Meet The Expert: Chris Childs, Clinical Education Librarian
Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy, Purdue University
Master of Library Science, University of North Texas
Chris Childs Clinical Education Librarian
Areas of Expertise:
Health sciences literature searching
Systematic reviews
EndNote
Teaching and training users
Collection development
Finding evidence-based resources
Outreach
Outside the library:
I’m a big fan of the National Park system and each year hike and camp at a different national park. My goal is to see all 59 parks and so far I have been to 33. I can’t go more than three days without having a book to read. History is my favorite non-fiction topic to read. My wife and I have a cat named Aurora we think is part Maine Coon. I enjoy travel outside of the United States as well and recently visited Europe.
Taken at 10:58 a.m., on Nov. 11, 1918, just before the Armistice went into effect; men of the 353rd Infantry, near a church, at Stenay, Meuse, wait for the end of hostilities. (SC034981)
Graduate students in the Health Sciences field are invited to come to our Boot Camp on Friday, November 9th! Workshops are scheduled throughout the day and there will also be dedicated writing time. Tutors and professional assistance will be available at all times to help answer questions specific to your needs.
Boot camp: a short, intense, and rigorous course of training.
Continental breakfast will be served at 8:00 am and the workshops will begin at 8:45 am. Participants are asked to arrive no later than 8:45 and stay through the final workshop which will finish at 5:15pm.
Hardin Library provides a variety of services to help you succeed!
Day in the Life of Medical Student Mark Moubarek, obstetrics class on delivering a healthy baby using a simulation mannequin. MS-3: Carver College of Medicine OB Clinic
Your department has a specialist librarian
Every department is assigned a liaison librarian, who can help you with all of your questions about the library and its resources.
Assistance with literature searches
The UI Libraries subscribe to hundreds of online databases, focused on a variety of disciplines and implementations, from point-of-care to basic science research. Your liaison can help you choose the right databases, the right headings, and the right strategy. Health Sciences databases All databases
Easy access to electronic journals and an app to help you read them on mobile devices A-Z list of electronic journals – we may have other issues in print as well! Browzine app for iOS, Android and Kindle lets you make a customized newsstand of journals to browse, read, and monitor.
Help with your systematic review or meta-analysis
The Institute of Medicine recommends working with a librarian or other information specialist to plan out your search strategy and to peer-review the final strategy used.
Work off-campus
All of our library resources are available off-campus but require authentication with your Iowa HawkID and password. Start at Hardin’s website.
Free interlibrary loan and document delivery
If you need an article or book that the UI Libraries doesn’t have, we can get it for you, for free. And if you need an article that we only have in print, we will scan it for you. No limits on the number of requests!
Mobile resources
Hardin subscriptions provide access to many mobile apps at no charge to you including UpToDate, DynaMed Plus, ClinicalKey, BMJ Best Practice and more.
Classrooms, Learning Lounge, Group Studies to reserve
The library has two computer classrooms and a learning lounge you can reserve for classes. We also have a variety of group study rooms which can also be reserved.
Hardin Open Workshops
Hardin librarians offer monthly workshops on topics like PubMed, EndNote, and avoiding predatory publishers. We can also bring any of our sessions to you individually or to your group.
Quick help when you need it
Whenever the library is open, we have trained reference staff available to answer questions. Contact us!
Hardin Library subscribes to Embase, a biomedical and pharmaceutical database. Embase is useful for systematic reviews or searching on food/diet/nutrition, medical devices or drugs.
If you are off-campus, you will be prompted for your Hawk ID and password.
Basic Searching Using the Quick Search Box
Identify the main concepts in your research question, so you can search for each concept separately. For example, a search about the effects of aspirin on heart attacks has two concepts — “aspirin” and “heart attack.”
Type your first concept in the Quick Search box on the homepage. Be sure to type slowly enough to let the database map your concept to the best Emtree term. See the screenshot on the right. Emtree terms are Embase’s controlled vocabulary, which are used by human indexers when they assign subject terms to articles. The mapping feature offered by the Quick Search box helps you get the most inclusive results.
When you see the mapped term that best matches your concept, stop typing and click on the mapped term.
Click on the Show xxxx results button and you will be taken to the Results page.
To continue searching for additional concepts, click the Embase logo at the top left of the Results page to return to the Quick Search box. Important: the Search box on the top of the Results page and the Quick Search box may look alike, but they are not the same.
Repeat Steps 2, 3 and 4 for additional concepts.
On the top of Results page, you can find your search History. Notice how Embase has searched your terms. For each term, it searches the concept as an Emtree term (i.e. ‘heart infarction’/exp) and as a text word from the titles and abstracts of articles. The “/exp” indicates that it’s an “explosion” in Emtree, meaning this search not only looks for the subject term you selected (i.e. heart infarction) but also many related subjects (i.e. acute heart infarction, heart ventricle infarction, etc).
Finally, combine your searches by checking the boxes to the left of each search and then clicking the Combine button. Be sure to select AND or OR, depending on your search.
Refining Your Search
On the Results page, there are several options in the gray bars beneath the search box. For example, if you click on Quick limits you will have the options to limit your search to Human subjects and English language.
There are also several options in the left side-bar of the Results page. For example, you can see how many citations there are in the most recent search in various subsets, e.g. age, gender, drugs used, and other diseases.
Exporting, Printing, and Saving References
Check the boxes to the left of references of interest.
Click on the “Print”, “Export”” or “Email” link located at both the top and the bottom of the search results and follow the prompts.
For EndNote Desktop, make sure the export format is RIS format (Reference Manager, ProCite, EndNote). For EndNote Web (Basic), make sure the export format is plain text and output is full record. When in EndNote Web (Basic), make sure the import option is EMBASE.com.
Finding Full Text
To see if full text is available, use the UILink button , located below the article title, authors, and journal title. Do not use the full text link right before the UILink button.
More than 5,500 new records are added to Embase every working day, corresponding to over 1.4 million records each year. Of these, about 83% are indexed by Embase and 17% are additional MEDLINE records licensed from the National Library of Medicine.
The library also subscribes to Scopus, but results will differ. Scopus includes most, but not all, Embase content, as well as the Embase index terms. Scopus searches focus on abstracts and citations, while a search in Embase provides additional insights as a result the structured full-text indexing of content.
Embase subheadings are not available on Scopus, so searches cannot be focused in the same way. For example, it is not possible to limit drug searches to records focusing on adverse effects.
Hardin Library’s 24-hour study got an update this summer.
The 24-hour lock was replaced on September 5. Now anyone with a valid Iowa One Card or hospital badge may access the study when the library is closed.
Hardin’s study area is open 24x7x365. When the library is open, enter the study from the library. When the library is closed, enter via the access panel.
You may return any University of Iowa library books in campus mail if it is more convenient for you.
image by Rousseau @pixabay.com
Please return these in person only:
recalled books
movies
interlibrary loan materials
books you were billed for
Print off and fill out Hardin Library book return form for each book you want to return and place in a campus envelope. You may return books which belong to any University of Iowa Library including Main, Sciences, Engineering, Business, Art, Music, and Law.
, located below the article title, authors, and journal title. Do not use the full text link right before the UILink button.
