All Posts By

Karen Brunner

Generative AI Tools for Research

Generative AI Tools in Library Databases

The St. Thomas Libraries are trialing several databases in February, including two with AI-driven search interfaces: Scopus AI and Web of Science Research Assistant. The Libraries are excited about the potential for these tools to help researchers save time and uncover hard-to-find content. As we look at the broad range of AI-based tools that advertise similar functionality, we are closely evaluating their capabilities and differences.

What makes these library tools different from freely available tools?

The tools the library is trialing combine natural language AI search with high-quality, subscriber-only content. Both Scopus and Web of Science index over 20,000 journals, offering rich metadata that enhances summaries, relevancy rankings, and connections to related research. Additionally, as tools connected to our subscriptions, full-text access is often just a click away.

Free tools generate results based on either general web searches (Perplexity, ChatGPT Web Search, etc.), the Semantic Scholar corpus of academic documents (Semantic Scholar, Elicit, Consensus), or a mix of web content and publisher metadata they maintain themselves (Scite). These tools often do quite well at surfacing and summarizing relevant scholarship, particularly in fields with a lot of open access content, but results can vary widely depending on the specific subfield being researched. Some disciplines are well-covered and return excellent results, while others have gaps where important publishers or journals are missing. Free tools may also include predatory journals and student scholarship in the results they return.

So…is the library saying I shouldn’t use the free ones?

Not at all! We’re actively testing them alongside subscription-based tools to understand their strengths and limitations. Right now, it’s a “both/and” situation rather than “either/or”—free tools can help surface insights missed by traditional searches, but the tools we are trialing fill in many gaps left by the free tools, particularly when doing deep, comprehensive research.

We want your feedback!

We would love to hear from anyone who is interested in using AI tools to help them with research and has time to try out either Scopus AI or the Web of Science Research Assistant. If you have tried them, please take five minutes to fill out our feedback form. Faculty input is crucial when we evaluate new tools like this.

February 7, 2025 by Karen Brunner

Putting Patients First: Evidence-Based Care Tools

During the month of October, the St. Thomas Libraries will be trialing two evidence-based resources to support health care decision making: UpToDate and Cochrane Library.

UpToDate is a physician-authored point-of-care medical resource. What does that mean in laypersons’ terms? A point-of-care tool aims to provide a clinician with the most recommended course of treatment based on a comprehensive overview of the best available evidence at the point-of-care with a patient.

UpToDate provides over 33,000 graphics, summary and recommendation information for treatment, patient education leaflets, calculators, drug information, and a drug interactions tool.

You can access the Libraries’ trial of UpToDate here.

The Cochrane Library is a powerful database of literature reviews, research protocols, and clinical controlled trials that can be used to inform healthcare decision-making. It consists of six collections:

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials
Cochrane Methodology Register
Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects
Health Technology Assessment Database
NHS Economic Evaluation Database

Try a basic or advanced search in Cochrane Library using keywords related to your topic.

You can filter your results by date, language, type, and topic on the left side of the search results. Be sure to click the tabs at the top of the search results to find different types of sources, such as Cochrane reviews, protocols, trials, and clinical answers.

You can access the Libraries’ trial of Cochrane Library here.

Please contact Karen Brunner with any questions or feedback you have about these database trials.

October 4, 2022 by Karen Brunner

Database Highlights & Trials, Libraries

October Trials: Gearing Up for Nursing!

During the month of October, the St. Thomas Libraries will be trialing several resources in preparation for the BSN and MSN programs starting next fall. Please look at these resources and let us know if you would find them useful for your teaching and research.

Nursing & Allied Health Database – designed to support the teaching, learning, and research needs of nursing and allied health students and educators. Includes 360 full-length clinical skills videos.

LWW Nursing and Health Professions Premier Collection – Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins (a major publisher in health field) offers this collection of over 80 core nursing journals.

Nursing Current Concepts and Practices Video Collection – Titles in this collection feature copyrights only within the past five years and are hosted on the Films on Demand (FOD) platform. Highlights include Caring for the Dying Patient (2020), Cultural Awareness in Healthcare (2020), and Clinical Skills Essentials Collection (2021).

Bates’ Visual Guide to Physical Examination – This resource delivers head-to-toe and systems-based physical examination techniques for the (Advanced) Assessment or Introduction to Clinical Medicine course. The site features more than 8 hours of video content.

Your feedback on these resources is valued. Please direct all comments and questions to Karen Brunner (brun4952@stthomas.edu)

October 7, 2021 by Karen Brunner

News & Events, O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library

RefWorks Workshops

Organizing Your Research! Citing Your Sources in Various Styles: APA, AMA, ASA, CAS, MLA, and more!

Learn about RefWorks, the software program that

saves you time,
lessens frustration, and
makes your paper look professional.

You can even insert citations (in-text citations) while you’re writing (really typing) your paper. Then you can push a button and your references list/works cited will print with those articles you’ve already cited!

If you mistakenly use the “wrong” citation style, push a button and change all the citations AND your references to the right one!

Avoid panic. Avoid headaches.

Librarians at the University of Saint Thomas welcome you to a comfortable, hands-on workshop designed to ease your work.

Workshops will be held in-person during Convo hour on:

Oct. 7 12-1pm, OSF Library Room 208
Oct. 28 6-7 pm, Zoom (link provided after registration)
Nov. 11 12-1pm, OSF Library Room 208

If you can’t make these dates, times, or the location, let us know. We’re always up for more.

Please register here.

Any questions can be directed to Karen Brunner (brun4952@stthomas.edu).

September 28, 2021 by Karen Brunner

Libraries, News & Events

LibKey Nomad: Get to the Full-Text Faster!

