MeSH® Subheading Consolidation Decision

Last year, the National Library of Medicine® (NLM®) proposed to consolidate the 83 existing qualifiers (subheadings) in the Medical Subject Headings and create a smaller set. The goal was to make the use of qualifiers easier for the searching public. NLM distributed a background paper within the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, whose members also posted it on a number of widely seen listservs. At the Medical Library Association Annual Meeting in 2006, Dr. Stuart Nelson, Head of Medical Subject Headings, and those in attendance had a lively dialogue on the proposed changes.

Over the intervening months, NLM staff analyzed all comments, suggestions, and feedback. We considered the potential impact on the searching public, Network libraries, and the internal processes at NLM. Ultimately, in part due to budget constraints and limited resources, NLM has made the decision to retain the qualifiers in their present form. We hope to concentrate our efforts on other ways to improve searching and retrieval for all users. We greatly appreciate the many thoughtful comments received, and thank all those who provided input.

Since 2002 MedlinePlus has offered two sources of drug information for consumers: the United States Pharmacopeia Drug Information Advice for the Patient (USPDI) and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) MedMaster. On February 1, access to USPDI will no longer be provided through MedlinePlus in an effort to avoid duplicating information. ASHP MedMaster and Natural Standard (herb and supplement information), in both English and Spanish, will comprise the Drugs, Supplements, and Herbal Information section of MedlinePlus. In the future, links will be created to the drug label information from the DailyMed web site.

Updated PubMed® Training Materials Available

The following PubMed training materials have been updated for 2007:

• the PubMed training workbook
• Branching Out: the MeSH Vocabulary instructional video
• the PubMed Tutorial

These materials have been updated to reflect changes in MeSH® and PubMed through December 2006. For details regarding these changes, see the November-December 2006 Technical Bulletin.

Additional training materials for PubMed and other NLM® resources are available from the NLM Distance Education Program Resources page and the NLM Training Manuals and Resources site. The training manuals correspond to the NLM National Training Center and Clearinghouse training courses described at: http://nnlm.gov/ntcc/description.html.

From Ship to Shore…

Tox Town’s New Port Scene Delivers the Goods on Coastal Environmental Health

What do longshoremen, sunbathers, ship crews, and shrimp lovers have in common? Whether they live on the coast, work in a maritime industry or play on the beach, they can find information about the environment and how it might affect their health at Tox Town’s new Port neighborhood. This imaginary port illustrates drinking water and air quality concerns along with wastewater treatment, shellfish safety, work hazards, sun and surf safety, aquaculture and many other topics. The port also highlights possible locations and descriptions of 26 hazardous chemicals.

Tox Town, http://toxtown.nlm.nih.gov, uses neighborhood scenes - the Port, City, Town, Farm, and US-Mexico Border region - along with color, graphics, sounds and animation to add interest to learning about connections between chemicals, the environment and the public’s health. Each scene focuses on unique environmental health concerns. There are 16 new locations to explore in the Port: beaches, shipyards, algae blooms, coastal brownfields, fuel tanks and pipelines, shipping centers, cruise ships, marinas, nuclear power plants, shellfishing, fish farms, storms and floods, urban and industrial runoff, septic systems, cesspools, and wastewater treatment facilities.

Tox Town’s target audience is the interested public, plus high school, college and graduate students, and educators (see the link on the home page For teachers). Tox Town also has a growing number of resources en español.

Librarians interested in promoting classroom use of Tox Town and other National Library of Medicine (NLM) resources may find these useful:

Resources for Science Teachers – Classroom Resources from NLM. Introduces NLM web resources useful in Biology, Chemistry, Genetics, Earth Science, and Environmental Science courses. Also includes resources on the history of medicine, information on health careers, and Spanish-language resources.

• 38 PowerPoint slides with script
• Color handout, one page, double sided
• Trifold brochure

Tox Town

• 27 PowerPoint slides with script introducing Tox Town to teachers and students
• Video and transcript for a general audience. This 2-minute video file is 20 megabytes and uses Windows Media Player.

Tox Town® is a project of the Specialized Information Services Division of the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health. Promotional materials and Tox Town images for Web sites and publications are listed at http://toxtown.nlm.nih.gov/clipart.html. Please send your comments or questions on Tox Town to tehip@teh.nlm.nih.gov.

Health Care That Works has an interesting mashup using Google Maps that shows hospitals in the NYC region. Special attention is paid to hospitals that are slated for closure and downsizing in respect to the neighborhoods they are located. You can select an overlay of either the population living below the poverty level or population of people of color. Check it out!

Update: the administrator of the site contacted us to let us know that the map was created using the datat from the NY State Department of Health and their SPARCS data set, so it is as accurate as it can be according to the best available public record.

Attention All BHSL Members:

New change to BHSL in 2007! As of January 1, 2007, the BHSL hierarchy has been removed from DOCLINE. Libraries may now treat BHSL as a single entity, similar to other library groups in DOCLINE such as Freeshare.

BHSL participants should take a moment to remove the hierarchy number from their DOCLINE Institution Record. To do this, simply:

1. Log in to DOCLINE
2. Click INSTITUTIONS
3. Click UPDATE {your LIBID}
4. Scroll down to “Document Delivery Address” and remove the designation — parentheses, asterisk, and number, for example: (*8)
5. Click yellow SAVE button

For those unaware of the preceding history or concerned by the effect of this change on their library, NN/LM conducted a pilot test in July 2006 to see whether a suspension of the BHSL hierarchy would adversely affect interlibrary lending (ILL) among participants. Network members from both the Middle Atlantic Region and the New England Region were selected, and routing tables were modified where the “BHSL Library Group” was stored separately into one of the cells, absent of any hierarchy. The duration of the pilot test extended over two weeks. Post-test analysis revealed no negative effects on interlibrary lending (ILL) activity. Since the DOCLINE program now incorporates load balancing into the algorithm of its match program, the hierarchy has for the most part outlived its original purpose. Please feel free to contact the MAR offices with any questions regarding this change.