FirstSearch is a collection of more than 50 specialized databases, quite
a few of which are potentially useful for work in Biology. The Liberty
menu (via 2. Commercial Databases) allows you to connect, but we should
first consider which are the most likely databases, and in which order it
would make sense to search them.
One important change since last year: you can have FirstSearch records
e-mailed to you. In cases where the records include abstracts
this can be extremely useful, and you should be sure you know how to print
(and/or extract
and save to disk) items you have e-mailed to you.
- BioDigest is a good place to start
because it offers brief synopses of reports on research topics, intended
primarily for lay audiences. This can be very useful when you are
starting to comprehend a research area, searching for relevant vocabulary
and basic concepts.
- General Science Index is worth a look,
especially in early stages of a search process.
- BasicBIOSIS provides access to the
professional research literature of most of Biology, generally includes
abstracts of articles, and is reasonably up to date.
- MEDLINE is primarily medical in
orientation, but also includes a broad range of Biology materials; most
items are abstracted. (Compare with MEDLINE via
Lexis/Nexis)
- AGRICOLA is primarily agricultural in focus,
but as we'll see has several significant items not found in the other
databases.
- BiolAgrIndex is also mostly agricultural in
focus.
- Papers1st covers conference papers, sometimes
an important source of information, especially on research frontiers
- Article1st is similar to PAO
- PerAbs is the FirstSearch version of
Periodical Abstracts Online