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2010 MARCH–APRIL No. 373
March 12, 2010 [posted]
March 17, 2010 [Editor's note added]

PubMed® Search Results can be Customized Using My NCBI

[Editor's note added March 17, 2010: These changes were implemented in PubMed on March 16, 2010.]

Searchers will soon be able to tailor the display of PubMed search results using My NCBI. This will be a welcome change for those who prefer to see search results in the Abstract format, to view more than 20 citations per page, or to sort the order of results. In addition, the number of PubMed filters you can select has been expanded from 5 to 15.

Result Display Settings

The current default in PubMed displays multiple items in the Summary format, 20 per page, and sorted by items recently added at the top. To change this, access My NCBI, click on "PubMed Preferences," then "Result Display Settings" (see Figure 1).

Select either the Abstract or the Summary format. You can change the number of citations to be displayed per page – up to 200, and choose from the sort options of Recently Added, Pub Date (Publication Date), First Author, Last Author, Journal, or Title (see Figure 2). You must be signed in to My NCBI to apply your display selections to your PubMed search results, and note also that a change to the display may result in a longer response time. This does not change the display of single records which will continue to display in the Abstract format.


A two minute Quick Tour, Changing Your Default Display Settings, will be available on the PubMed Online Training page.

Searchers who want the Supplemental Data (e.g., MeSH terms) to always display are reminded to use the Abstract Supplemental Data preference option. For more information about this and other My NCBI preferences, see My NCBI Help: Using Preferences.

Filters

You can also now use My NCBI to select up to 15 filters for PubMed. All filters are displayed as links under "Filter your results" on the upper right of your search results (see Figure 3). Click on any of the filter links to display a subset of your results. To change your filter selections, click on "Manage Filters."



By Lidia Hutcherson
National Center for Biotechnology Information

Hutcherson L. PubMed® Search Results can be Customized Using My NCBI. NLM Tech Bull. 2010 Mar-Apr;(373):e3.

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