Trout Library Blog

This week we are going to profile a library database that would be especially useful to students in the Dental programs at Harcum: Lexicomp for Dentistry. This database will provide you with drug information that you may need for your studies and your career. In it you will find tools to help answer prescribing, diagnosis and treatment questions, with dental-specific pharmacology on prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications, and natural products. Although this version of Lexicomp contains material that is focused on the needs of people in the dental profession, students in other Allied Health programs should be able to find useful information in this database as well.

To access Lexicomp for Dentistry, click on the Databases icon under Quick Links on the Library’s homepage. This will bring you to an alphabetical list of all of our databases. Scroll down to Lexicomp and select it. Since Lexicomp is a subscription database, you will need to enter a username and password if you are off campus. To find this information, log into Harcum Hatch and you will see a purple icon for Library Database Passwords on the righthand side of the bottom row. Click on this icon and choose the username and password for Lexicomp.

To do a drug search in Lexicomp, simply enter the name of the drug into the search box, click on the blue search button, and then click on the link under Dental Lexi-Drugs in the upper left-hand corner of the resulting screen. You will be brought to a screen that contains a Dental Lexi-Drugs monograph record, the main record in the database. The following are some features of a Dental Lexi-Drugs monograph record:

• Brand names
• Generic availability
• Pharmacologic category
• Use, including off-label if applicable
• Allergy considerations
• Adverse reactions
• Effects on dental treatment and on bleeding
• Dosing for various categories of patients
• Pregnancy and breastfeeding considerations

The following is an image of the top portion of the Dental Lexi-Drugs record for Penicillin G Procaine (You would scroll down to view the rest of the record):

As you can see in the blue bar and hyperlinks across the top of the record, Lexicomp contains a number of other useful features. Some include:

• Drug alerts and interactions
• Drug I.D. (Enter characteristics of an unknown drug to help identify it.)
• Drug images
• Adult and pediatric patient education (Answers common questions patients may ask)
• Various types of calculators, including those for dosage and unit conversion
• Toxicology of substances

More detailed instruction on the contents and use of Lexicomp for Dentistry can be found in our video database tutorial. Choose Database Tutorials under Quick Links on the Library’s homepage and then select Lexicomp.

Remember that if you have questions about this resource or any other, please don’t hesitate to ask us. You may visit the Library during the hours posted on the Library's homepage, email us at library@harcum.edu, or call us at 610-526-6085.

If you are looking for topic ideas or general information about a particular subject, the Credo Reference database is a good one to use. It contains full-text entries from a multitude of reference sources, including encyclopedias, dictionaries, manuals, handbooks, and more.

To access Credo Reference, click on the A-Z Databases icon under Quick Links on the Library’s homepage. This will bring you to an alphabetical list of all of our databases. Scroll down to Credo and select it. Since Credo is a subscription database, you will need to enter a username and password if you are off campus. To find this information, log into Harcum Hatch and you will see a purple icon for Library Database Passwords on the righthand side of the bottom row. Click on this icon and choose the username and password for Credo Reference.

Credo is easy to search. Simply enter the database and type your topic into the search box.

You will then be taken to a page with a list of results from various reference works. There are drop-down menus that you can use to limit your results by subject, date, length, and media type. An advanced searching option is also available that will allow you to do a more refined search with your keywords. The links on the results page contain information about the topic that you entered, and many also feature a bibliography. You can track down the sources listed in the bibliography for further research. Credo also provides you with the citation of your chosen item in APA or MLA format.

Articles can be saved, printed, or shared (by link or email). In addition, they can be read aloud or translated into different languages.

Another useful feature that you will find on the results page is a Mind Map of your topic. The Mind Map contains the term that you searched at the center with related terms branching out from it. The related terms are hyperlinked to their own list of resources, which can provide you with additional topic ideas, more aspects of the same topic, or ways of narrowing your focus. Find the Mind Map for the subject of Nursing below:

More detailed instruction on the contents and use of Credo Reference can be found in our video database tutorial. Choose Database Tutorials under the Research Services menu on the Library’s homepage and then select Credo Reference. Note that while Credo Reference is a good database to use to begin your research, the information that you will find in it will tend to be basic. You should always search further for more in-depth and/or academic resources.

Remember that if you have questions about this resource or any other, please don’t hesitate to ask us. You may visit the Library during the hours posted on the Library's homepage, email us at library@harcum.edu, use our chat service when it is available, or call us at 610-526-6085.

Google Scholar is a popular search engine for scholarly sources. It can be frustrating though when you cannot immediately view the full text of an article. You can add more full-text results to Google Scholar by connecting Google Scholar to Harcum College Trout Library resources to access material available from our databases. Follow the steps below to configure Google Scholar. 

Go to Google Scholar on your device. Click on the menu icon on the top left of the screen and select Settings. 

In the Settings menu, select Library Links. Use the search box to search for Harcum College. 

Put a checkmark in the box in front of Harcum College/Trout Library - Available from Library, then click Save. It is important to note here that this setting uses your browser's cookies to remember your new library links. If you clear your browser cookies, you will have to set this up again. 

Go back to the Google Scholar search page and try a search. Your search results will now show you when the full text of an article is available through the Harcum College Trout Library. Notice in the screen capture below that you will see links with the words Available from Library. These links will take you to the full text of the article when it is available from the Trout Library. Click directly on the Available from Library links to be directed to the full text. 

An additional note: You will still need to input the passwords to the databases when prompted. Those passwords are located in your Harcum Hatch. Look for the Library Database Passwords icon (see below) in Harcum Hatch. 

Happy searching! If you need assistance with your research, please reach out to us!