Planex (Idox)

The PLANEX database has been compiled by the IDOX Information Service over a period of almost 30 years. It covers all the subject areas of local public policy and governance including social work.

Searching PLANEX

Do not use Internet Explorer to search PLANEX. It has a fault which makes it difficult to display the full text of articles. Use Firefox or Google Chrome. PLANEX has two search facilities: basic and advanced. The basic search offers you one search box where you can combine words with and, or, not. You can shorten or truncate words, for instance, environment* will return results including environment, environments, environmental, environmentally .You can also choose to run a pattern search or a concept search. A pattern search might be useful to capture words with various spelling options, such as organization / organisation. A concept search will bring back items on similar concepts, for instance a search for aggression will also bring back items containing the word hostility. You may find that Boolean searching is the best option for PLANEX as the database contains so many records.

Here is as example of the basic search

You may be looking for the use of drugs or needles in housing estates: (drug* or needle*) and "housing estates" This search has brackets round drug and needle. If you don't put the brackets in, PLANEX will combine needle and housing estates, but it won't combine drug and housing estates - it will return everything on drugs because it will interpret the search as drug* or (needle* and "housing estates"). You can use truncation (*) for the words drug and needle, to make sure that plurals are included. The inverted commas round "housing estates" makes sure that these two words are treated as a phrase. You can sort your search results by: the year published - with the default display returning the most recent items first, by relevance - with the most relevant listed first, and by author - sorted alphabetically.

The advanced search allows you to combine search terms in different fields, such as author, title, publisher, abstract, or keywords. You can choose the fields of the records which the search engine will work on in two search boxes, and you can combine three different searches in this way. This facility is useful for a specialised database like PLANEX as it can filter out irrelevant references.

Here is an example of the Advanced search:

You are looking for information on planning gain in Scotland and only have time to read journal articles. "planning gain" Type this into the main search box. To restrict the results to journal article Choose the Publisher field. For Scotland Choose the Keywords field. This search will focus down for you, saving you time. Note that to find journal articles you should enter journal article in the publisher field.

Example 3: This time you are looking for items on affordable housing published within the last year "affordable housing" Type this into the main search box. 2003, 2004 Type these years into the "year of publication" boxes.

Example 4: Now you are looking for the most recent items on affordable housing. "affordable housing" Type this into the main search box. 01/09/2003, 31/01/2004 Type these dates into the "date added to database" boxes. This search could be useful for identifying the most recent additions to stock on a topic you are interested in over a period. You can save the search by adding the page with the results to your "favourites". When you open this from your "favourites", click on the Advanced Search link at the top of the page to get back to the input screen, then you can enter in a new set of dates to update the results.

Refining your search

The advanced search allows you to search within the current set of results. This is useful if you return more than 100 items. To do this, run your first search, then go back to the search page and click the "Search in current results" box adding another term in one or both of the search boxes below the box.

Widening your search

If you find that your search returns no or very few results, go back to the search screen and modify your search terms. You can either choose a broader topic or you can add similar terms with OR between them eg anorexia returns only one item, whereas anorexia OR "eating disorder" returns more titles to choose from.

Before you start

It is always a good to think about your topic by asking yourself a few questions about it. If you are interested in unemployment, think about the aspect which interests you - is it statistics on unemployment, or attitudes towards unemployment, or barriers to employment? Then think about the group of unemployed people you may be interested in - is it young people, older people, people from ethnic minorities, men or women? By asking yourself a few questions like this, search terms will suggest themselves to you, and you are much more likely to get back a focused set of search results. Record structure

 

Processing results

You can create lists of references which include abstracts. There is a tick box at the side of each item in your search results, and on each page with the full record. You can build up a list by marking the most relevant records with a tick. At any point you can click on "View marked records" to see what you have marked. You can view these records in the default short version, or with the abstract. If you want to delete any records from your list, there is a "dustbin" icon by each record which will remove it. When you have built up your list you can choose either to save the file, print it, or to email it to yourself or someone else. When you are in the "View marked records" format, you are not able to download full text or ask for the document to be sent to you.

Exporting to RefWorks

There is no built in facility to export records to RefWorks. However, you can get round this by following these instructions.

Highlight and copy the item title from your results list Display the Google Scholar window. Paste the item title into the search box and search If it comes up in the results list, you can import it into RefWorks using the import to refworks link If the link is not there, go to the top of the screen and use the Scholar preferences link to enable the export to reference manager option at the foot of the screen Click the Save preferences button and the links to import to RefWorks will then appear on Google scholar You need to import items from Google Scholar one at a time Not all of your Planex results will appear on Google Scholar, but it is worth trying this as an easy way to import to RefWorks Further help

For further training contact your librarian or ask at the base