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NISH (NITAG Support Hub) 1 - General: How library guides are developed

What are library guides? Library guides are helpful resources that provide users with information and guidance on how to effectively use resources and services.

Aims of the library guides

The LibGuide aims to collect, organise and share literature, data, information and knowledge that are relevant for NISH in order to conduct EIDM options. LibGuides permit for easy navigation through relevant resources in the vaccination subject field, particularly in the African context. Two such guides on Malaria and HPV vaccines have been developed to support NITAGs in making country specific recommendations (see LibGuide 2 and LibGuide 3)

Priority elements used for searching

The priority elements used to access the relevant information will be included in the guide include:

   A) Based on a broad PICOT question

   B) Africa focused including country level literature

   C) Literature search from multiple databases: Pubmed, Africa-Wide, CINAHL…….

   D) Full text available for download whenever possible

   E) Updated regularly

For example:

What are the causes of vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Africa?

P : Population eg all persons in the Africa region

I : Intervention eg vaccination / immunization roll-out

C : Comparison eg none

O : Outcome eg Causes of Vaccination refusal/hesitancy/acceptance/confidence

T : Time frame (sometimes)

Open Access

Some articles are marked with "(Not OA)", which means that they are behind a paywall. Please contact us, so that we can attempt to access the articles differently.

On Pre-prints

Important notice : 

MedRxiv and bioRxiv posts many COVID19-related papers. A reminder: they have not been formally peer-reviewed and should not guide health-related behavior or be reported in the press as conclusive.!

Objectives of the library guides

The main objective of the LibGuide is to keep participants up to date with latest developments in the Vaccination for and in Africa field. Tabs in the LibGuide will let researchers select African countries and lead them and decision makers to the relevant databases the latest articles, information and reports. Databases used to access information include  Pubmed, Africa-Wide and CINAHL,  APA PsycArticles, APA PsycInfo, MEDLINE, Health Source: Nursing, Cochrane, Google Scholar, UptoDate and OpenUCT

The search string

How bibliographic databases are searched effectively:

We use keywords, subject terms and Boolean operators to tell a database how to combine search terms. Boolean operators are used to configure searches to find more precise and relevant results.

We call this a search strategy

Find, identify appropriate keywords, subject terms and Boolean operators AND OR NOR

Search Statements – Choosing & Using Sources: A Guide to Academic Research

Example 1:

AND

vaccines AND hesitancy

 

...where A stands for "vaccine" and B stands for "hesitancy"

 

The orange part in the middle will be the result list.

Example 2:

OR

 

The orange part will be the result list. (much larger than in example 1)

All keywords and phrases possible must be identified by way of using Thesauri, Google Scholar, subject headings

We use truncation or wildcards (*?)  to make sure to find everything. 

A search strategy is an organised structure of key terms used to search a database. The search strategy combines the key concepts of your sear

A search string

is a combination of keywords, truncation symbols, and boolean operators you enter into the search box of a library database or search engine