Ovid is a database that has subject strengths in health & medicine, nursing, and psychology. It is the main source of our access to the database MEDLINE, which is available in various date packages. 

If you are searching Ovid MEDLINE, you can use the helpful Map Term to Subject Heading feature. This allows you to check for and use MeSH terms in your search. MeSH (= Medical Subject Headings) is a hierarchical system of subject headings which are allocated to articles, to describe their content. If you would like to learn more about this, contact Tim at the Library.

Within Ovid:

• You can change the database(s) you are searching by clicking on the Change [Resource] link in the search panel above the search box.
• You should default to the Advanced Search screen. This has only one line of search, so you might need to use Nesting, or search for one concept at a time and combine your search sets later.
• There is an option for Basic Search, and, here, you can enter your search topic in your own words. In Basic Search, results are sorted by Relevance, as indicated by a star-ranking. Ideally, you should be looking for results with 5-stars.
• The default is to a phrase-search, so if you enter multiple words together, the search will be for that phrase. If you wish to do a keyword search, you will need to put the AND operator between your terms.
• Ovid database search results might not have many direct links to full-text. For example, MEDLINE is primarily an index. For results where there is no full-text, use the Find it @CSU links to search for the full item in another database.
• Your Search History is always displayed above the search panel. There is a limit on the number of searches displayed so you might have to click on the Expand button to display all your previous searches. You can go back to the results of previous searches (searches run since last login), or combine previous searches using AND or OR.