Histology

Need help with your research? Contact:

Martha Stevenson
Reference Librarian
Phone: x3601
msteven@muhlenberg.edu

Reference Desk Hours:
Call or email to confirm
M,W 1-2 p.m.
T,Th,F 12-1 p.m.

Office hours (by appt.):
Call or email to arrange

Search the Web
http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library/more/wwwsearch/index.html

The WWW offers us an opportunity to find information and data from all over the world. Because so much information is available and since that information can appear to be fairly "anonymous", it is necessary to develop skills to search effectively and to evaluate what you find. Since anyone can write a web page excellent resources exist along side the most dubious on the web.

Most search engines offer you "basic" and "advanced" search modes. In basic mode, many work by relevancy ranking, which is usually shut off in advanced mode. Most display results in decreasing order, the closer that rating is to 100% the more confident the search engine is that the document will fit your needs.

Navigating Principles

While search engines differ, a number accept the following, or have an equivalent system for carrying out similar operations:

  1. Use + to include words, - to exclude them.
  2. The truncation symbol *, allows you to cut a word to the root and pull up varient endings.
  3. To search by phrase, enclose the phrase in "double quotation marks".
  4. Using capital letters usually looks for exact match; when it doubt use lower case for your searches.
  5. Look for a "limit" or "refine" search feature, that allows you to narrow your results by date, format or field.
  6. If field searching is available, it will allow you to search the entire catalog by url, text, title word, anchor, image, filename, etc.
  7. Look for Page buttons at the bottom of the screen, that allows you to skip around to pages on similar topics.
  8. "Advanced search", sometimes called "Power search", options generally shut off relevancy ranking and allow you to use Boolean Logic and proximity operators (AND, OR, NOT and NEAR) to control your results. These words are generally accepted in all caps, or have symbols that can be substituted.

Our Tips
  1. Look for on screen help to review search commands and features.
  2. Look for a FAQ for information on who is putting it together, and what the scope or content is.
  3. In many search engines, you will get the best search by using several keywords to look for what you are after.
  4. Try to learn at least two search engines really well, one engine can't find everything.

Search Engines vs. Directories

Search engines like Google will "crawl" out on the web and link to a particular URL and then index all URLS that are linked to that page. Descriptions or annotations in these search engine catalogs are generated by the software.

    AlltheWeb
    http://www.alltheweb.com
      Highlights:
      Indexes "billions" of webpages.
      Updates every 7-11 days.
      Includes 100s of millions of multimedia - images, videos, real time news, etc.
      Choice between a simple search screen or an advanced search screen.
      Boolean and phrase searching allowed, but no truncation or wildcard.
      It is not case sensitive.
      Can search for webpages in 36 languages, the default would be English for us.
      Business of Overture Services, Inc. which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Yahoo.

    Google
    http://www.google.com
      Highlights:
      Indexes over 4 billion webpages. It has a very clean look.
      Searches over 450 million images when you do an image search.
      Retrieves only results that include all your search terms either in the text of the page or in the text of the links pointing to the page.
      Order in which you type your search words will affect results returned.
      Prioritizes results based on the proximity of the search terms.
      Boolean and phrase searching allowed, but no truncation or wildcard.
      It is not case sensitive.
      Stemming now used to retrieve variations of a word.
Directories contain sites that have been selected and reviewed by people. A number of these directories provide their own annotations to sites, enhancing the information you will find about a site. Looksmart is a good example of a directory.

    Librarians' Internet Index
    http://www.lii.org
      Highlights:
      Over 20,000 sites reviewed by a team of librarians.
      Organized into 14 main topics.
      Search by keyword or by category.
      Wildcard * can be used.
      Boolean and phrase searching allowed.
      Most relevant sites listed first.

    Yahoo
    http://www.yahoo.com
      Highlights:
      User submitted database with over 100 editors on staff.
      Includes over 2 million webpages in its database.
      Relevancy ranking.
      Truncation is automatic.
      Double quotations can be used for an exact phrase.
      Symbols like + for "and" and - for "not" can be used when searching.

    Scirus
    http://www.scirus.com
      Highlights:
      Most comprehensive science specific search engine.
      Searches over 300 million science specific web pages.
      Results by default are ranked according to relevance.
      Includes results from BioMed Central and PubMed.

    Scholarpedia
    http://www.scholarpedia.org
      Highlights:
      Free peer reviewed encyclopedia.
      Articles written by scholars from all over the world.
      Each article has a curator who is responsible for its contents.
      All changes must be approved by the curator.
      Articles are dynamic.
What to look for: Checklist and Tricks for Evaluating Web Pages

"LET THE READER BEWARE!"
All information, whether in print or in html, needs to be evaluated by readers. If you find information that is "too good to be true", it probably is. Never use information that you cannot verify.

    1. URLs

    What can the URL tell you? What type of domain does it come from? Who published the "page"? Is it somebody's personal page?

