What's New in MeSH

• Dan-Sung C. Cho, Ph.D., joined the Medical Subject Headings Section in July, 2008. His training is in the field of genetics and has done research in the application of genetics to mental disorders.

• Loretta Tang retired in July, 2008.

• Dr. John Kilbourne left NLM in January, 2008.

• 2008 MeSH in XML format is available for download. It is also available in ASCII format. Vocabulary changes for 2008 are listed here. List of changes made since first release of 2008 MeSH (October 8, 2007) are available. See Mid-year Changes in MeSH Descriptors. Citation maintenance data in XML format for 2008 are available.

• The default year in the MeSH Browser is 2008 MeSH with the alternative link providing access to 2007 MeSH. The MeSH Section will continue to provide access via the MeSH Browser for two years of the vocabulary: the current year and an alternative year. There will be a default file with access to an alternative year through a link on the Browser entry page.

• Concept Views in the MeSH Browser

  The MeSH Browser is available with Concept views for both Descriptors and Supplementary Concept Records (SCRs). See About MeSH Browser.

• Printed MeSH discontinued

  The National Library of Medicine has discontinued the printing of the Index Medicus Supplement, sometimes known as the Black and White MeSH. We encourage all to avail themselves of the resources available at www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh. There is a considerable amount of printable introductory material, information about how we update MEDLINE, as well as links to downloadable files and the MeSH Browser. The pdf files of the trees are also available there. The current MeSH files are available for download, in one of three different formats.

  The browser at the MeSH Web site provides ready access to the current version of MeSH. The browser supports partial word searches of three letters or more, and provides many links between related terms. As is our practice, all of these services and files will remain free of charge.

• Weekly Update of Pharmacological Action data

  Beginning with 2008 MeSH the Pharmacologic Action (PA) file listing by substance (pa_substanceYYYY.xml) will no longer be available as a separate file, since the data may be extracted from the full Descriptor XML file.

  However, the XML file listing by PA (paYYYY.xml) will remain and, beginning in May 2007, will be updated weekly, primarily to include changes in the SCR PAs which may change during the year. For more information see the documentation for the Pharmacological Action in XML format as well as the full files of MeSH data  in XML format.

Last reviewed: 05 August 2008
Last updated: 05 August 2008
First published: 01 September 1999
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