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Literature search training is freely available to all Trust staff, academic staff and students based at this hospital.

Sessions may be either delivered to a group (up to 2 hours) or to an individual (1 hour). The training takes place at the Library but if this is inconvenient for you, we are happy to come to your ward or department.

Group training sessions are run throughout the year and are advertised via the Trust email and on our website home page. We can also tailor a session to meet the information needs of a particular group of staff. For more information or to book a one-to-one session, please contact us on 291 5780.

All our courses can be linked to from your e-KSF Personal Development Plan.

Literature Searching Skills
Cochrane Library
Google and Beyond
PubMed
Critical Appraisal: An introduction

Literature Searching Skills

Introduction to searching health databases such as Medline, Embase, CINAHL etc. Looks at how to construct a search strategy and effectively using keywords and how to make full use of a database's thesaurus to carry out a more advanced search.

Cochrane Library

Looks at the various parts of the Cochrane Library such as the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE) and how to effectively search the library to obtain relevant information.

Google and Beyond

Looks at Google's advanced features, including Google Scholar, search for images and maps, dictionary definitions, Google Directory, Google labs, Google Desktop, language features etc.

The session then looks at health information on the net including how to gain access to and exploit our own growing collection of electronic resources, the resources provided by the National Library for Health and a look at other various quality websites available on the internet.

PubMed

This session covers keyword and MeSh searching, applying limits, locating single citations and using PubMed's built in clinical queries filters.

Although there will be some work on search strategies, the main emphasis of this session is to provide practical experience of using the main features of PubMed using a range of health related queries.

Critical Appraisal: An introduction

This course will provide an introduction to critical appraisal and how to make sense of systematic reviews. During the second half of the two hour course you will also have an opportunity to critically appraise a paper.