New Version of NLM Gateway Released - April 10, 2001

On April 10, 2001, a new version of the NLM Gateway was released. Please see What's New on the NLM Gateway sidebar for details.

Additions to the NLM Classification

Note the following additions to the NLM Classification, 5th ed., rev. 1999 since the publication of this tool in September 2000:

New Classification Numbers Added

WZ 112.5.G2        Gastroenterologists

WZ 112.5.P3        Pediatricians

March 2001 Workbooks Now Include NLM Gateway and ClinicalTrials.gov

The March 2001 edition of the training manuals are now available for downloading from the NLM's Web site at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/web_based.html . The PubMed section has been updated to reflect some of the changes in PubMed for 2001. In addition, there are now sections covering the NLM Gateway and ClinicalTrials.gov.

The workbooks, used in the two NLM/National Online Training Center classes (2-day Introduction class and the 1-day Keeping Up class), are available in two formats: PDF and WordPerfect. These workbooks are not copyrighted. Feel free to use any part of the workbooks -- you may customize parts for training programs, demos, or workshops you conduct.

Internet Grateful Med (IGM) Status Update

Two changes have been made to the timeframe for the retirement of IGM screens:

1. The AIDSLINE screen will remain active. Users will not be redirected to the Gateway on April 2.
2. The AIDSLINE, BIOETHICSLINE, HISTLINE, POPLINE, SPACELINE, and HSRProj screens will all remain active through September 2001.

These changes have been made to the Internet Grateful Med to Be Retired; Reminder of NLM Gateway Availability article.

Search MEDLINE Page to be Replaced

This Technical Note was removed on April 26, 2001 and replaced with the Technical Note New PubMed Link from NLM Home Page; Revised Search MEDLINE Page.

NLM Upgrades LocatorPlus

NLM is pleased to announce the release of a new version of LocatorPlus and the new, simplified URL: http://locatorplus.gov. For more information, please see http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/locatorplus2000.html.

2001 MLA Meeting Reminder and NLM Invitation

The Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association (MLA) will be held May 25-30, 2001 in Orlando, Florida. Attendees are invited to visit the NLM exhibit booth to meet NLM staff and see NLM's newest Web products, including the NLM Gateway. The NLM Theater at the booth will feature demonstrations and tutorials on a wide-variety of topics, including: PubMed, ClinicalTrials.gov, the NLM Gateway, MEDLINEplus, Profiles in Science, LocatorPlus, the new Web version of the NLM Classification Schedules and Index, Unified Medical Language System, TOXNET, Turning the Pages and more.

While at the meeting in Orlando, consider taking a continuing education class taught by NLM staff and affiliates, for example:

Saturday, May 26, 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (Hands-on):

Keeping up with NLM's PubMed, The NLM Gateway, and ClinicalTrials.gov

Wednesday, May 30, 1:00 p.m. - 5 p.m. (Hands-on):

Toxicology Web Resources at the National Library of Medicine and Beyond

Wednesday, May 30, 1:00 p.m. - 5 p.m.:

LocatorPlus: New Look and Feel

Wednesday, May 30, 1:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.:

Library Partnerships - Powerful Connections

Further course and symposia details are available at http://www.mlanet.org/am/am2001/ce/index.html [This link was disabled because it is no longer valid.], or contact MLA at (312) 419-9094.

Also, please plan to attend:

DOCLINE Update Meeting "Sunrise Seminar" on Monday, May 28, 7:00 a.m. - 8:15 a.m. in Northern Hemisphere Salon A3.

The Janet Doe Lecture on Monday, May 28, 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. Location to be announced. Speaker: Betsy L. Humphreys, Associate Director for Library Operations and Assistant Director for Health Services Research Information, NLM, will speak on the evolution of the relationship between the National Library of Medicine and the health sciences library community since the passage of the Medical Library Assistance Act in 1965.

NLM Update on Monday, May 28, 2001, 4:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. in the Northern Hemisphere Salon B, C and D.

NLM Online Users' Meeting "Sunrise Seminar" session on Tuesday, May 29, 7:00 a.m. - 8:15 a.m. in Australia 3.

The Joseph Leiter NLM/MLA Lecture on Tuesday, May 29, 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. Location to be announced. Speaker: Anthony (Tony) J. Shuker, Ph.D., President and CEO of EmTech Biotechnology Development, Inc. and ArtiSyn Holdings. Shuker is also an adjunct associate professor of chemistry at Georgia Institute of Technology.

Please join us at these events! Additional information or changes to this information will be announced in the Technical Notes section of the NLM Technical Bulletin.

Document Delivery Services Available in PubMed

In PubMed the Order button is used to order the full text of articles through NLM's document delivery service, Loansome Doc. PubMed now makes it possible for other document delivery services to be accessed with the Order button. Currently two other services, Infotrieve and Mediscope, are available. However, we expect more services to be added in the future. As always, fees, registration requirements, and delivery methods for these services will vary.

