a few of our favorites. The bad news: if you like the feel or smell of paper, you will have to include the added step of hitting the print button.
Suppose you want to browse for:
Books by an author
Amazon. Once you’ve found a work you recognize as being by your author, click on his or her name and this will pull up a list of all the books in Amazon with that author.
WorldCat Identities http://worldcat.org/identities/ . To see the most popular books by an author we like this service. (e.g., http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n89-225241 -- for Dr. Nichols)
New books
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Worldca http://worldcat.org etc. Most search engines have a feature that lets you limit by year. Do a search for a topic or author and then limit your results to the current year. See this video for an example of how it works in the Johns Hopkins library catalog. Hopkins library catalog http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&list=PL1DA5A2D1519D11D0&v=B_oRse_267c
Latest on my topic
Pubmed. A search in PubMed always returns it’s results by “Most recently added.” So, whenever you do your search, you’ll see the latest information on your topic at the top of the results list.
Current issues of a journal I know
On a familiar subject, physicians often know the relevant journals and the easiest thing to do is go to the website of the journal and search there. Many journals now offer a pre-print or articles in press service for very current articles on a topic. To stay up to date afterwards, many journals allow you to register your search for an alert service. The journal runs your search on a fixed schedule and if the results include new things they will email you those citations.
Introduction to a new subject
Google Scholar -- limit to current year. While Wikipedia is good for getting a general overview of many topics, it doesn’t always work that well for clinical questions. Google Scholar covers the medical literature and allows you to limit your results to the current year.
Google. Plain Google is good for pulling up media writing on medical treatments or issues.
Questions or Comments? Feel free to send my way
Alonzo LaMont
alonzo@jhmi.edu
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