The Medical Library Association Essential Guide to Becoming an Expert Searcher (Medical Library Association Guides) (Medical Library Association Guides)

Take your health info search skills to the next level! What skills, resources, and techniques do expert searchers use when looking up health information? Here are the authoritative answers from the most authoritative source: the prestigious Medical Library Association s renowned trainer, Terry Jankowski. Ideal for use as a course text or a workbook for self-instruction, this utilitarian guide will teach you valuable strategies and techniques, regardless of your current skill level. Begin with the self-evaluation tool find out where you are on the novice-to expert continuum and then follow Jankowski through all of the components of an expert search, starting with the reference interview. A useful interview checklist and examples of librarian-user interactions will help you plan a successful, efficient search. Jankowski then guides you through the basics of search construction, offers practical guidelines for deciding what resource to start with, passes on tips and tricks from expert searchers, and reviews the usefulness of some of the most popular health science databases, like MEDLINE and PubMed, PsychInfo, CAB Abstracts, ABI/Inform, ERIC, and more. Featuring a dozen checklists and 30 exercises plus tips and strategies for maintaining and growing your skill set over time, here is your direct path to becoming an expert health information searcher.

...this excellent training guide will most likely become a classic textbook for courses and should be available in all health sciences libraries....a must read for all practicing and aspiring information professionals, no matter their level, no matter their discipline. --Journal of the Medical Library Association, April 2009

...useful for library school students and for librarians coming from other fields to a hospital or the health sciences library. --Reference and User Services Quarterly, Vol. 48, Issue 3

I would especially recommend this book to new librarians and library school students but it would also be useful to librarians at any level looking to brush up on their search skills. --Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, Fall 2008