The Explore RSU Libraries box on the library's website searches the entire library collection including books, databases, audiovisual materials and government publications.
These databases will be the most relevant for allied health sciences.
The leading bibliographic database for sports and sports medicine research. It includes millions of records from leading sports medicine journals, books, dissertations and more. Subjects covered include nutrition, physical therapy, occupational health, exercise physiology and kinesiology.
Full-text articles in 900 journals in health and life sciences.
Provides authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and much more
Comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 5,300 full-text periodicals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed journals.
Comprehensive source of full text for nursing & allied health journals, providing full text for more than 520 journals indexed in CINAHL.
PubMed Central® (PMC) is a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM).
Over 500 scholarly full text journals focusing on many medical disciplines.
Scholarly v. Popular Sources
If you are not familiar with scholarly publications, it can be difficult to tell the difference between scholarly and popular periodicals. There are no definitive rules for distinguishing between the two, but here are some guidelines:
Scholarly (e.g., academic journals):
Popular (e.g., magazines, newspapers):
The academic databases listed on this guide are excellent sources for magazine, news, and journal articles. Library databases are different from online search engines like Google, so you will need to master a few basic concepts in order to use them effectively.
When using the databases, you should exclude all extraneous words from your searches. First, leave out all articles (a, an, the) in your search. Next, narrow your search terms down to two or three words that describe exactly what you hope to find For example, if you are writing a paper about the theme of discrimination in Frankenstein, narrowing your search terms down to discrimination and Frankenstein will likely retrieve a manageable list of more precise results.
After you have selected your initial search terms, list any synonyms or related terms that might be relevant to your topic. For example, if your search terms are Frankenstein and discrimination, you might want to try synonyms such as "prejudice" or "intolerance" in place of discrimination. You may even replace discrimination with a related term, such as "inhumanity." Successful searches are often the result of trying out a variety of terms. Most databases will provide you with suggestions of additional or alternate search terms to use, which can lead you to better results in a shorter amount of time.
Two or more search terms may be combined in different ways to yield different results. The connectors AND, OR, NOT are useful search tools, and most databases have these built in to make searching easier. Use the connector AND to yield results that contain both search terms. Use OR for results that contain either term. Use NOT to exclude results that contain a specific term.
Different databases index different content, and selecting the right database is just as important to successful searching as choosing the right search terms. A search that retrieves few or no results in one database may work well in another. If you retrieve too few or irrelevant results in one database, try a different one.
If you are not familiar with scholarly publications, it can be difficult to tell the difference between scholarly and popular periodicals. There are no definitive rules for distinguishing between the two, but here are some guidelines:
Scholarly (e.g., academic journals):
Popular (e.g., magazines, newspapers):
Most books and other items in the library are organized by the Library of Congress Call Number system. In that system, the basic sciences (biology, chemistry, physics, etc.) are under Q and medicine is under R.
Book related directly to Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy and Athletic Training are in the RMs, while the rest of the Rs are other aspects of medicine. Anatomy and Physiology are considered part of basic science, and are in the QMs and QPs, respectively. Some of immunology and infectious disease resources are in QR (microbiology) You'll find medical materials in the Main Circulating Stacks (3rd floor).
Here are the subjects associated with specific call numbers, in case you'd like to browse. However, if you are looking for something specific, searching the library catalog is usually quicker.
Subclass RM
RM695-893 Physical medicine. Physical therapy
Including massage, exercise, occupational therapy, hydrotherapy, phototherapy, radiotherapy, thermotherapy, electrotherapy
RM930-931 Rehabilitation therapy
RM950 Rehabilitation technology
Did you know that when you enter an entire sentence into Google it searches each.. word.. individually? That's why you get millions of results back! Luckily Google does a decent job of returning relevant results from a sentence. Unlike Google, databases can't understand an entire sentence. You will need to break your topic down into the most important ideas, or keywords. Even Google will give you better results if you use relevant keywords!
Exclude irrelevant words
When using the databases, you should exclude all extraneous words from your searches. First, leave out all articles (a, and, the) in your search. Next, narrow your search terms down to two or three words that describe exactly what you hope to find For example, if you are writing a paper about the theme of discrimination in Frankenstein, narrowing your search terms down to discrimination and Frankenstein will likely retrieve a manageable list of more precise results.
After you have selected your initial search terms, list any synonyms or related terms that might be relevant to your topic. For example, if your search terms are Frankenstein and discrimination, you might want to try synonyms such as "prejudice" or "intolerance" in place of discrimination. You may even replace discrimination with a related term, such as "inhumanity." Successful searches are often the result of trying out a variety of terms. Most databases will provide you with suggestions of additional or alternate search terms to use, which can lead you to better results in a shorter amount of time.
Once you've broken down your research topic into keywords you can start searching more in-depth using filters and other search tools. The boolean operators and, or, & not can help you combine keywords to retrieve results directly related to your topic. Boolean operators are like a type of filter and can be used in just about any search bar, including databases and Google!
Most library databases have built in search tools such as filters.
Here are some useful filters:
You can also view the Advanced Search for more filters and tools!