Trout Library Blog - Library Guides at Charles H. Trout Library

The Trout Library has many resources to help students in the Dental Assisting and Dental Hygiene programs. This week, we will be highlighting these resources.

As we have done for every program at Harcum, we have created a library guide for Dental Assisting│EFDA│Dental Hygiene. To find the Library Guides, click on the Library Guides icon under Quick Links on the Library’s website. Guides for individual health topics are available as well.

Library Guides: Programs, Courses & Topics box. About a third of the way down the left-hand column, Dental Assisting/EFDA/ Dental Hygiene encircled in red.

Library guides contain tabs for Websites, Databases, Books & eBooks, Videos & Podcasts, Open Educational Resources (OERs), and more.

Dental Assisting/EFDA/Dental Hygiene: Websites. Website tab selected. Boxes shown: Anatomy, Associations & Organizations (Left); Dental Research News, Ethics, Evidence-Based Resources (Center); Pediatric Dentistry, Pharmacology, Radiology (Right).

Under the guide's Databases tab, you will find a list of all the databases we offer that are relevant to the dental field. Some are subscription databases, denoted by a bear icon. To access these databases from off campus, you will need a username and password that can be found in the Library Database Password List under Quicklinks in Harcum Hatch. The primary subscription database that you would use to find peer-reviewed articles in the dental field would be Dentistry & Oral Sciences Source. CINAHL and Academic Search Complete are other databases that would be useful to you. These databases contain a considerable amount of full-text availability.

The databases denoted by a blue looking glass icon are open access and thus freely available to the general public. Health-related databases in this category that would be beneficial to dental students include BioMed Central, PLOS (Public Library of Science), PubMed, and ScienceOpen. They also include a great deal of full text.

If you wish to search for eBooks, we have EBSCO eBooks Academic Collection, which is also available through a link on our databases page and requires a username and password. Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB), which is available to the general public, is another good source to use.

In order to find drug information, we have the Lexicomp Online for Dentistry database, which requires a username and password that you would retrieve from Harcum Hatch. Lexicomp provides industry-leading reference information and screening tools to help answer prescribing, diagnosis and treatment questions, with dental-specific pharmacology information on over 8,000 prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications (OTCs) and natural products, plus tools such as a drug interactions/drug allergy screener and a drug identifier. In Lexicomp, find information such as brand names, generic availability, pharmacologic category, dosage, allergy considerations, effects on dental treatment, drug images, what adult patients need to know, what pediatric patients should know, toxicology, and more. The database also contains various types of calculators, such as ones for unit conversion and dosage. Below find a portion of a sample record for the drug, Phenoxybenzamine:

For a video tutorial on any of the databases that I mentioned, please visit our Database Tutorials page. There is a link to it on the Library’s homepage.

In health-related courses, the citation formats that are used tend to be AMA (American Medical Association) and NLM (National Library of Medicine). We have a Cite Sources guide available through a link on our homepage with tabs for AMA and NLM.

Remember that if you have questions about these resources or any others, please don’t hesitate to ask us. You may contact the Trout Library by sending an email to library@harcum.edu, or you may use our chat service during the hours posted on the Library’s homepage. You may also request a Zoom session with a librarian by filling out the form available through a link on the homepage.

