CAB Abstracts, Medline & Zoological Record

Searching CAB Abstracts, Medline & Zoological Record

• Cab Abstracts– Agriculture, Animal and crop husbandry – Animal and plant breeding – Veterinary medicine

• Medline– Human medicine and health care

• Zoological Record– Extensive zoological research information

How to construct a search Plan your search strategy before you start your

search

Keep your search simple.

Remember your Boolean operators (and, or, not).

Boolean operators are not case sensitive

Truncation can be used to indicate variants of a word e.g. enzym* matches: enzyme, enzymes, enzymatic, enzymic

Two (or more) terms that are always used together, in the same order, can be used as a term. (e.g. “babesia canis” and treatment)

Boolean operators• AND• Use AND to retrieve records containing both search terms: all terms must be

included in the record.Use AND to narrow your search and retrieve fewer records.

• Example: elephants AND lions retrieve records containing both the keywords. 

• OR• Use OR to retrieve records containing either or both search terms.

Use OR to broaden your search and retrieve a greater number of records.Use OR for synonyms or spelling variations.

• Remember always to put your terms in brackets when using "or" e.g. (dog or dogs or canine)

•  Example 1: milk OR dairy retrieves records containing either milk or dairy, or both the keywords.Example 2: behavior OR behaviour (American/ English spelling) 

• NOT• Use NOT to exclude certain items from your search.

Caution: It is easy to exclude relevant terms; use the NOT operator with care! • Example 1: “dog” not “tick” (will retrieve all articles containing the word dog,

but will exclude all articles containing the word tick)

From the Jotello F Soga Library’s homepage (

http://www.library.up.ac.za/vet

) click on Veterinary Databases

Scroll down and select CAB Abstracts

Supply your student/personnel

number and PIN

Starting page of CAB Abstracts.

Click on Establish a new session

The search can be done across “All

Databases” or by using the dropdown

arrow individual databases can be

selected

Type your search terms in the

displayed window/s – remember about Boolean search

operators

Select a field to search.

More search windows may

be added

Customise the

publication years

The results of your search

Repeat a search with a second search

term

The results of the second

search

To combine the searches click on Search History

Select the sets you wish to

combine and choose and / or

The results of the combining process. Click on the number of results to view the

complete list

The results of the combined sets

are now displayed

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and change the number of

results / page

To view the full record click on the title of the article

The full record

Full text access

Article title

Authors

Journal information

Abstract

Author information

Language of the article

The full record (cont.)

Try the various full text options

The Full text article

Results can be refined with the

help of Research Areas, Document types, Publication

years, Source titles, Authors,

etc.

Selected results can be e-mailed

and /or printed.

Decide on the output format

Click “Print” to print the

selected results

Complete this page to send results by e-

mail

Selected results can be exported to Refworks/

Endnote

Decide on the output format

Login to Refworks to export your

results into your Refworks folders

Select “View last imported folder”

to view the references and

add it to a folder

The exported references

Not sure about the author or journal title?

Click on “Select from index”

Use this screen to find the

Author

Scroll though the list until

you reach the Author’s name

Click on Add next to the

Author’s nameand then on OK

The Author will be added to the

Author field

Follow the same steps to find

Publication names (Journal/book

titles)

Looking for more search terms ?

Select the Descriptors field

and click on “Select from Thesaurus”

Click on Select a Database and

select CABI. Make sure that you see

CABI:….

The Find or Browse function

may be used

To find more terms type a keyword

and click on Find

Click on Add to transfer the

keyword to your search page or

click on T to see more detail

To use the Browse function click on Applied Science and Technology

Depending on your topic expand some of the sub-topics. If there is a + you can continue

expanding for more specific terms.

To add a term click on Add