West Virginia University Charleston Division Library Finding Articles

PubMed: Searching for medical literature is most usually done on the database from the National Library of Medicine, called PubMed. Inputting keywords in the search box, you may use common phrases, e.g. myocardial infarction or parenteral nutrition, single keywords connected with the word "AND", or a mix of words connected with "AND", or "OR". Tips for best results include:

PubMed prefers the connector words to be in all caps, i.e. AND, OR, but keywords can be in lower case.

Group your related keywords when mixing ANDs and ORs with parenthesis, e.g. (cardiac OR heart) AND (smoking OR tobacco)

Although you can restrict your search to english language articles only (using the limit option), there are often translated abstracts with foreign language articles you may find useful. Although the article itself will be in german, italian, etc., an english language summary is available by clicking on the individual article.

A new service called "Linkout" allows us to identify our local holdings for you. After performing a PubMed search, clicking on the individual article will display the following icon if we subscribe to the journal:

Note: For this service to work, you must select PubMed from our library webpage.

Full-Text: Sometimes full text is available from the publisher (sometimes free and sometimes not), sometimes it's available only if you subscribe to the paper copy of the journal, sometimes it's available if the library subscribes to the journal (usually with a password), sometimes it's available from a computer on the WVU network if you go to the library page and click on databases...then click on full text databases (http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/database/fulltext_index.html) or e-journals (http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/ejournals). If you are a student in a WVU program, off-campus access is available to some databases (e.g. EbscoHost) ; other databases are accessible only from a WVU networked computer in a WVU facility, e.g. the West Virginia University Charleston Division building. If you would like to see a PowerPoint presentation on full-text, return to the library home page and select "PowerPoint library" in the center, or "Powerpoints" on the left sided blue menu bar.

Searching the Internet: the librarian's first choice for an internet search engine is often Google. Full text is sometimes found on an association, agency, or university site posted by the author.

Interlibrary Loan: If you need to order an article from another library, e.g. WVU in Morgantown, the National Library of Medicine, or another school's library, we have an online form available (ILL form).