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Seeing East Asia Through Library Collections
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A presentation of recent East Asian research projects based in the Brown University Library
Join the Brown University Library for two presentations by three East Asian scholars at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, April 30 in the Patrick Ma Digital Scholarship Lab at the Rockefeller Library.
Free and open to the public. Light refreshments.
Mallory Go ’25 MPH’25 Mallory Go ’25 MPH’25
The Library’s 2025 Gardner Fellow, Mal Go is a senior in the Five Year Undergraduate/MPH program studying Public Health/Applied Epidemiology. She has an eclectic research profile that includes historical and feminist analyses, gestational diabetes, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, and the monstrous feminine. When she’s not working or catching up on sleep, Mal can be found losing a game of chess in Coffee Exchange.
Presentation:
Viewing the Feminine with Horror: Linguistic and Artistic Depictions of the Feminine in Classical Chinese and Japanese Folklore
In China and Japan, folklore has played a crucial role in shaping gender perceptions. The portrayal of female spirits and characters, particularly in ghost stories and supernatural tales, reveals distinct yet overlapping perspectives on gender roles, patriarchal anxieties, and social control. The feminine entities in Chinese and Japanese folklore serve as cautionary figures, warning against women who defy societal norms, and have functioned as a means of patriarchal reinforcement and an outlet for the monstrous feminine. The lasting influence of these depictions in contemporary literature, art, film, and animation demonstrates the enduring power of the feminine in shaping gendered narratives across cultural and historical contexts.
Yan Li Yan Li and Fanjie Meng
Visiting scholars based in the Rockefeller Library in spring 2025, Professors Li and Meng came to Brown from Xiamen University, PRC, where Li serves as the chair of the Department of Chinese Language and Literature. Their research at Brown, funded by the China Initiative, focuses on Western scholars’ works in our collections and the significance of their work in China studies.
Presentation:
Accidental Sinologists: Early Western Scholars’ Documentation of China and the Chinese Language
Fanjie Meng From the 16th century onward, early Western explorers to China — a group that often included missionaries, architects, merchants, diplomats, professors, and judges — have left behind a wealth of writings. Interestingly, some of these figures never visited China, while others resided there for many years, engaging in roles from serving the British East India Company to positions within the Chinese imperial palace. Brown University’s special collections house hundreds of these works, with approximately 40 that are unique to Brown. This presentation will examine a selection of these special items, highlighting their pivotal role in the initial efforts toward mutual understanding between the East and the West.
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Health and Biomedical Library Services April News
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Your HBLS librarians are here to support you in all the valuable work you do. Below are some resources for your research and scholarship.
Federal Data and Information Preservation
Since January 2025, many federal websites, datasets, and publications have been removed, withdrawn, or modified. In response, information professionals worldwide, including those at Brown University Library, have joined coordinated efforts to preserve access to essential government information. See the March 14 Today@Brown message for more information about interdepartmental efforts at the Library. You can also go directly to our links to alternatives to federal health resources and alternate sources for U.S. government data.
Access to PubMed
PubMed is one of the essential resources provided by the federal government. But did you know there are alternative ways to access PubMed’s primary content, MEDLINE, as well as other databases containing valuable medical literature? Check out our blog post about PubMed, or go directly to our list of alternatives to PubMed.
Publish Open Access with Elsevier
Brown University Library has negotiated open access fee waiver agreements with some new publishers. Our recent subscription renewal with the publisher Elsevier includes such an agreement. Brown-affiliated corresponding authors may opt to have their articles published in one of Elsevier’s hybrid journals immediately as open access at no charge. View the list of included hybrid journals, as well as the current agreements in place with other publishers for discounts and waivers, on the Library’s open access resource guide.
Clinical Skills and Procedural Videos
Check out our library’s fantastic collection of clinical skills and procedural videos! These resources serve as excellent study aids for both Clerkship and Post-Clerkship students. Take advantage of these valuable tools to enhance your learning and teaching experience.
Contact Your HBLS Librarians!
Questions about library services or resources for the health and biomedical sciences? Email us at HealthSciLibrarians@brown.edu!
