PubMed

Testing, Testing: PubMed Commons Community Forum

PubMed Commons, a new forum community created for online collaboration for ÔÇ£constructive criticism and discussion of scientific issues,ÔÇØ has introduced a pilot version.

During its closed pilot phase, PubMed Commons will be allowing accounts using approved email addresses from PubMed authors to participate. ?áNIH or Wellcome Trust grant recipients can also join and invite others to join. You can test whether you have access here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedcommons/join/. Users will also need a My NCBI account.

Find answers to frequently asked questions on this page: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedcommons/faq/.

New resource: Doody’s Precision Search

LSUHSC Libraries is pleased to offer a new way to search MEDLINE.

DoodyÔÇÖs Precision Search is a new resource designed to simplify your search of citations added to MEDLINE^?« within the last 3 years.?á It has a streamlined, user-friendly interface that allows you to keep your search concise and your results manageable.?á All you need to get started are your search words or phrases.?á You can use keywords or MeSH terms (Precision Search will autosuggest terms if available), and you can use Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT. ?áThe secret ingredient to your precision search is in the specialties. ?áWhile optional, choosing one or ?ámore specialties allows you to target articles that match your particular interests without having to compose a librarian-level search strategy (that strategy, by the way, is already built into the expert-created specialties).

Once?áyou’ve?ágot some results, you can limit even further or revise your search.?á Your results are also faceted into topics within each specialty; just expand an area to see the articles.

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DoodyÔÇÖs Precision Search works with our WebBridge Link Resolver to check article availability right from the citation.?á Just click on ?áto see if we have an article online or in print, or to borrow the article via our InterLibrary Loan service, ILLiad.

Citations can be exported to RefWorks or other citation managers, and you can even share citations on Facebook and Twitter.

Creating a free profile is easy, and once you are logged in you will have the added options to save citations and searches, and set email alerts.

For more information and to get started, please visit the library’s online resource page for Doody’s Precision Search.?á It?áis?áavailable?áon or off campus. ?áIf you experience technical difficulties or need assistance, please contact a Reference Librarian.

HereÔÇÖs a quicky guide to get you started:

Search page:

1. Enter search terms

2. Focus your search using specialties (recommended, but optional)

3. Choose time period from last 7 days to last 3 years

4. Choose between searching all journals or just MEDLINEÔÇÖs Core Clinical Journals.

Results page:

1. Add additional limits: article type, species, language

2. Revise your limits, search terms, and specialties

3. Sort by article title, journal, author,?áor date

4. Print current results page or selected citations

5. Export current results page or selected citations to RefWorks, EndNote or CSV

6. See faceted results

7. Return to original search

8. Start a new search

Article page:

1. ÔÇ£Check full textÔÇØ to see library holdings (online or print) or borrow via InterLibrary Loan

2. See related articles

3. Output to printer, email, Twitter or Facebook

4. Add to “My articles” once you have created a profile

5. Return to results

My Articles:

1. Create a personal profile for free

2. Save articles and searches, run saved searches, and delete saved searches.

3. Set email alerts when saving a search

This Month in History: Dr. Hamlett & Zoological Treasure Hunting

Ever wondered how to catch a lizard? You might think to consult wikiHow or you might look up an instructional video on YouTube. Consulting our Digital Collection of newspaper clippings, however, would reveal quite an interesting portrait of a rugged, LSU Indiana Jones in pursuit of a rare treasure: the live-birthing lizard.

In 1953, the Times-Picayune ran an article on one Dr. George W. D. Hamlett, faculty of the LSU Medical School Department of Anatomy, whose research practices involved catching his subjects in the American Southwest rather than in a lab. Nets are all well and good for the casual lizard hunter, but Dr. HamlettÔÇÖs methods included an elaborate system of hammer, chisel, stick noose, and rifle. In order to capture the illusive live-birthing female lizard, he donned the traditional gear: khakis, hiking boots, and traded a fedora for a sun hat; armoring himself thus, he chiseled lizards out of rock formations and sought the mammal-like desert lizard among the trees. His interest in these lizards lay in their ability to produce young not through external development in an egg, but within the female of the species, an oddity for the reptile. Though Dr. Hamlett lacked the Indiana Jones bullwhip and the characteristic fear of snakes, his adventures were nevertheless harrowing.

The character of Dr. Jones is perhaps based on Sir Arthur Conan DoyleÔÇÖs character, Professor Challenger (a figure in turn based on his own Professor Sir William Rutherford) who is famous for having combined several areas of study such as archaeology, anthropology, and zoology in the pursuit of a totalizing knowledgeÔÇöÔÇ£Science seeks knowledge. Let knowledge lead us where it will, we still must seek it. To know once for all what we are, why we are, where we are, is that not in itself the greatest of all human aspirations?ÔÇ£(When the World Screamed). In the same way, Dr. HamlettÔÇÖs study of embryology continued on many divergent paths as he explored the complexities of the long-tongued bat, the badger, the armadillo, the cat, the coyote, and the American monkey, finally culminating in his study of humans.?á Some of his published works, ÔÇ£Embryology of the Molossoid Bat,ÔÇØ ÔÇ£Some Notes on Embryological Technique,ÔÇØ and ÔÇ£Human Twinning in the United StatesÔÇØ can be accessed through PubMed.

Though the similarities between Dr. Hamlett and Dr. Jones may not be many, there is an air of adventure to every quest for knowledge. Why can the scientist not leap across cliff faces and come to the rescue every now and then? But please be aware that there are no catacombs beneath this libraryÔÇÖs floorÔÇöyouÔÇÖll have to go to Venice for that.

