Major Resources at the Dentistry Library

The Major Resources box is located in the middle of the left hand side of the Dentistry Library website. This box contains some of the more popular and more used resources at U of T in dental research and studies.  These resources are available online and can be accessed on off-campus by signing in with your UTORid and password.

 

Below we describe each of the major resources in more detail.  If you would like a quick guided tour of the Major Resources box please have a look at our Major Resources Tutorial (1:57).  (Please note that more recently Primal Pictures has been replaced by a link to TRIP - although Primal Pictures is still available through the U of T catalogue).

• Medline and Embase are some of the ‘go to’ databases for searching the medical literature. Using the OVID interface you can search for medical articles in Medline, Embase or AMED (a British medical database).  These databases can be searched using keywords or controlled terminology (ontology) that allows you to find articles that are indexed using particular terms found within database specific thesaurus. Medline uses MeSH (medical subject headings) and Embase uses emtree.  Using controlled terminology can be a very powerful tool to help you find articles that you may not otherwise be able to locate.  This link also allows you to access Pyschinfo a popular psychology database.  Not sure how to use the OVID interface? Come talk to us at the library and we’d be happy to give you a demo!

• PubMed@UofT uses the PubMed interface to search Medline. PubMed is a medical database created by the National Library of Medicine. PubMed can be searched using keywords and MeSH terminology. We recommend that U of T staff and students use the PubMed@UofT version instead of the public version of PubMed as many of the articles found in Medline are part of the U of T collection and have hyperlinks to the content within PubMed@UofT. Need a primer on how to use MeSH terminology when using PubMed, come to the library and ask!

• Scopus is an HUGE interdisciplinary article database.  Although, this database cannot be searched using controlled terminology from a thesaurus it can be a good database for finding review articles, grey literature or for research about topics that span more than one discipline – such as ethics in dentistry.  Scopus can also be used to estimate an author’s H-index.

• Web of Science is another interdisciplinary database.  Similarly to Scopus, it does not contain a thesaurus but is a great starting point for research, finding grey literature or doing research on topics that span beyond medicine in scope.  Web of Science can be used to determine Impact Factors, Eigenfactors and estimate H-indexes.

• Cochrane Library is a resource that can be used in evidence-based dentistry.  The library contains six databases of articles that contain evidence that can be used in medical decision making. Cochrane Library is also a known source for the Cochrane database of systemic reviews.

• Dissertations and Theses – the Proquest theses and dissertations database can be used to search for abstracts or full text theses written by students at U of T and other institutions all over the world. You can use the search options to limit your search to specific author names or institutions.

• TRIP is a free resource than many people use in evidence-based dentistry to find information about a vareity of conditions. One of the neat features of TRIP that it allows you to search the database directly using PICO!

• UpToDate can be used in evidence-based dentistry for clinical decision support.  You can search UpToDate for information about particular medical or health problems. Evidence about these topics is synthesised into a comprehensive report that provides recommendations.  Evidence found within the reports is graded based on strength and quality. Please note that only U of T students can access the content of UpToDate.

• Goggle Scholar is a search engine that can be used to find articles from the Internet. Similar to Scopus and Web of Science, it is interdisciplinary and therefore does not use controlled vocabulary.  Goggle Scholar can be used to help find grey literature.

• e-CPS/LexiComp:  e-CPS is the electronic version of the Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties.  It can be used to search drug monographs by brand name, generic name, therapeutic use or manufacturer. Some e-CPS tutorials can be found here.  LexiComp is online drug information system.  It contains information about drug overviews, drug interaction screening, LexiComp clinical dental references and dental pharmacology.

• EndNote Web is a citation database manager.  EndNote Web can be used to gather, store, organize or share references for articles that are found in article databases.  There are over 5,000 different options for output style when making bibliographies with EndNote. For more information on how to use EndNote check out the EndNote research guide.

• RefWorks is another popular citation database manager.  RefWorks allows you to collect, store, share and organize references that you export from article databases.  RefWorks can be used to create bibliographies in many different citation styles.  When signing up for a RefWorks account you must be on campus but after the initial sign-up you can access RefWorks from off-campus. Please note to sign in from off-campus you will need a RefWorks group code.   Scholar’s Portal has created a guide that will answer many of your RefWorks questions.