Slides from a workshop on evaluating literature databases for research in public health for undergraduates in the urban public health program at Hunter College.

1. +
Evaluating Databases and Keeping Track of
your Research
John Pell
Assistant Professor
Hunter College Libraries

2. +
Overview
KeepingTrack of your
Research: Citation
Management
EvaluatingDatabases for
Public Health Research

3. +
Keeping Track of your
Research
Citation Management

4. +
Citation Management in Word
Within the “References”
tab, you can “Manage
Sources.” In the long run, it makes it easy
to insert citations and create a
bibliography, but you have to
type out each source (and it
doesn’t support AMA.)

5. +
Keeping Track of your Research
with RefWorks
Citation Managers like Refwork
offer tools for capturing information
from the web, without any typing.

6. +
In Class Exercise 1: Create Your
Refworks Account and Set Up “RefGrab-
it.”
 Open Internet Explorer (RefWorks exhibits some glitches in
Firefox.)
 Go to RefWorks.com and create a your account.
 To set up RefGrab-it:
 Go to the “Tools” Menu
 Select “RefGrab-it”
 Save the “RefGrab-it Bookmarklet” in the favorites bar.
 Test RefGrab-it in PubMed.

7. +
Evaluating Databases for
Public Health Research
Scope, content, organization, and special features.

8. +
In Class Exercise 2: Evaluating 3
Research Databases
PubMed
Web of Science
SocINDEX

9. +
In Class Exercise 2: Evaluating 3
Research Databases
 What range of subjects is covered in the database?
 What type of content is available in the database?
 How is the database organized? Is there a controlled
vocabulary?
 What features are available for keeping track of research in the
database?
To get your group started, run a search on:
Social determinants of health
In your database.

10. +
In Class Exercise 2: Evaluating 3
Research Databases
PubMed
Scope?
Content?
Organization?
Features?

11. +
In Class Exercise 2: Evaluating 3
Research Databases
Web of Science
Scope?
Content?
Organization?
Features?

12. +
In Class Exercise 2: Evaluating 3
Research Databases
SocINDEX
Scope?
Content?
Organization?
Features?

13. +
Selected Database Features

14. +
Citation Tracking in Web of Science

15. + Discovering Connections through MeSH
Terms and the Sociology Thesaurus

16. +
Collecting Resources in EBSCO
Add articles to your
“folder.”

17. +
Collecting Resources in Web of
Knowledge
Add selected articles to
your “marked list.”

18. +
Collecting Resources in PubMed
Send selected articles to
the “clipboard” by
clicking on “Send to:”
and then, “Add to
Clipboard,”

19. +
Exporting from EBSCO
EBSCO supports direct
export to RefWorks

20. +
Exporting from EBSCO
EBSCO offers a tool for
retrieving formatted
citations for individual
records.

21. +
Exporting from Web of Knowledge
Direct export to
RefWorks is supported.

22. +
Exporting from PubMed
Direct export to
RefWorks is not
supported, but RefGrab-
It will work to capture
records.