Glimpse of the Past is an ongoing project to promote the Louisiana Digital Library effort. This Month in History will present for your reading pleasure a closer look into a newspaper clipping of note from our Digital Collections and articles relating to the LSU Medical School.

Friday fun: Pimp my Pubmed

An article from Bite Size Bio delves into some techniques for monitoring PubMed using Google Reader. PubMed has offered the ability to create RSS feeds from searches since 2005, which is highly useful in customizing your online consumption of journal literature.

Here, I will describe the way IÔÇÖm combining RSS feeds for PubMed search results with Google Reader and a GreaseMonkey add-on to obtain a nicely readable list of articles pertinent to my own interests

http://bitesizebio.com/articles/how-not-to-miss-almost-any-article-on-pubmed/
The article is written by a third year PhD student from Montpellier, France.

PubMed Limits are now Filters

Where you go to set PubMed?álimits such as dates, language and article types has changed – hopefully for the better. It’s all just semantics with a little bit of functional design thrown in, really.

Limits ?áin Pubmed are now called Filters. They are located on the left hand side of the PubMed screen. This video from NCBI shows where to find filters and how to use them. (Previously they were located under the search box on a separate page called Limits.)

Confused? Enraged? Apathetic? We welcome your responses and questions – just give us a call, email or chat and we’ll do our best to help.

More from the NLM Technical Bulletin

Phrase searching in PubMed

Problem: you want to search PubMed for a phrase like text messaging, but the phrase keeps getting broken up.

Solution: when searching for phrases:

ÔÇó Search the phrase first without quotes or search tags.
ÔÇó Check Search details to see how the search was translated.
ÔÇó Use quotes (” “) when your phrase is broken apart.

For details and screen shots, read the complete article at
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/jf11/jf11_skill_kit_pm_phrase_searching.html

Using quotes work really well when you are looking for a specific article title!

MeSH turns 50

MeSH is the controlled vocabulary used by the National Library of Medicine to organize information in the health sciences; it is the underpinning of MEDLINE.

While first discussed at a symposium in 1947, the first volume of the printed subject headings was published in 1960. The last printed volume was issued in 2007, but the database (which is both alphabetical and hiearchical) continues to be available in electronic form as the MeSh browser.

NLM will offer a videocast on Thursday, November 18th from 1-2:30 (CST) by Robert Braude, PhD, entitled MeSH at 50 ÔÇô 50th Anniversary of Medical Subject Headings.

PubMed SLOW…

PubMed will be operational but may be intermittently slow starting today Friday, November 13 at 2:00 PM until Saturday, November 14 at 7:00 PM. Sorry for the inconvenience.

PubMed

*Edit* PubMed seems to be working again, although very slowly. (edited 09-11-04 @ 10:28 am)

Due to a problem in the NLM computer room, PubMed is currently down. Hopefully the issue will be resolved quickly.

LSUHSC New Orleans users still have access to Medline via EBSCOhost or Ovid.

PubMed?« Redesign

NLM?« is pleased to announce a redesign of the PubMed interface. While retaining the robust functionality, the interface was simplified to make it easier to use while promoting scientific discovery.

The changes to PubMed are outlined below. Please note that search processing, including Automatic Term Mapping, has not changed.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/so09/so09_pm_redesign.html

Intro to PubMed class @ Dental

The dental library will be presenting a class, Introduction to PubMed, Monday 10/5/09, as part of our celebration of National Medical Libraries Month. Please join us in the dental library conference room from noon-1:00pm. For more information or to reserve your space for this class please email us.

Classes at the dental library

The dental library will be offering five classes throughout the month of October to celebrate National Medical Libraries Month. All classes will be held in the dental library conference room from noon to 1:00pm. Reserve your space by emailing dentlib@lsuhsc.edu
Thursday, 10/1/09, Accessing Journal Articles Online
Monday, 10/5/09, Introduction to PubMed
Wednesday, 10/7/09, Introduction to RefWorks
Tuesday, 10/13/09, Health Literacy: More than the Ability to Read
Tuesday, 10/27/09, Introduction to Consumer Health Information

Aerospace Medicine & History

July is full of space anniversaries, from the moon landing (July 15th) to the establishment of Cape Canaveral (July 24th), but what did this mean for medicine?

To understand the history of a medical subject, I sometimes check out its history in MeSH. The current subject is Aerospace Medicine and has been since 1980, but it was Aviation Medicine from 1966-74 and Space Flight from 1975-79. If a comprehensive historical search is required, it is always good to check out the Online & History Notes in MeSH.

Check out this article by SE Parazynski, a former astronaut and a physician, entitled “From model rockets to spacewalks: an astronaut physician’s journey and the science of the United States’ space program.” This article is freely available to the general public through PubMed Central.

NCBI ROFL

For a lighter side of research, check out NCBI ROFL, “the brainchild of two Molecular and Cell Biology graduate students at UC Berkeley.” From the microbiological laboratory hazard of bearded men to the best birth control for hippos, this site offers a humorous break for anyone involved in biomedical research.

LINK: http://www.ncbirofl.com/

Dental Library to teach two classes this week

Two classes on important library resources will be taught this week:

Thursday, March 26, Finding Electronic Journal Articles (Liz Strother)
Learn how to use library resources for locating free electronic journal articles.

Friday, March 27, PubMed Basics (Julie Schiavo)
Introduction to searching PubMed, the premier database from the National Library of Medicine, for dental/biomedical information. Tips for refining your searches and managing results will also be taught.

Both classes will be held at noon in the Dental Library conference room. Please call 941-8158 or email dentlib@lsuhsc.edu to reserve a seat.