Have you ever found an article citation in Google Scholar or *gasp* Wikipedia, and wondered if the library had full-text access? Or perhaps a publisher has sent you links to some articles hot off the press and you just really wish you didn’t have to search for them via the library site to see if we have access? Great news–the St. Thomas Libraries have begun using a new tool called LibKey Nomad. And now that many of us find ourselves working from home, LibKey Nomad will make connecting to full-text access provided by the Libraries even easier!

LibKey Nomad is a browser add-on for Chrome that facilitates access to articles available from St. Thomas Libraries’ subscriptions without needing to go to the library website. It’s like a shortcut to our GET IT service. And because it is a browser tool, you will know if an article is available before you have to log in to your University of St. Thomas library account. LibKey Nomad is currently only available for Chrome.

To start using LibKey Nomad, you will need to add the extension from the Chrome Web Store. Detailed instructions about installing LibKey Nomad and using it can be found in our LibKey Nomad library guide.

Questions? Please contact Research & Instruction Librarian, Karen Brunner (brun4952@stthomas.edu).

March 20, 2020 by Karen Brunner

Database Highlights & Trials, Libraries, Science

JoVE Offers FREE Access through June 15

In response to the significant impact COVID-19 is having on the educational community, JoVE is providing FREE access to their STEM education video library collection through June 15. While this access does not include all of JoVE’s content, it does include access to the following:

JoVE Core – a video textbook that isolates and visually presents core concepts in Biology and Social Psychology to improve learning comprehension.
JoVE Science Education – a collection of simple, easy-to-understand video demonstrations in eight STEM fields
Lab Manual – comprehensive, curriculum focused videos for introductory biology lab courses

In order to obtain access, you must use your St. Thomas email address to create an individual JoVE account. Go to https://www.jove.com/ and click the “Log In” link at the top of the page and then hit the “Sign Up” button that is provided. From there you can save the login/password info to your browser or simply re-enter when returning to the JoVE site.

This free access is open to all St. Thomas students, faculty, and staff. Please contact Research & Instruction Librarian, Karen Brunner (brun4952@stthomas.edu), with any questions.

March 16, 2020 by Karen Brunner

Database Highlights & Trials, Science

A New PubMed is Here!

The new year includes a new PubMed. Don’t worry, it will continue to be the go-to biomedical database with over 30 million citations and growing daily. But gone is the clunky, 1990s-esque database look; in its place the National Library of Medicine promises a modern interface with intuitive search features and responsive design to improve the mobile experience.

Here’s a quick overview of some key features that you rely on for searching, as well as for saving and sharing your results:

The default sort order of results is now Best Match. Best Match uses an algorithm based on several relevance factors. You can choose to toggle results to a Most Recent sort.
Use the Results by Year graph to see trends in literature over time or to refine your search results by publication year.
Use the filters along the left to meet your research needs.
Save your search results to a file, email your results, or send your results to a clipboard. Please note: if you previously had an NCBI account, it will continue to work in the new PubMed (so if you previously saved searches and/or results–they will still be there!).

While Legacy PubMed is still currently available, it will eventually be retired (though no official end date has been announced). The St. Thomas Libraries encourage you to familiarize yourself with the new interface. For the best search experience, please remember to always access PubMed from the St. Thomas Libraries page.

In the meantime, if you have questions or need help with the new PubMed, please contact reference librarian Karen Brunner (brun4952@stthomas.edu).

January 7, 2020 by Karen Brunner

Database Highlights & Trials

Database Trial: CINAHL Plus with Full-Text

The UST Libraries will be trialing the CINAHL Plus with Full-Text database through mid-March. CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) Plus with Full-Text is a comprehensive research database covering a wide range of topics including nursing, biomedicine, complementary medicine, consumer health, and 17 allied health disciplines. Content includes:

More than 750 full-text journals
Full-text coverage dating back to 1937
Indexing for nearly 5,500 journals
Evidence-based care sheets

For those of you that are avid PubMed users, CINAHL makes an awesome complement to your research. Click on CINAHL Plus with Full-Text to access the trial. Please send your comments to Karen Brunner at brun4952@stthomas.edu.

February 20, 2019 by Karen Brunner

Database Highlights & Trials, Libraries

Database Trial: GeoScienceWorld eBooks

During the month of February, the UST Libraries will be trialing the GeoScienceWorld (GSW) eBook Collections. The UST Libraries already have a subscription to the GeoScienceWorld database and GSWorld eBooks would be an add-on to that platform. The platform is cross-searchable, allowing users to search eBooks, all 46 journals on the GSW platform, and nearly four million GeoRef records simultaneously.

GSW eBooks are from 10 respected publishers in the geosicences, including the Geology Society of America. Other features include:

Responsive design for easy reading on any mobile device
Unlimited access and downloading
Downloadable, DRM-free PDF chapters
Downloadable images
Ability to view larger versions of images

Please try out this database and give us your comments. Click on GeoScienceWorld (GSW) eBook Collections to access the trial site.

This trial runs through February 28, 2019. Please send your comments to Karen Brunner at brun4952@stthomas.edu.

February 1, 2019 by Karen Brunner

Database Highlights & Trials, News & Events, Science

Database Trial: JoVE Science Education: Chemistry

During the month of October, the UST Libraries will be trialing the innovative video database JoVE Science Education: Chemistry. JoVE Science Education: Chemistry is a database dedicated to providing simple, easy to understand videos that demonstrate key concepts and laboratory techniques. This trial includes access to the following six collections:

Please send your comments on this resource to Karen Brunner (brun4952@stthomas.edu).

October 2, 2018 by Karen Brunner