HealthSeptember 10, 2025

Why one librarian chose APA PsycINFO to improve research efficiency, quality, and confidence

Woman Talking with Colleagues
See how the University of Canterbury switched to Ovid for APA PsycINFO—cutting search time by about 30% and boosting research quality and confidence.

Margaret Paterson, Subject Librarian for Health Sciences, Psychology, and Speech and Hearing Disorders at University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, supports the research efforts of roughly 1,000 undergraduates, graduate students, and academic faculty. She guides and trains users — individually or in groups, side-by-side in person, or online—on how to effectively use library resources to develop papers, theses, systematic and scoping reviews, and journal articles, among other research documents.

As part of the library’s digital resource review in the face of budget constraints, Paterson encouraged the library to switch database aggregators to Ovid to offer APA PsycINFO®, a widely used Behavioral Health resource from the American Psychological Association. The library already offered Embase® and MEDLINE® through Ovid. A longtime advocate of the platform, Paterson stressed Ovid’s superior search technology, user workflow efficiencies, and responsive customer support. As a result of the move to Ovid, users have increased time savings (searches are roughly 30% quicker than they were with the previous platform) and confidence, not only in their searching but also in the quality of their research output. The library has also benefited from greater cost savings, contrary to preconceptions.

I’m a bit of a fangirl for the platform, to be honest. I really, really like it.
Margaret Paterson, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ

About the University of Canterbury

The University of Canterbury is a public research institution in Christchurch, New Zealand, offering a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs to more than 25,000 students. With a steady increase in enrollment and a growing number of students, including students taking online courses who are not resident in Christchurch, seamless access to digital resources and current, relevant research is critical to students' academic and professional success.

The challenge: Helping students get to the right information quickly

Paterson works closely with all types of platform users to help them find information for their coursework, research papers, systematic and scoping reviews, and journal articles. She believes that advanced search techniques offer the most effective way for users to find the information they need. Systematic Reviews, in particular, often require more complex searching and are where she provides more hands-on assistance.

Yet prior to adopting Ovid, she and her students felt the platform for accessing APA PsycINFO “clunky,” difficult to use, and time-consuming. While its conventional, basic searching functionality served a useful purpose, more advanced search features lacked flow and were not intuitive, and results and histories were often unorganized and difficult to use.

The solution: Ovid advanced search saves time, improves quality, and builds confidence

Implementing Ovid for APA PsycINFO was “completely seamless,” according to Paterson, and once available, students at the University of Canterbury quickly discovered the platform’s power, better search efficiency, and higher quality of their research output.

Paterson asserts that Ovid Advanced Search enables users to build a search strategy intuitively and methodically, which translates into better results. Features such as subject headings, keyword searches, subheadings, filters, and limits are easy to use and supported by simple interface navigation. The built-in search filters are straightforward and prominently displayed for users. Post-export manual work is minimal, too. Results are presented in a logically structured and easily readable manner compared to, in her experience, the cumbersome, heavily branded, and poorly ordered format of other aggregators.

I love, love, love that you can email the search strategy — such a handy feature.
Margaret Paterson, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ

According to Paterson, one of Ovid’s most valuable features is the exportable search history. In one simple click, users can export a highly structured search to a clean document or email. “I love, love, love that you can email the search strategy — such a handy feature,” she noted. Search histories are crucial for demonstrating the transparency of your work to colleagues and instructors, recreating the search later, and incorporating it into your research document.

The time-saving benefits of Ovid Advanced Search cannot be overstated. Paterson believes performing a complex search in Ovid is at least 30% quicker than on the previous platform.

Finally, Ovid offers the most customisable interface for building complex search strategies, unique, easy-to-use features that allow users to execute a rigorous search strategy, leading to higher quality work that, Paterson believes, has a higher chance of publication.

Students putting together any type of review may need to include their search strategies and Ovid is simply a better product than the competition when it comes to the ability to do this.
Margaret Paterson, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ

According to Paterson, thanks to the Advanced Search options, Ovid is the preferred platform of information specialists for systematic reviews and is recommended by Cochrane.

Unique multi-database search functionality on Ovid

Ovid is widely regarded as the world’s leading information search, discovery, and management solution for medical and health science research. One of the platform’s most unique features is its multi-database search, a great time-saving mechanism that removes duplicate results — identical results from more than one database — from a search results list (deduplication also applies to saved multi-database searches sent via automatic email alert). Other database aggregators strip away many of the unique features — the vocabulary, fields, and limits — of each individual database during a multi-database search. Apart from the actual content, these features are its true value. On Ovid, however, a multi-database search retains these sets of unique features for each database. And when a user moves from one database to another, Ovid translates the individual database vocabularies.

Ovid’s customer success team

Available 24/7 in over 20 different languages, Ovid’s award-winning support teams help optimize deployment, promotion, training, and configuration and customization. Paterson asked her Customer Success representative to adjust the search results string in APA PsycINFO searches and received the help she needed the same day she requested it. “Your [customer success] team is just so super responsive to anything that we need here. That’s not something I experience with any other database vendor,” she noted.

Conclusion: Key takeaways

  • Encourage using Advanced Search to build confidence.
     While the Basic and Multifield Search features are the most intuitive methods of searching for students new to research, Advanced Search offers an easy way to construct an effective and precise search and requires minimal post-search manual work — resulting in an estimated 30% faster research workflows among Paterson’s students.
  • Take advantage of the exportable search strategies.
     The Ovid version of this high-value feature is vastly superior compared to every other database aggregator. Export search strategies and histories into a clean, organized format to demonstrate work and support submissions.
  • Make the most of filters and limits.
    Intuitive search filters and limits — easily create your own or use built-in ones — make it easy for users to finetune strategies to yield narrow, relevant results.
  • Emphasize using Ovid for systematic reviews and article submissions.
     More professional-looking research output has a higher chance of publication. In particular, citing the search strategy, easily exportable from Ovid, can help too. According to Paterson, thanks to the Advanced Search options, Ovid is the preferred platform of information specialists for systematic reviews and is recommended by Cochrane.
  • Rely on Ovid’s personalized Customer Success team.
    Responsive, reliable support professionals take away the hassle of implementation for you and create customization features that speak to the specific user base at your institution.
Explore APA PsycInfo
Explore APA PsycInfo on Ovid

APA PsycInfo on Ovid

With more than 5 million bibliographic records centered on psychology and the behavioral and social sciences, the interdisciplinary content in APA PsycInfo® makes it one of the most highly utilized databases worldwide.
Explore APA PsycInfo

Related Insights

  • Article
    Health
    September 05, 2025

    Continuing medical education will be the fuel behind healthcare transformation in the Middle East

    The GCC has lofty goals of future-proofing its nations through transformative healthcare models—models that rely on strategic continuing medical education
    Learn More
  • Article
    Health
    September 04, 2025

    Bridging the gap between research and practice to drive better care, better outcomes, and continuous improvement

    JBI bridges the gap between research and practice to drive better care, better outcomes, and continuous improvement across healthcare systems.
    Learn More
  • Article
    Health
    September 04, 2025

    Medical Library Discovery Service: How to level up with AI

    By harnessing AI, today’s next-generation discovery services are transforming the landscape of medical and academic research.
    Learn More
  • Article
    Health
    August 21, 2025

    How medical libraries can keep pace with artificial intelligence in healthcare

    The need for clinicians to find the latest, most accurate AI advancements in healthcare has grown. NEJM offers the most clinically relevant and transformative AI information.
    Learn More
Back To Top