To change the document delivery service from Loansome Doc to another service, access PubMed's Cubby and use the Document Delivery Services link from the sidebar. This takes you to a page listing the available services. (The name of the service is a link to a site where you can obtain more information about that service.) The service selected will be the document delivery service activated when the Order button is used. This change in the default of the Order button from Loansome Doc to another service is in effect only when the user is logged into the Cubby.

Participating document delivery services may provide access to PubMed from their sites. Users linking from these sites to PubMed will automatically be connected to that service when the Order button is used, i.e., without making a change in the Cubby.

Libraries can participate as document delivery services; however, this would probably only be appropriate for libraries with sophisticated document delivery programs. A library must be able to provide a URL to a CGI (common gateway interface) program on their site.

Author Name Suffix Data in PubMed

For the period, February 2, 2001 through March 28, 2001, author name suffix data such as "Jr," "3rd" and "2nd" were missing from some PubMed citations (approximately 200,000). These data were inadvertently not completely converted to the new system in which MEDLINE journal citations are created and maintained. The same is true for the Personal Name as Subject field and this condition still exists.

In PubMed, personal names, whether in the Author or Personal Name as Subject fields, are truncated automatically, so the absence of the suffix data would not have affected most author name searches. However, if you searched for authors during this period and specifically included the suffix in your strategy (e.g., Smith AB 3rd), your retrieval may have been incomplete.

Corrections for the Author Name field were sent to PubMed and NLM's licensees last week. NLM is in the process of recovering the suffix data for the Personal Name as Subject field. Remaining corrections will be made soon.

Note to Cubby Users:

The corrected citations were unfortunately restamped with a new MHDA value in PubMed. The MHDA is a date field used by the Cubby Stored Search service. As a result, these citations may be repulled by a Cubby Stored search. We do apologize for this.

New Version of NLM Gateway Released - April 10, 2001

On April 10, 2001, a new version of the NLM Gateway was released. Please see What's New on the NLM Gateway sidebar for details.

New Look to PubMed's Subset Limit Pull-down Menu

PubMed's Subset pull-down menu under Limits has changed somewhat; it now provides these options:

• AIDS
• Complementary Medicine (see CAM article)
• Core clinical journals (used to be "AIM")
• Dental journals (added the word "journals")
• MEDLINE
• Nursing journals (added the word "journals")
• In process (used to be "PreMEDLINE")
• Publisher
• PubMed Central (to limit to citations with a link to free full text in PMC. You can also search this new subset as AND medline pmc [sb]).
• Toxicology

Please refer to PubMed's Help for information about Subsets.

Monograph Chapter Citations Removed From MEDLINE

Approximately 22,000 citations to monograph chapters were removed from MEDLINE during the week of April 2, 2001. As a result, users may notice lower retrieval for searches done now versus the same search done on an earlier date. These same citations will be added to LocatorPlus in June.

These citations, mostly to papers from congresses and symposia, were included in MEDLINE from 1976 to 1981. If interested, please see Bachrach, CA. Concerning Non-Serial Proceedings. NLM Tech Bull. 1982 Sep;(161):7 for more information about citations to monograph chapters.

New Banner for PubMed

On March 12, 2001, PubMed introduced a new banner as shown below. The PubMed logo is also available for downloading at NLM's Web site as a .gif file at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/about/imagespage.html.

 

PubMed In Process Citations Mis-tagged

One of the recent changes to PubMed is the use of new status tags to indicate "as supplied by publisher," "in process," and "indexed for MEDLINE." This change was effective April 2, 2001. Unfortunately, there is an error in the way PubMed assigns the status tag for "in process" citations. These citations are being incorrectly tagged with "indexed for MEDLINE" and are subsequently being retrieved if the limit for the MEDLINE subset is used. This may result in the unexpected retrieval of citations that are not yet indexed. We hope to have this corrected by Monday, April 16, 2001.

New PubMed Link from NLM Home Page; Revised Search MEDLINE Page

"MEDLINE/PubMed" is the new link on the NLM home page to go directly to PubMed. There already is a direct link from the NLM home page to MEDLINEplus. Previously the "MEDLINE" link went to a page called "Search MEDLINE: PubMed and Internet Grateful Med." For a short time, the new "MEDLINE/PubMed" link took users to a replacement redirect page announcing the change that then connected to PubMed automatically after a few seconds. This was then changed so that the home page link would go directly to PubMed with no intervening notice or page. This series of changes related to the April 2 discontinuation of the Internet Grateful Med MEDLINE screen.

On April 16, 2001 after 2 weeks as a temporary, automatic redirect page, the "Search MEDLINE: PubMed and Internet Grateful Med" Web page was replaced with new text to advise users that MEDLINE should be searched using PubMed. The revised page also advises users that Internet Grateful Med (IGM) will continue to offer searching of a small number of databases through September 2001 and provides links to explanatory articles. The Search MEDLINE page has had a long life, receiving many hits as it served to link users to IGM, PubMed, or MEDLINEplus. Users will now encounter this page only if they had previously bookmarked it, and the revised text is intended to help them choose another more appropriate bookmark.

We are starting to review NLM Web pages that refer to IGM and will be making other appropriate changes over the coming months that correspond to the retirement plan for IGM.