Week 10

Lecture
Week 10 lecture gives information about online libraries and data bases. At university online libraries can be very useful when researching. The advantages on using these resources are that they are available to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; the journals are up to date, its convenient and note taking is made much easier as you can copy and paste. The types of online libraries include journal articles, text repositories, electronic books, artwork and music. Some of the many online journals include www.nationalgallery.org.uk, www.ogla.net and www.classicbookshelf.com. Using these online resources do however have their limitations, many libraries are subscription only so non members have to pay to use the site, in most cases only the catalogue is available online so the entire work can not be accessed and music and art works are not the original so resolution may be reduced.

Online data bases are similar to online libraries as they are available all the time, journals are current and note taking is much easier online. An online data base is organized information characterized by the use of data fields that provide procedural methods of retrieving information. Different websites cater for different information so if you were wanting to look up a health issue it would be best to go to an online data base which of a health nature. Some of the different types of online data bases include people searches, maps and atlases, government information and statistics and news and media. The negative aspects of data bases are that there can be an overload of information, it can be hard to navigate, there is a lot of advertising and data bases can also be subscription only.

Online libraries and data bases are similar in that they provide relevant, current and authentic information. They are different as online libraries provide information which is owned by a specific library where as online databases provide information found in periodicals such as magazines, journals and newspapers. All in all they are great ways to find information quickly and easily.

Workshop
Today in the workshop we were asked to go to the ECU library webpage at www.ecu.edu.au/library and record ten useful functions and give a brief explanation.

1. "Information resources" - The subheadings allow you to enter many other functions within this function. These include the Library Catalogue, Online Databases, Resources by Faculty, Virtual Reference Collection, and Internet Search Tools.

2. "Learning Assistance" - This heading also has subheadings which include Liberty: Learning to Find Information and the ECU Referencing Guide.

3. "Information About" - This has the subheading ECU Library which provides students with information about the facilities at the ECU Library.

4. "Resources For" - Subheadings include Students, Researches, Academic Staff, External/offshore Students, Community and Alumni.

5. "Services" - Some services include Multimedia Services, Document Delivery and Loans Services.

6. "Search the Catalogue" - this handy services allows you to enter either the author, title, publication details or even the lecturer and it will search the database for you.

7. "Information for Students" - This link allows you to chose from many options on what information you need, whether it be about the library trading hours or external library services.

8. "Online database" - This allows you to search journal articles on the net through the Uni database.

9. "ECU Reference Guide" - This link to the referencing guide allows you to access on the net the reference guide and gives information how to write an appropriate guide.

10. "Loan Services" - This link tells you everything you need to know about how to borrow from the ECU library.

The second task is to access www.medlineplus.com and spend time looking at articles about health and drugs. One of the health issues which I searched using the built in search engine, was breast cancer. As I am a female I need to be fully aware of the risks of breast cancer and how to minimize my risk. From researching breast cancer on this site I found out that 1 in 8 women will be affected by breast cancer in their lives and that men can also get breast cancer.
On this site you also have to option to view interactive tutorials which gives in depth information on the chosen health topic. I feel that this site would be beneficial for doctor and nurses to parents and students. Parents can log on and search for say chicken pox so they can get extra information to help their children, students can use this credible information for assignment and people in the health industries can refresh their memories on certain health issues. All in all, this site caters for a vast range of people looking for information on health topics.

The image below is the site I visited