LSUHSC Libraries is pleased to offer a new way to search MEDLINE.
Doody’s Precision Search is a new resource designed to simplify your search of citations added to MEDLINE® within the last 3 years. It has a streamlined, user-friendly interface that allows you to keep your search concise and your results manageable. All you need to get started are your search words or phrases. You can use keywords or MeSH terms (Precision Search will autosuggest terms if available), and you can use Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT. The secret ingredient to your precision search is in the specialties. While optional, choosing one or more 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 you’ve got some results, you can limit even further or revise your search. Your results are also faceted into topics within each specialty; just expand an area to see the articles.
Doody’s Precision Search works with our WebBridge Link Resolver to check article availability right from the citation. Just click on to 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. It is available on or off campus. If you experience technical difficulties or need assistance, please contact a Reference Librarian.
Here’s 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
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. Hamlett’s 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 Doyle’s 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 knowledge—“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?“(When the World Screamed). In the same way, Dr. Hamlett’s 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. Some of his published works, “Embryology of the Molossoid Bat,” “Some Notes on Embryological Technique,” and “Human Twinning in the United States” 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 library’s floor—you’ll 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.
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 I’m 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
Where you go to set PubMed limits 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 in 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.
Problem: you want to search PubMed for a phrase like text messaging, but the phrase keeps getting broken up.
Solution: when searching for phrases:
• Search the phrase first without quotes or search tags.
• Check Search details to see how the search was translated.
• Use quotes (” “) when your phrase is broken apart.
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 – 50th Anniversary of Medical Subject Headings.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Did you know:
1. You can save your PubMed search.
2. Run the same search each week (or month) for updated articles (My NCBI).
3. Store your PubMed citations (and the full-text) in RefWorks.
4. Use Write-N-Cite to insert your citations into your Word document.
5. Create a bibliography for your paper.
Contact the library’s reference department reference@lsuhsc.edu where one of the librarians can assist you in setting up these available services. You can take it one step at a time.
to see if we have an article online or in print, or to borrow the article via our InterLibrary Loan service, ILLiad.
