http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/disted/pubmedtutorial/

The National Library of Medicine® is pleased to announce a new look for the PubMed Tutorial. The tutorial was reorganized to give searchers a better understanding of what is in PubMed and the controlled vocabulary before going on to build a search and manage the results. The tutorial is available from the PubMed homepage sidebar from the Tutorials link.

The tutorial update includes changes to PubMed through October 2008 including the My NCBI redesign released in September. A version incorporating the latest changes including the Advanced Search page and revised Summary display is in process.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/jf09/jf09_pm_tutorial.html

PubMed® Tutorial Redesigned and Updated. NLM Tech Bull. 2009 Jan-Feb;(366):e11.

by Michael J. North, northm@mail.nlm.nih.gov
Head of Rare Books & Early Manuscripts
History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine

In celebration of Black History Month, the National Library of Medicine is pleased to announce an important addition to PubMed Central (PMC), the complete archive of the Journal of the National Medical Association (JNMA). Coincidentally, the journal is observing its centennial this year. To see the archive, please visit: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/tocrender.fcgi?journal=655&action=archive

The National Medical Association (NMA), established in 1895, is the largest and oldest national organization representing African American physicians and allied health professionals in the United States. The JNMA was published quarterly from 1909 to 1938, bimonthly from 1940 to 1977, and monthly since 1978. The archive currently represents over 77,000 digitized pages of issues, cover to cover, through 2007. Current content will be coming at a later date.

Since its founding, this landmark journal has enabled African American health professionals to keep current regarding the latest medical and public health practices, even in the face of segregation and discrimination. This archive provides historical insight into the social, medical and public health issues that continue to be of particular concern to African American patients and physicians. It has also served as a venue to challenge disparaging interpretations of African American health history published in other medical and social science journals. The collection is of great interest to U.S. and international researchers concerned with the societal impact of health care inequalities. Scholars seeking to understand the historic barriers faced by the African American patient and physician will find this collection to be an invaluable resource.

To learn more about PubMed Central, or to browse its contents, go to: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov.

by Sara Tybaert, MEDLARS Management Section

This year 149 MeSH Headings were either changed or deleted and replaced with more up-to-date terminology. For simplest access to MeSH, the National Library of Medicine suggests using the MeSH Browser, an interactive Web application for searching and browsing MeSH data.

Category N - Health Care

• Moving and Lifting Patients
• Prescriptions
• Electronic Prescribing
• Hospitals, Isolation
• Clinical
  Governance (not limited to the United Kingdom)
• Telenursing

New subcategory N06 (Environment and Public Health)

• Biohazard Release
• Biosurveillance
• Chemical Hazard Release
• Extreme Cold
• Extreme Heat
• Infectious Disease Incubation Period
• Lot Quality Assurance Sampling
• Multilevel Analysis
• Secondary Prevention
• Structure Collapse
• Tertiary Prevention

Indexing Policy for New Young Adult Check Tag

Young Adult is a new check tag for 2009 indexing forward. It will not be applied to citations retrospectively. NLM follows the U.S. Census definition of ages 19-24. This age range overlaps with the existing check tag Adult which is defined as the ages 19-44. Indexing policy is as follows:

If the article describes persons aged 19-24 only, we will use Young Adult
check tag “Age 19-24″ only.

If the article describes persons aged 25-44 only, we will use Adult check
tag “Age 19-44″ only.

If the article describes persons aged 19-44, we will use both Young Adult
and Adult check tags “Age 19-24″ and “Age 19-44.”

Keeping up with PubMed changes requires persistence or the provided RSS feed.  For ease or currency, subscribe to the NLM Technical Bulletin’s RSS feed.  When a new article is posted on the NLM Technical Bulletin, you’ll get a message in your blog reader.

Some of the recent articles about PubMed improvements include:

Gene Sensor. NLM Tech Bull. 2008 Nov-Dec (365):e16.

Gene Sensor detects if the PubMed query includes a gene symbol and links it to the Gene Database.

My NCBI Improvements. NLM Tech Bull. 2008 Nov-Dec (365):e25.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has produced brief training videos to demonstrate two of the four methods for submitting articles to PubMedCentral in compliance with the NIHPublic Access Policy.

See the Public Access Homepage for descriptions of each of the four methods. The new videos pertain to:

• Method C: submissions initiated by the author, and
• Method D: completing the process for submissions initiated by a publisher.

Resources:

The NIH Public Access Policy Website, http://publicaccess.nih.gov/, includes Frequently Asked Questions http://publicaccess.nih.gov/FAQ.htm and other information relevant to the Policy.

For those interested in searching for emergency preparedness and disaster response materials in MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) and PubMed, take a look at the new MeSH descriptors listed here.

