The physical Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences is free and open to the public. Unfortunately, not all of the virtual LHL is free and open. Many of our electronic resources, including the electronic journals, are restricted by the vendor's license agreement to current UAB faculty, staff, and students or those physically in the library building. However, below are a couple of starting points for health research that are FREE and available from home.
Consumer Health Information
Health InfoNet of Alabama www.healthinfonet.org is a consumer health information and referral service for the residents of Alabama co-sponsored by the public libraries of Jefferson County and UAB Lister Hill Library.
MedlinePlus® medlineplus.gov is a consumer health information site prepared by the National Library of Medicine. The "Health Topics" pages list high quality consumer health pages by NIH and professional health organizations. Medical dictionaries, a medical encyclopedia with information on numerous medical tests/procedures, and drug database are also available.
Healthfinder® www.healthfinder.gov This is a free guide to reliable consumer health information, developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It includes links to selected online publications, clearinghouses, databases, Web sites, and support and self-help groups, as well as government agencies and not-for-profit organizations that produce reliable information for the public.
Medical Journal Articles
PubMed® pubmed.gov MEDLINE®. This free database helps you locate articles in research journals on medical topics. This is a finding tool, it does not generally give access to the actual articles themselves. Many of the records will have links to publishers' websites, BUT most will not allow access to the fulltext article without payment of some kind. Pubmed now includes a search limit you can add to any search to limit results to free fulltext. Add the following to your search: AND free full text [sb]
If you are interested in using Lister Hill Library as your resource library, use the Pubmed Linkout urlhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?holding=uablib_fft&otool=uablib to see information about which articles are available in electronic or print form at Lister Hill Library. Please note that you will still not be able to view restricted full text remotely, but you will be able to verify that the library has a subscription to that article. You can also limit your search to just those items available in some format (print OR electronic) in Lister Hill Library by adding the following to your search: AND loprovuablib [sb]
Alabama Virtual Library www.avl.lib.al.us Residents of the state of Alabama also have access to the Alabama Virtual Library through their local public libraries. This state-funded initiative includes access to a number of databases including EBSCO's Health Source: Consumer Edition and Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition. These databases include full text articles from over 500 journals.
HighWire Press List of Free E-Journals highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl This site has one of the largest lists of free full text. Several journal publishers will permit anyone to view full text articles that are at least one year old. This site also offers a list of pay-per-view journals with prices, and it offers a MEDLINE (Pubmed-based) search that can be set to limit the articles to those with free fulltext.
Hardin MD List of Free E-Journals www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/md/ej.html This site lists free full text journals and gives Pubmed bookmarks to facilitate MEDLINE searches of just those journals. This page provides some simple to use PubMed canned searches that limit results to the free full text. It may not be as slick looking as the Highwire Press page but if free is all you want, it is simpler to use than the Highwire page.
Loansome Doc ($) - www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/loansome_doc.html - This is the document delivery service linked to PubMed®. This service is not free, but it is an option for Alabama health professionals not affiliated with UAB who need journal articles. You can establish a Loansome Doc account with Lister Hill Library to order & receive fulltext articles (fax or mail) for a fee.
Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) http://www.healthinternetwork.org/src/eligibility.php is a new initiative, supported by the United Nations, to provide free or nearly free access to the major journals in biomedical and related social sciences, to public institutions in developing countries.
Need Help? Have Questions?
Contact the Lister Hill Library Information Desk:
1700 University Boulevard S. Birmingham, AL Email; online; phone (205) 934-2230; or fax (205) 975-8313
