The document describes a library instructor demonstrating to students how to access and search various online library resources for information on stem cell research. The instructor shows the students how to search the Internet Public Library (IPL), its Librarians' Internet Index, SciCentral database, the library's Health & Wellness Resource Center database, and CLIC-on-Health database for articles on stem cell research. The instructor emphasizes finding trusted sources of information and cautions that not all sources indexed on library sites are equally credible.

1. 11/29/09
www.libraryweb.org
This the the library’s web site. How many
of you are familiar with this page? Have
you used it before? The library’s web
address is www.libraryweb.org. You can
type that into the address bar of your
web browser to get here. I will show you
another way to get here later, in case you
lose the address. Before we look at our
library, let’s look at another one that is
out there. We can use the Google search
Internet public library
box to find the Internet Public Library.
www.ipl.org
The Internet Public Library (IPL) is a learning
project for library school students and a
volunteer opportunity for library professionals.
One of its purposes is to identify and organize
high quality web sites for the public. The
categories are displayed on the left side.
People can also ask questions online.
The first section we will look at is the
Librarians’ Internet Index (LII). This used to be
a competing project, but has now merged with
the Internet Public Library.
www.lii.org
The LII also identifies and organizes
high quality web resources. We can
search this site for trusted information
Stem cells
on stem cells by typing “Stem cells” in
the search box.
1

2. 11/29/09
As you can see, we have 20 results,
with a brief description of each one. The
first one looks rather technical. You will
be able to explore these more later.
Right now we will look to see what else
we can find with IPL.
Another section of the IPL we can look
at is the Health subject collection.
We will click on the “Health” link.
This brings up a number of sub-
headings.
We will click on the “Health & Medical
Sciences News” link.
2

3. 11/29/09
In this category are many resources,
with a brief description for each one.
Scroll down Let’s scroll down the list.
Many of these resources cover medical
research, and could have good
information on stem cells.
The one we will look at today is
SciCentral. Let’s click on the link.
We can type “stem cells” in the search
box. Often when web sites incorporate a
Google search box, the search is limited
to the particular site, rather than
searching the entire web. Our library
web site’s Google box searches the
web. Let’s see what this one turns up.
3

4. 11/29/09
Even though it says SciCentral at the top, these are
the results of a full web search. The first box is ads,
which are not considered trusted sites, of course.
Wikipedia, the next one, is also not considered a
trusted source of information because many of their
pages are open to be edited by anyone, including any
of you. The two links at the bottom of this screen are
from the U.S. government’s National Institute of
Health, and are good sources of information. What
we can learn from this is that even though some
experts at the IPL considered SciCentral a good
source, it can still be used to get to questionable
information. Now let’s go back to our library’s site.
www.google.com
If you don’t remember the library’s web
address, you can go to Google, which is
easy to remember: google.com, then
type “rochester public library” in the
search box. I didn’t use capital letters
because I am lazy. It won’t matter in this
case. You can either press the “enter”
key or click on the “Google Search”
button.
This brings up many results, including
Rochester, Minnesota. Let’s scroll down
the page a bit.
Scroll down
4

5. 11/29/09
Here we see the link for the Monroe
County (NY) Library System. Notice that
the green type under the link is the
library’s web address. Some of the links
above have different addresses, which is
why I scrolled past them. If we click on
the link, it will take us back the the
library’s home page.
www.libraryweb.org
The library’s home page has a number of
tools that you can use for searching, and also
contains a wealth of information under the
different links and buttons. You can see that
you can check your library account, search
the catalog, in English and Spanish, and also
search online bookseller Amazon or use
Google to search the web as we saw earlier.
We will look at the “Magazines & Databases”
link.
These are resources the library makes
available to users through the web. You
Scroll down
can access these in any Monroe County
library branch, or anywhere in the world
that you can get Internet access. Let’s
scroll down the page to find the first
resource I want to show you.
5

6. 11/29/09
Let’s look at the Health & Wellness
Resource Center. Click on the link.
If you try to do this from a computer
outside of the library, you will need to
use your library card number and last
name to log in. Note that the login is
library card number, comma, last name,
with no spaces.
We can find trusted information on stem
cell research here by typing “stem cell
research” into the search box and
clicking the “Search” button. See the
Stem cell research little check box for Full text articles?
Let’s look at what happens when we
leave it unchecked.
6

7. 11/29/09
You can see that there are 4585 magazine and
journal articles and 5086 news articles on our
topic, along with a handful of videos, pamphlets,
books & fact sheets. There is a small icon that
looks like a sheet of paper next to each result in
this screen shot. That means you can read those
articles online. If that icon was not there, the link
would give you information about the article,
which you could take to a library to look for a print
copy of it. I would recommend calling first and
asking if we have it. Now let’s look at the results if
we had checked the Full text box.
Now there’s only 3058 magazine and
journal articles, and 5031 news items.
However, all these results are available
online. You could read them on screen
or print them out to read them. Now let’s
go back to the Magazines & Databases
page.
Another resource we have is CLIC-on-
Health. This is a project of libraries,
health organizations and educational
institutions in the greater Monroe County
area. It is designed specifically to be a
source of high-quality health information
for people of this area. Let’s look at it.
7

8. 11/29/09
As with the other site, we can search
for “Stem cell research.”
Stem cell research
This gives us 79 results, all from the
National Library of Medicine, which is
part of the National Institute of Health. It
is a good source for trusted information.
4 groups:
1. IPL – Librarians’ Internet Index
2. IPL – SciCentral
3. Health & Wellness Resource Center
4. CLIC‐on‐Health
Explore your resource. Is it easy to use?
Do you find good or useful information?
Do you find anything particularly interesting?
We will share our findings before we go.
8