Guide Features Best Practice Search Techniques That Can Be Applied in Any Discipline

New York, NY (July 11, 2008)—Are expert searchers born or trained? How do they find out what requesters really need? How can an effective and successful search strategy be created? “These are just some of the questions answered in Terry Ann Jankowski’s new book to be released by Neal-Schuman Publishers on September 3, 2008.

The Medical Library Association Essential Guide to Becoming an Expert Searcher:Proven Techniques, Strategies, and Tips for Finding Health Information teaches librarians, information specialists, and library school students how to take their search skills to the next level. Even though most of the examples and databases described within the guide are focused on the health and biological sciences, the search techniques outlined can easily be applied across disciplines.

“Interviewing clients, analyzing databases, and constructing search strategies are universal skills needed and utilized every day by any library staff member who provides information services,” says Jankowski.

Ideal for use as a course text or a workbook for self-instruction, Essential Guide to Becoming an Expert Searcher begins with a self-evaluation tool and then takes readers through all the components of an expert search. ” The ten-chapter book is specifically organized to follow the database search process from interview to completion. “In this way,” says Jankowski, “readers can take a search request from start to finish and learn the skills by immediately practicing them.”

Jankowski guides readers through the basics of search construction, offers practical guidelines for deciding what resource to start with, passes on tips and tricks from expert searchers, and reviews the usefulness of some of the most popular health science databases such as MEDLINE and PubMed, PsychInfo, CAB Abstracts, ABI/Inform, ERIC, and more.

Scattered throughout the text are more than a dozen checklists and many exercises and examples taken from the author’s own searching experience, which offer opportunities for application and practice. A glossary provides a quick resource for unfamiliar terms in the text. After reading through the book and completing the exercises, librarians will come away with a much better understanding of what is needed to develop the skills and techniques to become an expert searcher.

The Medical Library Association Essential Guide to Becoming an Expert Searcher: Proven Techniques, Strategies, and Tips for Finding Health Information
ISBN 978-1-55570-622-7.
2008. 6×9. 150 pp. $65.00.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Terry Ann Jankowski is a librarian at the University of Washington in Seattle, currently serving as Head, Education and Information Services at the Health Sciences Library. She is active in the Medical Library Association, having been a member of the Expert Searching Task Force and Education Policy Revision Task Force as well as the Continuing Education
Committee among other volunteer positions. She has edited the column on expert searching in MLA News as well as moderated the Public Services Section email list on expert searching. Jankowski has co-authored and written a number of articles and posters on various aspects of database searching, reference services, and user education.

About Neal-Schuman Publishers and the Medical Library Association
Neal-Schuman Publishers is the leading provider of library management, Internet, and information technology resources, and is the Medical Library Association’s co-publisher. Founded in 1976, Neal-Schuman Publishers is based in New York City with offices in London, UK.
The Medical Library Association, founded in 1898, is an educational organization of more than 1,100 institutions and 3,600 individual members in the health sciences information field, committed to educating health information professionals, supporting health information research, promoting access to the world’s health sciences information, and working to ensure that the best health information is available to all.

For More Information
Contact Yelena Perlin
(yelena@neal-schuman.com)