The three‐ or four‐part clinical question, developed by Dr Scott Richardson for work in evidence‐based health care, is used at the Cairns Library in Oxford to further develop traditional teaching of search preparation for database search training. The process of setting a clear search question, breaking it into search concepts, and then trying out a range of search terms for each major concept, fits elegantly into the framework of the clinical question, with its ‘anatomy’ of Patient/Problem, Intervention/Exposure (two for a comparison search), and Clinical Outcomes. It forces searchers to produce or refine a complete question if they do not have one already, and then to build up a search strategy, using free text or controlled vocabulary search terms, truncation or wildcards, Boolean operators and so on, in stages appropriate to need and to the specific learning situation, which can be ‘tested’ in the search, and refined. It is therefore a flexible teaching and learning tool, which can be used prior to and during searching. It enables user education to focus on fostering system‐independent, transferable conceptual skills, rather than teaching particular databases in isolation, and it lends itself to using active learning strategies in information skills training.

Objective: To determine whether information retrieval might be enhanced by making each component of a structured abstract a separately searchable field.Design: Parallel searches on records arranged so that each abstract could either be searched in its entirety or as a collection of structured fields.Subjects: Records about cardiovascular disease downloaded from MEDLINE and tested against clinical questions derived from a concurrent survey of CD‐ROM use in three health science libraries.Intervention: The investigators identified terms used to structure abstracts on MEDLINE and imported the abstracts into an Idealist database prior to searching using keywords from clinical questions.Measurements and main results: recall and precision rates are given for each question in the ‘structured’ and the ‘unstructured’ set of records.Conclusions: Use of structured, rather than unstructured, abstracts improves precision at the expense of recall and places heavier demands upon the searcher's skill in choosing the correct fields within the abstract to search. Further investigation requires more accurate simulation of MEDLINE software that utilizes features such as MeSH terms, explode, facilities and delimiters.

The strategic issues and practical challenges involved in creating a World Wide Web health information service are discussed with particular reference to HEBSWeb, the World Wide Web site of the Health Education Board for Scotland(HEBS). The outcomes of the project and possible future developments are presented.

Health Libraries ReviewVolume 14, Issue 1 p. 46-47 Free Access Networking initiatives in health. Association of Scottish Health Sciences Librarians spring meeting, Stirling Royal Infirmary, 26 April 1996 , Ayrshire & Arran Health Board, 10 Arthur Street, Ayr KA7 1QJ, UKSearch for more papers by this author , Ayrshire & Arran Health Board, 10 Arthur Street, Ayr KA7 1QJ, UKSearch for more papers by this author First published: 28 June 2008 https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2532.1997.14100432.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume14, Issue11997-06-12Pages 46-47 RelatedInformation

This paper reports on a research project which examined the potential of the Internet, and other networked information resources, to improve access to information for trained nurses working in remote areas. This paper provides a review of current literature in the field. It describes the research carried out, presents a summary of the research findings and discusses the implications of these findings. The paper concludes that the Internet and networked resources do have considerable potential to improve access to information for nurses working in remote and rural areas. However, information skills, along with professional guidance, are also required.