IBIDS Database Celebrates Five Years with a New Look and New Features NIH Office of Dietary Supplements Launches Improved International Bibliographic Information on Dietary Supplements (IBIDS) Database
Bethesda, Maryland The NIH Office of Dietary
Supplements (ODS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Food and Nutrition Information Center (FNIC) at the National Agricultural
Library are delighted to announce the "launch" of the
new, improved, Web-accessible International Bibliographic Information
on Dietary Supplements (IBIDS) Database today, Wednesday, August
18, 2004.
The IBIDS database is available to the public free of charge through
a Web interface on the ODS homepage. It was designed to be user-friendly
so individuals with all levels of expertise may use it easily. It
currently contains over 730,000 citations on the topic of dietary
supplements. Citations are available from 1986 to the present and
abstracts are included where permission has been granted from the
publisher.
So what is new about IBIDS?
- A New Look: The Web site has been redesigned to include
images and other new features. Available abstracts are visible in
the search result sets and records are easy to discern from one
another due to the creative use of background color.
- Records: 30,000 new records have been added to the database;
totaling almost three quarters of a million records.
- Images: Images of botanicals and the chemical structures
of amino acids, vitamins, and minerals will appear in conjunction
with search set results when an image is available for the term
entered or selected.
- The Top Five: The five search terms entered most frequently
by IBIDS users are tallied and made available at the click of a
virtual button from the main page.
- Highlights/Notable Citations: Articles that have been cited
in the Office of Dietary Supplements’ Annual Bibliography
of Significant Advances in Dietary Supplement Research publications
are marked with a yellow star.
- Additional Delivery Options: Receive selected records via
email in plain text form or formatted for use in the Endnote program.
- Query Terms Highlighted in Results: Result sets show the
query terms highlighted in red text within the citations and abstracts.
This year also marks the fifth anniversary of the IBIDS Database.
IBIDS was launched in January 1999 as a result of the Dietary Supplement
and Health Education Act (DSHEA) 1994, whereby Congress mandated
that the ODS create a tool to assist both scientists and the public
in locating credible, scientific literature on dietary supplements.
Keeping with their commitment to work together with other federal
agencies, the ODS initiated an interagency cooperative agreement
in 1998 with the Food and Nutrition Information Center (FNIC), National
Agriculture Library (NAL), Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department
of Agriculture to develop and maintain the IBIDS database.
Over time, a sophisticated search strategy was developed and revised
to adequately extract appropriate citations from four major bibliographic
databases: biomedical-related articles from MEDLINE, botanical and
agricultural science material from AGRICOLA, worldwide agricultural
literature from AGRIS, and selected nutrition journals from CAB
Abstracts and CAB Health. Overall, a list of over 3,300 journals
exists with links to their Web sites for access to articles.
IBIDS is utilized around the world by researchers, consumers, health
professionals and the media and is the central location for research-based
journal articles and citations on a variety of dietary supplements,
including vitamins, minerals and botanicals. Users have typically
commended the site on its ease of use, ability to email citations
and abstracts, amount and quality of information, and uniqueness
of site as a source of information on dietary supplements and alternative
medicine. Dr. Paul Coates, Director of ODS noted that “ODS
and FNIC want to make IBIDS as useful as possible to its audience.
We hope that the new version of this database will be even more
valuable to its many visitors.”
Plans for the next five years include: adding records from additional
databases to increase the number of articles and variety of journals,
creating and including keywords to assist users in searching health
outcomes/biological effects, expanding Consumer IBIDS to include
more consumer-oriented material, and linking more records to journal
content.
You can access IBIDS at:
http://dietary-supplements.info.nih.gov/Health_Information/IBIDS.aspx
The Office of Dietary Supplements was established at NIH in 1995
as a result of the Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act passed
by Congress in 1994. The mission of ODS is to strengthen knowledge
and understanding of dietary supplements by evaluating scientific
information, stimulating and supporting research, disseminating
research results, and educating the public to foster an enhanced
quality of life and health for the U.S. population. For additional
information about ODS, please visit http://ods.od.nih.gov.
The Office of the Director is a component of the National Institutes
of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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