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Frequently Asked Questions PagePhysician Assistant ProgramThis page is designed to provide students in Philadelphia University's Physician Assistant program with information about using Gutman Library and its resources for research assignments. Please submit your questions and suggestions for improving this page to Steven Bell. You will find the following questions on this page:
What are Gutman Library's hours? We maintain a schedule page within our site that lists our current schedule. The hours posted change as necessary to reflect holidays, intersession periods or other deviations from the normal semester schedule. How do I access the Library databases from off campus? Go to the Gutman Library Home Page and proceed as usual to connect to any database. When you are off campus you will be taken to a screen that prompts you for your Philadelphia University network account. Provide this information as requested and you will be connected to the database. For more information with instructions see the OIT page on remote access to library databases. What are good databases for a PA course research project? It may depend on the exact topic and what sort of information you need (e.g., scholarly, clinical, layperson, etc.), but Gutman Library has several databases that will provide access to medical and allied health literature. They are:
Can I get the full text of articles from the New England Journal of Medicine? Yes, Gutman Library has a subscription to the NEJM (in print in the library) that allows us to access their online content. A username and password are required to access the NEJM articles. For instructions on how to do this go to the supplemental page. How do I find out if a medical journal I need can be found in full-text, either in print or e-format, through Gutman Library? Gutman Library does not have an extensive collection of medical journals in print, but we do have considerably more in e-format. To determine if we subscribe to a journal in print, search for it in our Gutman Library online catalog (which is accessed from the home page - click on find books). Here is a TIP - when you search for a journal in our catalog, use the "journal title browse" search rather than "general keyword". Go to the supplemental page to see an example of performing a search in our online catalog. Remember, all Gutman Library print journals are kept in alphabetical order by title. Current issues are on the main level, and bound (older issues) volumes are kept on the lower level. If Gutman Library doesn't own the journal in print or if you only want an e-format version, check our "A-Z Journal List". To do this go to the Gutman Library Home Page and click on "Find Journals By Title." That will take you to our JournalList page where you can search a title by name or browse it alphabetically. Go to the supplemental page to see an example of finding an electronic journal using JournalList. If Gutman Library doesn't own the journal you need in either print or electronic format we will be glad to obtain it for you via an interlibrary loan (ILL) request to another library. It is easy to complete and submit the ILL request online on our web site. How do I request an interlibrary loan (ILL) request for a journal article or book? We have detailed information on submitting ILL requests on our web site. You can request a book or journal article (or almost any kind of document in any format). ILL requests average 5-7 working days to fulfill, so please allow sufficient time to request items. For more information visit our ILL web page. If Gutman Library does not own a book you need or if the book you need is already on loan, you can use EZBorrow to request the book from another academic library. You request the book yourself (no forms to submit to our ILL office), and you are notified by e-mail when the book arrives. There is more information about EZBorrow on the ILL web page. Should I search Medline on PubMed or FirstSearch? It can sometimes come down to personal preferences, but the reference librarians at Gutman Library are highly experienced search experts and we recommend that students use FirstSearch. There are three reasons. First, the advanced search interface allows for much better search strategies. Second, if you do want to visit other area libraries to find your journal articles, the "Libraries That Own This" feature of First Search can be convenient as it will allow you to determine in advance which area libraries have the journal or book you need. Third, if you want to request an ILL, First Search offers an ILL button that makes it convenient to place such requests (for an example see "What are good databases for a PA Course Research Project"). What is Refworks and how can it help me? Refworks is web-based personal bibliographic software. It can help you several ways. First, it allows you to create your own, personalized database of any and all citations you wish to store while you are a student at Philadelphia University. You can use it for a single project to store all of the citations you'll be using for a course research project, or you can store all the citations for any and all projects you conduct as a student. Refworks is fully searchable so you can locate a citation you stored by author, title, or keyword. Second, several of our databases, including both ProQuest and First Search, allow you to automatically export citations you locate directly to Refworks. This allows you to quickly and conveniently retrieve citations you want to use again or to incorporate them into your research papers. Third, and best of all, you can format the citations you add to Refworks in any of dozens of formats, and you can even have it create a bibliography out of selected citations. Finally, you get your own Refworks account so that you can access your citations from anywhere you have an internet connection. For more information or to establish an account go to our Refworks web page. For more information about Refworks, you can stop by the library or call to speak to any of our librarians. Several of our Gutman Library databases and e-journal systems allow you to create an e-mail Table of Contents (TOC) alert. Whenever a new issue of that journal is added to one of our databases (whether it is available in full-text or not) you will receive an e-mail message that lists the contents along with links to the articles. Some of the sources that allow this include ProQuest, ScienceDirect, and SpringerOnline. In addition, there are other publishers that allow anyone to create a TOC alert for their journal titles, but they do not provide full-text access. However, you can request article using interlibrary loan. The valuable feature of TOC alerts is that they let you stay up with the latest information and research in a given field of study or practice. For more information, see this page on TOC alerts. For more information about any of these topics or to suggest other questions for this FAQ page please contact Steven Bell. |