Bill Fanshel

Evening/Weekend Librarian

wfanshel@harcum.edu

610-229-9311

Recent Posts

The Bryn Mawr Substation

Eagle-eyed observers around campus may have noticed recent construction activity at the Bryn Mawr Substation. This work, undertaken by Amtrak, is more than just a facelift; it's part of a significant three-year project to upgrade the train line stretching from the Philadelphia Zoo to Paoli. Interestingly, this isn't the first major transformation for the Bryn Mawr Substation, a structure which has been a backdrop to our community, intertwined with the story of Harcum College.Built in 1915, the same year Harcum College first opened its doors in Melville Hall, the Bryn Mawr Substation stands as a silent witness to the college's growth. Constructed by the Pennsylvania Railroad as part of the electrification of their line, the substation's early construction would have coincided with Harcum's initial upgrades to Melville Hall, marking the beginning of a shared history within the Bryn Mawr landscape.While the Bryn Mawr Substation has become an unassuming part of the local scenery, the Harcum College Archive Collection offers glimpses into its past. The few photographs featuring the substation often capture it in the background.The earliest visual record of the substation in the Harcum College Archive appears in a photograph of Bedford Hall. Although undated, we know this image cannot predate 1947, the year Harcum acquired the building. Even in the background of this image, the Bryn Mawr Substation is visible, its structure remarkably similar to its present-day form, offering a tangible link between the college's mid-20th century and today. Decades later, in 1974, the Bryn Mawr Substation made another appearance in Harcum's history, captured in two photographs within The Harlequin, the college yearbook. These images, documenting the dedication of Harcum's new tennis courts, feature the substation in the distance. Local sportscaster Joe Pellegrino joined students for a game, watched by two hundred members of the Harcum community. The steadfast presence of the substation in the backdrop underscores its enduring place within the college's physical environment.The Bryn Mawr Substation forms the backdrop to a tennis match, The Harlequin, 1974.Two hundred members of the College community watched a tennis match on the new courts. The Bryn Mawr Substation is visible in the background, The Harlequin, 1974.Local sportscaster, Joe Pellegrino stands among Harcum College tennis players at the opening ceremony of the new tennis courts, The Harlequin, 1974Though the familiar presence of the Bryn Mawr Substation will be missed, its legacy remains embedded in the visual and historical fabric of the campus. The arrival of the new substation signals progress, a continuation of the ever-evolving relationship between the college and the infrastructure surrounding it. Just as Harcum has grown and changed over the years, so too will this space, shaping the future while carrying echoes of the past. Roxanne Sutton Reference and Special Collections Librarian 610-526-6022 rsutton@harcum.edu ...

Refreshing the Trout Library Website

Over the last month, the Trout Library website at Harcum College underwent a redesign. Like many library websites, it had grown over time with new content and updates added to meet changing needs. While the site contained valuable information, the organization and structure no longer aligned with how users were interacting with it. Although functional, the website benefited from a refreshed approach—one that would make tasks easier and create a more user-friendly experience.The website is built on LibGuides, a platform widely used by academic libraries. While LibGuides has some design constraints, it offers enough flexibility to make necessary improvements. The goal was not a complete overhaul but rather to implement practical adjustments that would enhance navigation and better highlight key resources. The layout was streamlined by organizing content into clear sections: Library Services, Ask a Librarian, and Request Forms. Emphasis was placed on the resources most used by students and faculty such as the research databases, library guides, and request forms.Updates to the website were also made to improve its mobile responsiveness and overall usability. While there is always room for further improvement, these changes aimed to create a more user-friendly experience. Feedback from library staff, students, and faculty played an important role in guiding the redesign of the website. Their input influenced decisions about layout, navigation, and which resources to highlight—making sure the updated website reflects the needs of the Harcum community.The library website will continue to evolve with ongoing updates based on user feedback. This recent redesign represents a step toward making the library’s online presence more user-friendly, accessible, and aligned with how students and faculty engage with library resources.The updated website can be viewed here: https://harcum.libguides.com/troutlibrary ...

Unveiling Harcum’s Hidden History through Advertisements

Imagine stumbling across a century-old advertisement that sheds light on the remarkable women who shaped Harcum College. This thrilling discovery recently unfolded at the Charles H. Trout Library, where the archives gained three original advertisements. ...

A Familiar Face

The bust of Dr. Charles Wharton Stork has been a permanent fixture in the Library since 1984. But why is is there? He was a prolific author and taught at Harcum. He also survived a sinking ship. We look at archival material to tell us more. ...

Dental Resources