Leslie Gascon

Leslie Gascon (she/her/hers), MBA, MS(LIS), AHIP, is the Public Health & Collection Librarian of the University of Washington (UW) Health Sciences Library (HSL). She educates and assists UW faculty, students, staff, and researchers to identify, manage, and evaluate information. She primarily works with the School of Public Health (SPH).

To find your librarian, see the Health Sciences Liaison Librarians or the UW Libraries Subject Librarians webpages. 

• Contact Leslie directly:
  • Email with your question 
  • Schedule a virtual consultation 
• 24/7 assistance
  • Skilled librarians provide immediate assistance or forward your request as needed 
• Review the Public Health Toolkit 

General Resources

• Health Sciences Library Website
• ORCID, a persistent digital identifier that you own and control
• Ordering Articles not within the UW Libraries' Collections
• Public Health Toolkit
• Recommend a purchase (e.g., ebook, ejournal, etc.) 
  • Please use this form to add an item to Reserve whether the UW Libraries owns it yet or not 
• UW Libraries Search (find books, journals, and more) 
• Writing Resources 

For Students

Consultation

E.g., finding primary and secondary sources, evaluating information, citation management

• Discuss via email 
• Schedule a virtual meeting 

Course Reserves

Printing

For Faculty & Researchers

Classroom Demonstration

E.g., Intro to the Library, Advanced Database Searching 

• Discuss via email 
• Schedule a virtual meeting 
• Canvas: Add Leslie as a Librarian prior to class 

Consultation

E.g., research planning, advanced searching, predatory publishing, open access

• Discuss via email 
• Schedule a virtual meeting 
• Endnote Citation Management, or other citation managers
• Systematic Reviews
• Course Reserves
  • Add ebook, book, etc. to Course Reserves 
  • Add streaming media to Course Reserves 

General Resources

Anti-racism 

• Shanda Hunt and Amy Riegelman's Guide: Conducting research through an anti-racism lens 
• Stacy Collins' Guide: Anti-Oppression 
• Bethany Barelman, Chelsea Riddle, and Theresa Mudrock's Guide: Racial Justice Resources 

Basics of searching 

• Boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT
  • PB&J example
  • Julie Nanavati's video: Basics of Searching (example in PubMed)
• Turn off Smart Quotes in Microsoft products
  • Research about the consequences of straight and curly quotation marks in search methodology 

Citation management

• Software comparison
• Assistance 
• Citation tracking (forward and backward, also known as Cited Reference Searching) 
• Instructional video by Leslie Gascon 

Data

• Finding Data Guide
• Finding Health Statistics Guide

Evaluating information quality

• Help guides 

Google 

• Advanced search 
• Set up your library in Google Scholar 

Writing assistance 

• Odegaard Writing & Research Center (OWRC) appointments and resources 
• Conducting a Literature Review video by Leslie Gascon 
• Reporting Your Search video by Leslie Gascon 
• The Literature Review: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide article by Scribbr 
• Twenty Steps to Writing a Research Article by Beth A. Fischer and Michael J. Zigmond, Survival Skills and Ethics Program, University of Pittsburgh 
• HSL Writer's Guide

Popular Databases with Guides

Embase 

• Help guide 
• Recommend PICO search tab to add synonyms 
• Wildcards 
• Instructional video by Leslie Gascon 

PsycINFO 

• Guide to finding qualitative studies 
• Instructional video series by Julie Nanavati 

PubMed 

• PubMed searches MEDLINE, PubMed Central (PMC), and Bookshelf.
• Help guide
• Search fields 
  • Recommend Text Words [TW] for greater recall then Title/Abstract [TIAB] for greater specificity 
    • Both TW and TIAB search author keywords 
  • Using MeSH and Text Words together provides better recall than on their own (source) 
  • Subheading hierarchy 
• Wildcards 
• Instructional video series by Julie Nanavati 
  • If you have time for just one, watch this one on the Basics of Searching 
• Un-validated search strategies (also known as search hedges). Even if you edit the hedge, cite your source. 
  • Black Americans and racial disparities/racism, 11/2021 (no longer updated)
  • Health disparities search, 2019 (no longer updated) 
  • Health equity filter (update unknown) 
  • Latinx/Hispanic US population, 2021 (update unknown) 
  • Low and middle income countries (LMIC) search, 2020 (evaluated June 2020) 
  • Healthy People 2020 Structured Evidence Queries, September 2021 by PH Partners (no longer updated)

Web of Science 

• Help guide 
• Search fields 
  • Recommend Topic, TS=(), to search keywords in title, abstract, and keywords
• Wildcards 
• Proximity operators 

More databases 

• More database help guides

The Health Sciences Library Mission is to advance scholarship, research, education, and health care by anticipating information needs, providing essential resources, and facilitating learning for the greater health sciences community.

Learn more.

Leslie's LinkedIn 

Leslie's ORCID: 0000-0001-7363-8839