Dental Hygiene--Satellite Campuses 

In order to access the full range of services available to you through EWU Libraries, you need to first set up a PIN or password. This will allow you to access your library account, request and renew books, and check out books at Summit libraries.

Use your iTech login for accessing EWU databases from off-campus. This is the same login that is used for EWU email and for computer labs on campus. The above link will allow you to activate or change your iTech login.

EWU tech support for students and faculty. Get help managing your iTech account, logging in from off-campus, and other nuts-and-bolts issues of basic access to EWU online resources.

If you live near one of the 30+ Summit Libraries in the Orbis-Cascade Alliance, you may check out books in person from any of the participating libraries. Be prepared to show your EWU ID and provide the PIN / Password you created. (NOTE: IN EARLY 2010, THIS WILL BE CHANGING TO THE ITECH LOGIN USED FOR OFF-CAMPUS DATABASE ACCESS.)

Use the Interlibrary Loan system to to request a book. (You'll need to create an account for yourself the first time you use the system.) You'll get free "door to door" delivery of books from the library's collection as well as from other libraries (interlibrary loan). We pay the postage -- your item will arrive with a pre-paid return label. Note: this service also works best when ordering books you have located in the EWU Library Catalog.

When the full text of an article you want is not available online, use the Interlibrary Loan system to to request it. (You'll need to create an account for yourself the first time you use the system.) The JFK Library Interlibrary Loan Department will find the article for you. Whether the article is physically available in the library's journal collection, or we have to obtain a copy from another library, we'll post a high-resolution electronic scan of your article to our web server.

A citation management program which facilitates collecting, organizing, and formatting your research references - makes APA and other citation styles a snap.

If the above links don't provide the information you need, click here to go to the library's complete guide to services and resources for students enrolled in off-campus programs.

This link opens a customized (and customizable) multiple-database search from the EBSCO interface: simultaneously search MEDLINE, CINAHL, Health Source and Academic Search Complete.

PubMed is an expanded version of the MEDLINE database (included in the EBSCO multiple database search), a comprehensive index to all aspects of medicine, covering over 4,800 journals, back to 1948. PubMed is made available for free by the National Library of Medicine; note, however, that the above link connects PubMed to the EWU library system for greater ease of access to local full-text resources. Look for the "Check for Full Text at EWU" button within individual PubMed records.

Comprehensive database for nursing and allied health, with full text articles from around 325 journals and trade magazines, and indexing to over 2700 titles, back to 1981. (A few titles are indexed even earlier, back to 1937.) Also includes citations to books, dissertations, and conference proceedings.

Portal to access 6 databases for evidence-based medicine. Includes: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (called Cochrane Reviews); DARE: Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (Other Reviews); Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (Clinical Trials); Cochrane Methodology Register (Methods Studies); Health Technology Assessment Database (Technology Assessment); and NHS Economic Evaluation Database (Economic Evaluations).

Full text articles from approximately 50 scholarly journals back to 1995; includes Dental Abstracts as well as indexing of all 1800 Elsevier journals and MEDLINE.

Also known as Science Citation Index. Indexes and analyzes citations from over 5,700 scientific journals back to 1995. Approximately 25% overlap with PubMed, plus other biomedical coverage. The primary strength of Web of Science is its highly developed system of citation tracking.

These are the connecting terms -- and, or and not -- that allow you to arrange your search terms with logic and precision. Use and to narrow your search, or to broaden your search, and not to exclude irrelevant records from your search.

Nesting is an extension of Boolean logic. You must always remember to "nest" or group synonymous or related terms linked by the or operator. Normally you use parentheses to nest such terms; alternatively some databases allow you to simply type the terms you want to nest together -- joined by the or operator -- in the same search box.

Most databases require that you enclose a phrase in quotation marks if you want to search on it as a phrase.

This is a handy way to cover multiple variations of a search term without having to type in each full-length term; you shorten your term to the first few relevant letters and then add the truncation character. In most databases the truncation character is the asterisk (*) but in some cases it may be a question mark (?) or pound sign (#). (Check the help section of a particular database to find out which character is used.) Example: adolescen* would find "adolescent" or "adolescence".

Most databases allow you to limit your search to a specific field within each database record. If you are having trouble narrowing your search to a manageable number of articles relevant to your topic, limiting your search to the title field is an easy way to narrow the focus and limit the number of articles retrieved. Your search results should be highly relevant to your search terms because article titles tend to be very specific and indicative of subject content.

These terms are sometimes referred to as descriptors, subject headings, or subject terms. They are standardized terms developed as part of the structure of a particular database and used to identify the content of each item in the database in a consistent way. An actual human reviews each item going into a database and assigns the appropriate term or terms. Controlled vocabulary offers another tool for zeroing in on those needles in the database haystack.