Dedicated Internet databases Although the following resources may provide good information and link to valuable resources, that is not always the case. You must use your professional judgment to evaluate the information
- Internet Public Library (IPL), a public service by the University of Michigan School of Information, includes online texts, newspapers, serials, and professional associations. They are in the process of integrating the subject guides, which are written by specialists, that were formerly housed at the Argus Clearinghouse.
- Healthfinder is a free guide "to reliable consumer health and human services information, developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services."
- The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
provides health information about human communication and
disorders of hearing, balance, smell, taste, and of special relevance for speech-language pathologists, voice, speech, and language. NIDCD also established the NIDCD Information Clearinghouse, to help health professionals, patients, people in industry, and the public locate health information about human communication disorders.
- Harriet Lane WWW Links is an edited collection of nearly 6000 pediatric Internet resources, maintained and edited at the Johns Hopkins University. The search engine will also submit your request to PubMed, NeoReviews, the Merck Manual and other appropriate databases.
- Subject guides (webliographies) are organized collections of links which are selected by an individual or group with special interest or expertise in a particular area. They do not index the all the information available on the Internet, but provide a selection of useful sites.
- OMNI (Organizing Medical Networked Information), based in the UK, is a gateway to the Internet for medicine, biosciences, and allied health, offering free access to a searchable catalog of Internet sites covering health and medicine.
- Medical World Search is available at a nominal fee, and contains over 100,000 full-text web pages from thousands of high-quality medical sites.
- Family Village describes itself as "a global community that integrates information, resources, and communication opportunities on the Internet. . . [and]. . . includes informational resources on specific diagnoses, communication connections, adaptive products and technology, adaptive recreational activities, education, worship, health issues, disability-related media and literature, and much, much more!"
- Hardin Metadirectory of Internet Health Resources is a Clearinghouse for Internet directories on various medically-related topics. Searching through this resource will lead to many relevant resources, such as:
General Search Strategies Before venturing further out on the internet, you may want to review important points to consider when accessing information in searches on the Internet suggested by Laura Cohen, Network Services Librarian, University at Albany Libraries
- Two specialized search engines deserve special mention.
- SumSearch is a 'meta-searching service' that searches:
- The Merck Manual
- MEDLINE for full-text review articles and editorials
- National Guideline Clearinghouse from the Agency for
Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR)
- Database of Abstract of Reviews of Effectiveness (DARE)
- MEDLINE for original research.
- Scirus is a specialized search engine that concentrates on scientific content only (such as university web sites and author homepages) and by searching both web and journal sources. It currently accesses MEDLINE through BioMedNet and claims to find more peer reviewed articles than other search engine. It recognizes formats other than html (PDF, Postscript) in which scientific papers are often placed on the Internet.
- More familiar search engines Phrasing a search question that describes the specific client problem is an important step in finding clinically relevant evidence. Also most search engines have advanced search strategy tutorials which are helpful.
- Example of a directory
- Examples of general search engines
- Examples of metasearch engines
- Subscribing to mailing lists and searching archives
Most of the ASHA divisions have mailing lists. Information about subscribing is available on the various Division webpages
- Personal Connections with Those Who Have Experience
- Using the search engines to find websites developed by consumers
- Subscribing to various mailing lists on the Internet
- Google's newsgroup archive