• Avalanches
• Climatic Processes
• Cyclones
• Droughts
• Earthquakes
• Floods
• Geological Processes
• Hospitals, Isolation
• Infectious Disease Medicine
• Landslides
• Nuclear Power Plants
• Resilience, Psychological
• Surge Capacity
• Tidal Waves
• Tornadoes

Looking at the MeSH Browser using the 2009 MeSH, and when entering the search term “hurricanes” a searcher is brought to the entry for “Cyclones”. “Hurricane(s)” is now an entry term for cyclones and not for “Natural Disasters” for that has changed to “Disasters” with 2009 MeSH.

The old heading “Natural Disasters” is being deleted and replaced by “Disasters.” Many entry terms from the old “Natural Disasters” heading have been elevated to stand-alone MeSH headings. New events, such as “Structure Collapse” have been added and specific events are no longer treed under “Disasters.” If the article discusses an event as being a disaster, indexers will coordinate with the heading “Disasters” and with the specific geographic locations of the occurrence.

To determine what journals submit All NIH-funded final published articles to PubMed Central, go to http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process_journals.htm. The journals listed here make the final published version of every NIH-funded paper publicly available in PubMed Central no later than 12 months after publication, without author involvement.  These deposits are in accord with the NIH Public Access Policy.

If you publish anywhere else, deposit the manuscript in PubMed Central via one of the options described at http://publicaccess.nih.gov. There are four methods to ensure that a manuscript is submitted to PubMed Central in compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy. 

Method 1: Make arrangements to have a publisher deposit a specific final published article in PubMed Central.

Method 2: Deposit the final peer-reviewed manuscript in PMC yourself via the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS).

Method 3: Complete the submission process for a final peer-reviewed manuscript that the publisher has deposited in the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS)

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/ja08/ja08_pm_training_updates.html

The June 2008 edition of the PubMed training workbook is now available for download from the NLM Web site. The current edition of the PubMed workbook has been reorganized to better emphasize search techniques, and reflects changes through June 2008 including the changes to Automatic Term Mapping and the new Citation Sensor. The manual is available for downloading in Portable Document Format (PDF) and Microsoft® (MS) Word formats. Feel free to use any part of the workbook - you may customize parts for training programs, demonstrations, or workshops you conduct. The workbook is not copyrighted.

See also the Search Clinic

Search Clinic: PubMed® Update on Automatic Term Mapping, Citation Sensor, and Advanced Search (30 min. video, July 2008) https://webmeeting.nih.gov/p91519064/

or

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/disted/clinics/pmupdate08.html

Looking for materials to use to share with clients, patrons, co-workers, on the National Library of Medicine’s premiere consumer and medical research websites? Download and copy these online brochures to use in promotion of resources you have access to at your institution.

PubMed Basics:
http://nnlm.gov/training/resources/pmtri.pdf

MedlinePlus Basics: (English and Spanish versions)

http://nnlm.gov/training/resources/mptri.pdf
http://nnlm.gov/training/resources/mptri_esp.pdf

MedlinePlus for Health Professionals:
http://nnlm.gov/training/resources/mp4hptri.pdf

Included among the revisions are mention of MedlinePlus’ “Multiple Languages” feature and updated snapshots of the PubMed and MedlinePlus home pages.

Additionally, The Exhibition Program: K-12 Resources on the Web brochure has been updated.  This PDF can be found at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/about/exhibition/pdf/EPonlineK_12resources.pdf.  Similar information is also available on an HMD/Exhibition Program web site at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/especiallyfor/teachersstudents.html#A1.

These and other brochures can also be found at http://nnlm.gov/sea/services/promotional.html

Learn how to find articles about a chemical or drug of interest. This 45-minute online clinic will cover how the NLM MeSH® vocabulary is used to describe substance concepts and how to search PubMed for relevant articles. The clinic is designed for librarians and other information specialists with little to moderate experience in searching for articles about chemicals or drugs in PubMed. Participants are expected to have a basic understanding of how to search PubMed.

Date: Thursday, August 23rd
Time: 2:00 - 2:45pm EDT
http://webmeeting.nih.gov/pmchems/ (password required)

The clinic will be limited to the first 150 registrants, so please register early.

On the week of the clinic, registrants will receive an e-mail message from “NIH Breeze Admin” with their unique password for access to the clinic.

This clinic will be recorded. You will be able to access the recording of the clinic from this page.

The clinic will be hosted using Adobe® Connect^TM. You may be prompted to download a plug-in at the site. Note that you will need speakers on your computer for the audio.

More information about substances in MeSH from The Basics of Medical Subject Headings