Methods and Protocols at BML

This page is intended as a guide to help you find protocols and methods in our book and journal collections, both online and in print.

Start by picking a section:

Major Online Protocols/Methods Collections

We subscribe to a number of popular protocols online including several Current Protocols In... and Methods in... series.

Books - Print and Online

Looking for something fairly detailed? Find a "cookbook" on your topic.

Journal articles - BIOSIS and PubMed

Protocols and methods described in journal articles tend to be shorter and highly focused on a specific experiment.

Major Online Protocols/Methods Collections

The following are some of our major licensed protocols collections. Most of these have a search function, but unfortunately we do not have a way at present to search across all of them. These are restricted to users connected to the UCSD network.

• Cold Spring Harbor Protocols
• Current Protocols
  (Note: our subscription does NOT include Magnetic Resonance Imaging or Food Analytical Chemistry titles.)
• Cytotechnology - in PubMed
• Methods - in PubMed
• Methods in Biotechnology (not in PubMed)
• Methods in Cell Biology - in PubMed
• Methods in Cell Science - in PubMed
• Methods in Enzymology - in PubMed
• Methods in Gene Biotechnology (not in PubMed)
• Methods in Molecular Biology - in PubMed
• Methods in Molecular Medicine - in PubMed
• Nature Methods - in PubMed
• Nature Protocols
• Springer Protocols
• CRC NetBase - not explicitly a collection of protocols. This contains subject-oriented libraries of handbooks in different areas. Many of these do contain methods information.

Free Online Resources

• OpenWetWare - online community for biology & bioengineering, featuring areas for sharing protocols, courses, lab info.
• Protocol Online - web clearinghouse for labs to publish and share protocols
• SciVee - videos from scientists and researchers discussing their research studies and posters.

Books: Print and Online

The UCSD Libraries catalog, Roger, contains information on all the books, journal subscriptions, government publications, etc. owned by the UCSD Libraries in print and online. Because protocols and methods can be scattered throughout the collection, it can be tricky to find them all. The search box below will take a topic you enter and add some keywords and limits automatically. 

Just replace the word yourtopic in the search box with your actual topic and hit Enter.  You'll get a list of matches that are books belonging to the Biomedical Library - this works best if you keep the topic fairly broad.

If you'd like to do your own search, go to Roger and use your own keywords. Search tips:

• After you have some search results you can use "Modify Search" to add limits like date, language, material type, and location.
• If you are specifically interested in electronic resources, select that collection from the main Roger page before you start a search.

This is the sort of book you will find using this search tool:

• Celis. 2006. Cell biology: a laboratory handbook. (3rd Ed.)
• Friedman and Rossi. 2007. Gene transfer : delivery and expression of DNA and RNA : a laboratory manual.
• Loring et al. 2007. Human stem cell manual: a laboratory guide.
• Roskams and Roger. 2007. Lab ref : a handbook of recipes, reagents, and other reference tools for use at the bench.
• Williams, Slatko and McCar. 2007. Laboratory investigations in molecular biology.

Journal Articles: BIOSIS and PubMed

BIOSIS and PubMed are both good sources for journal articles that provide methods and protocols. There is some overlap in the journals that are covered, but in general, BIOSIS is more biology-oriented and PubMed is more medicine-oriented.

Database	Search tips for Methods/Protocols
BIOSIS Previews	BIOSIS has two ways to search for methods/protocols on your topic 1. Literature type: Protocol Enter your topic in the first search box on the default search screen. For the second box, use the pulldown on the right to change the search to “literature type” and select protocol from the menu. This approach is very specific and sometimes results in zero hits.
	2. Concept codes BIOSIS uses a system of "concepts" that can help you whittle a large search down. The most relevant one is the major concept methods and techniques From the main search screen: Put your topic in one search field box In the second box select Major Concept and type "methods and techniques" in quotes
PubMed	In PubMed, your search terms are automatically mapped to official terminology from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) vocabulary. Unfortunately, there is no single MeSH term for protocols. Instead, MeSH has standard "subheadings" for specific aspects of a subject, like dosage of a drug. Some of the more relevant ones are in the table at right. You can copy and paste these onto the end of any search - be sure to use the brackets exactly as shown. If you would like help with your search for protocols, please Ask A Librarian.	copy/paste: AND analysis [sh] AND biosynthesis [sh] AND chemistry [sh] AND diagnostic use [sh] AND instrumentation [sh] AND methods [sh] Example: if you want methods relating to cox2, you would type: cox2 AND methods [sh]

Friendly URL: http://biomed.ucsd.edu/go/protocols.htm