    .com indicates a commercial source. Beware of information slanted in favor of that company's product or industry.
    .edu addresses originate from colleges and universities, but this includes students' homepages as well as the official institution.
    .gov indicates a government agency. This kind of information is of an official nature and generally as accurate as can be expected.
    .int international organizations like NATO.
    .mil military organizations.
    .net companies or organizations that run large networks.
    .org indicates a non profit institution, which may provide useful information, but may be biased toward a particular viewpoint.

    2. Authority

    Who wrote the page? Is he, she, or the authoring institution a qualified authority? Look for a name and an email. Are the author's credentials provided?

    3. Currency

    Is the page dated? Current, timely? Is the date appropriate for the content or is it "dusty" information on a time sensitive topic? Many times webpages that you are not sure about do provide links to better sources and information. Are the links active?

    4. Authenticity/Coverage/Reliability

    Is the information cited authentic? Is the source of factual or attributed information well documented? Can you verify the information? Is there a bibliography? Does the page have overall integrity and reliability as a source? Who else links to the page? Look for the page in a reliably annoted subject directory like Librarian's Index to the Internet.

    5. Objectivity

    What is the purpose of the page? Intended audience? Is the page biased? Might the sponsors have a vested viewpoint presented? Is there advertising on the page? Could the page be ironic, like a satire or spoof?

If you have any questions or reservations, how can you satisfy them? Email the author? Consult a print publication maybe in the library? Ask for advice from your instructor or at the library reference desk?

Sites Worth Visiting

    Florida State University - Internet Pathology Laboratory for Medical Education
    http://www-medlib.med.utah.edu/WebPath/webpath.html#MENU

    University of New South Wales Medicine - Department of Pathology
    http://www.med.unsw.edu.au/pathmus/pathmus.htm

    University of Washington - Department of Pathology
    http://www.pathology.washington.edu/galleries

    Pathology Education Resources Laboratory (Indiana University)
    http://erl.pathology.iupui.edu

    Karolinska Institutet (Sweden)
    http://www.mic.ki.se/Medimages.html

    National Cancer Institute
    http://www.cancer.gov/cancer_information

    University of Illinois Urbana Champaign - Atlas of Pathology
    http://www.med.uiuc.edu/PathAtlasf/titlePage.html

    University of Illinois Urbana Champaign - Atlas of Histology
    http://www.med.uiuc.edu/histo/medium/atlas/index.htm

    University of Connecticut Health Center - Pathweb
    http://pathweb.uchc.edu

    Pathology Images
    http://www.geocities.com/euthman

    Loyola University of Medical Education Network - Histology
    http://www.meddean.luc.edu/lumen/MedEd/Histo/frames/histo_frames.html

    University of Kansas - JayDoc Histoweb
    http://www.kumc.edu/instruction/medicine/anatomy/histoweb

    Indiana University School of Medicine - Pathology C601/C602 Slides
    http://bl-msci-007c.ads.iu.edu/c602web/602/c602web/index.htm

    Surgical Tutor from the UK
    http://www.surgical-tutor-org.uk

    University of Iowa - The Virtual Slidebox
    http://www.path.uiowa.edu/virtualslidebox

    Duke University Medical Center Library - Medical Images
    http://www.mclibrary.duke.edu/subject/medimages

    Manchester University - Histology Images
    http://www.teaching-biomed.man.ac.uk/histology/

Downloading
Instructions are for Microsoft Internet Explorer that is on any of the lab computers on this campus.

  1. Bring up on the monitor the image you would like to download.
  2. Take your mouse and right click on the image.
  3. A drop down menu appears.
  4. Go to "save pciture as" and click.
  5. Then tell the computer where you want to save the image to - drive A:.
  6. Name the image.
  7. You can then open the file in Explorer by going to "file" and then "open" to see the image.
Electronic Databases
http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library/articles/databases/alphabetical.html

    Academic Search Premier
    BIOSIS (by appointment only)
    General Science Abstracts or Biological & Agricultural Index
    Health Source
    IngentaConnect
    PubMed (Medline)
Journal Locators

    To check to see if Trexler Library has access to a journal title, try a Journal title search in the catalog. Type in the name of the journal you are looking for. The catalog will then inform you whether or not the library has the journal. If the library owns the catalog will say if it is in paper, on microform or online full text through a database.

    To see if any of the area hospitals hold a journal title go to: Holdings for Cooperating Hospital Libraries of the Lehigh Valley (ftp://ftp.nlm.nih.gov/.docline/.serunion/2_S_CHL_01040345.html).
    This list is current as of 1/4/08.
Trexler Library Catalog & Other Libraries

Books
    Black's Medical Dictionary
    Ref. Collection 610.3 M172b

    Color atlas of basic histopathology
    Main Collection 611.018 M644c

    Taber's cyclopedic medical dictionary
    Ref. Collection 610.3 T113c

Interlibrary Loan
http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library/more/ill/index.html

    Books and journals not found in Trexler Library can be ordered through Interlibrary Loan (http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library/more/ill/index.html).
    Remember, start early to allow enough time to receive them. It could take anywhere from 7 days to 2 weeks.

Citation Guides
http://www.muhlenberg.edu/library/reshelp/citations.html

    This is a webpage that has many examples for citing both paper and electronic resources.