SEARCHING FOR ALTERNATIVES



Databases Available at Purdue include:

    AGRICOLA
    developed by the National Agricultural Library, covers agricultural literature including animal care and welfare topics for laboratory animals, zoo animals, and livestock including; animal care and handling, humane treatment, animal rights, alternative to animal testing and laws and regulations. It is also a good resource for toxicology information especially pertaining to agricultural chemicals. [Coverage: 1979 to date; Available through the Purdue Libraries http://purl.lib.purdue.edu/db/agricola or Coverage: 1970 to date; Free on the Internet at http://agricola.nal.usda.gov/ (Suggest using the "KeyWord Search" option under the "Quick Search: Articles" box)]

    Biological Abstracts [BIOSIS]
    comprehensively covers the biological literature and is essential to the researcher working with animals. Use the concept codes field to retrieve two broad subject areas: testing and nonanimal. [Coverage: 1985 to date http://purl.lib.purdue.edu/db/db232 ]

    CAB Abstracts
    provides comprehensive coverage of research in agriculture, biology, veterinary medicine and related fields. As the premier index to the world's veterinary literature, it is an excellent resource for researchers working with animals [Coverage: 1910 to date http://purl.lib.purdue.edu/db/db231 ]

    INSPECT
    available with Compendex as part of Engineering Village 2, is a comprehensive database for physics, computing, and electrical engineering, and an excellent place to look for applications of artificial intelligence, robotics, computer simulation, neural networks, and cellular biophysics to studies that normally use animal models. [Coverage: 1896 to date http://purl.lib.purdue.edu/db/inspec ]

    International Pharmaceutical Abstracts [IPA]
    provides clinical, practical, theoretical, economic, and scientific information on the development and use of drugs and the profession of pharmaceutical practice including the testing of drug and cosmetics in animals. [Coverage: 1970 to date http://purl.lib.purdue.edu/db/ipa ]

    PubMed or MEDLINE
    developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM), is the first database of choice for searching the medical research literature including testing done on animals. Using the relevant MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) keywords, such as acute toxicity tests; animal testing alternatives; animal use alternatives; animal welfare; handling; models, animal; or skin irritancy tests can provide great power in searching. [PubMed - Coverage: 1950 to current week http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?otool=inpurduelib [records prior to 1965 lack MeSH indexing] ; Ovid MEDLINE - Coverage: 1966 to date [2-3 months lag time for indexing] http://purl.lib.purdue.edu/db/medline ]

    PsycINFO
    provides comprehensive access to psychological research including the use of animals for studies on behavior, brain development, cognition, and other areas of research. [Coverage: 1806 to date http://purl.lib.purdue.edu/db/psycinfo ]

    SciFinder Scholar
    provides access to Chemical Abstracts, a good source for animal testing of the effects of chemicals (drugs, agrochemicals, cosmetic ingredients, industrial solvents, etc.). Chemicals can be searched by name, structure, CAS registry number, and molecular formula. [Coverage: 1907 to date http://purl.lib.purdue.edu/db/db100 ]

    Web of Science
    and its companion title Current Contents, provide good cross coverage of the sciences, social sciences, and arts & humanities as well as the option of doing cited searching  [Coverage: 1900 to date for Science Citation Index portion of database; http://purl.lib.purdue.edu/db/db257 ]


    Databases available through the Purdue Libraries by Title:

    http://www.lib.purdue.edu/eresources/result.html


Selected Specialized Alternatives Databases
Time Period Searched and Date Search was Performed

    The time period that a database covers is noted above as well as on the main Databases by Title webpage here on the Purdue Libraries web site. When you do an online search the name of the database, the time period covered, and the date of the search usually appears at the top of search results [i.e. MEDLINE 1950- (2/5/06)].

    A key question in any literature search is "Have I searched an adequate time period?" After the death of a human study participant at Johns Hopkins, researchers are even for cognizant of the need to examine results from a broad time period, not just the last few years of research.

     

Search Strategy Used to Look for Duplications and Alternatives:

    Search strategies for duplications and alternatives are frequently divided into two phases, reduction and refinement, and replacement.

    Phase 1: Reduction and Refinement usually consists a generalized database search to retrieve citations relevant to the investigator's field of study. Such searches should provide information on current research, alert the investigator to whether or not they are performing duplicative studies, and possibly provide information on refining experimental techniques.

    Phase 2: Replacement begins once the investigator has a basic understanding of the research, area, including the literature published in the field, the techniques used, and the commonly used species. In searching for alternatives, multiple databases should be searched using search terms such as animal testing alternatives, tissue culture, cell culture, in vitro, simulation, model, refinement, reduction or alternative. It is important to remember that although electronic databases are powerful tools, some of the subject databases still do not cover journal articles published before the mid 1960s. Print indexes in relevant areas are still available in the Purdue Libraries if the online version does not cover earlier years.

    Sources for suggested keywords to use in searching Reduction and Refinement and Replacement include:

    Alternatives Terminology (UC-Davis) http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/Animal_Alternatives/termino.htm
    Thesaurus for Animal Use Alternatives (AWIC) http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/alternatives/altfact.htm

     

    Consult with a Subject-Specialist Librarian [PU Libraries]:

    http://www.lib.purdue.edu/rguides/instructionalservices/librarians.html


Quality Alternatives Resources
Prepared by Gretchen Stephens, Veterinary Medical Librarian and Associate Professor of Library Science, Purdue University [phone: 494-2852; email: gms@purdue.edu] for the "How to Write An Approval-Ready Animal Use Protocol" Workshop held at Purdue on 10/12/06. Updated 8/18/08.
Make a Gift
News & Announcements RSS
Full Feed