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Beyond PubMed: Resources for Searching the Biomedical Literature
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What is PubMed?
Most researchers in the health and life sciences are familiar with PubMed, a free database maintained by the National Library of Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health. It currently contains over 37 million citations and is made up of three components. The largest is MEDLINE, a dataset of references from journals that have been specifically selected for indexing. The second component is PubMed Central, or PMC, a free full text journal archive that also includes manuscripts and preprints related to research funded by the National Institutes of Health; some PMC journals are indexed in MEDLINE, but not all. Finally, there is the Bookshelf, which includes the full text of books and reports published by the U.S. federal government and other organizations.
So MEDLINE and PubMed aren’t the same?
No, although people often use the names interchangeably. MEDLINE is searchable freely via PubMed, but there are also database publishers that provide an alternate interface to the MEDLINE database. Those interfaces frequently offer much more sophisticated searching options, which can be valuable for finding information on complex topics and for comprehensive searching for evidence synthesis projects. Of these subscription options, we recommend Ovid MEDLINE.
Why would I search Ovid MEDLINE and not PubMed?
This may be a matter of personal preference. If you’re looking for powerful and flexible search options, you might choose Ovid MEDLINE. Or you might prefer PubMed’s straightforward interface and its integrated access to PMC.
It could also be an access issue. Over the weekend of March 1-2 of 2025, the performance of PubMed’s servers became erratic, making the database only intermittently available. In short-term situations like this, members of the Brown University community who generally prefer PubMed may wish to use Ovid MEDLINE temporarily instead.
Are there any other ways to search MEDLINE besides PubMed and Ovid MEDLINE?
Yes! Two excellent options are freely available:
Europe PMC integrates content from a range of sources, which include PubMed (both MEDLINE and PMC), Agricola, and 34 life science preprint servers including biorxiv, Research Square, and Preprints.org. As a result, it’s larger than Ovid MEDLINE or even PubMed.
The Lens aggregates data from a wide range of sources including, but not limited to, PubMed, Crossref, OpenAlex, ORCID, Microsoft Academic and several patent offices. That makes it larger than both PubMed and Europe PMC.
So PubMed and MEDLINE are great. Why would I use other databases at all?
There are a number of things to consider when selecting a database.
While PubMed is especially valuable as a free resource worldwide, its core dataset, MEDLINE, is produced and maintained by the U.S. federal government. Since January 2025, many federal websites, datasets, and publications have been removed, withdrawn, or modified. There are growing concerns about the stability, reliability, and authority of the MEDLINE dataset, which were amplified by the recent temporary access problems. Medical librarians and other researchers worldwide are monitoring developments in order to be prepared for coverage or access changes.
However, these concerns are certainly not the only reason to use other clinical databases! Each database offers its own unique content, and using multiple databases is important to comprehensive research. Brown University subscribes to several excellent and important medical and interdisciplinary databases beyond PubMed/MEDLINE.
Ok, so which ones do you recommend?
Embase is an international biomedical and pharmacological database. There is some overlap with MEDLINE, but it indexes thousands of journals not covered by MEDLINE. Embase is particularly good for drug and medical device research and pharmacovigilance.
Web of Science is a multidisciplinary database including significant coverage of the scientific literature, including the health and life sciences. It also offers forward and backward citation searching.
Scopus is another database that searches across many disciplines. It has significant overlap with Embase and MEDLINE, as well as unique content. Forward and backward citation searching are available in Scopus.
Where can I easily bookmark all these options?
Visit our guide to Alternatives to PubMed to find all the resources above.
Brown also offers a custom link to PubMed where you’ll see our Brown “Find it!” buttons for access to our full text articles. To streamline your full text experience even more, in PubMed and on publisher websites, we recommend installing the free LibKey Nomad browser extension. Once you’ve added it to your browser, select Brown University as your organization.
Questions? Contact Your HBLS Librarians!
Email us at HealthSciLibrarians@brown.edu!
Image credit: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/oet/ed/pubmed/mesh/mod00/01-000.html