PubMed Central, the free full-text archive of biomedical and life science journal literature at the National Library of Medicine,  has shortened its name to PMC in order to avoid confusion with PubMed. What’s also new is PMC’s look and feel, which has been updated to conform to NCBI’s new standards for page design. This redesign allows for a cleaner and more uniform presentation across PMC’s site as well as its article, issue and journal archive pages. See the NLM Technical Bulletin for more information on these enhancements. To subscribe to email announcements or an RSS feed to the Technical Bulletin, visit this page.

This is one in a series of reports from our funding awardees. Read on to learn what the WSU Riverpoint Campus accomplished with their Technology Improvement Award.

By Bob Pringle, Director of Nursing and Riverpoint Campus Library Service, Spokane, WA

Last fall, we submitted a Technology Improvement Award proposal to the Regional Medical Library. We needed to replace an old staff computer used for ILL processing, and wanted to add a new scanner for use with Odyssey software, in addition to our Ariel station. We received the award in October 2011. We purchased two pieces of equipment: a Fujitsu 6240 color scanner and a Dell computer with 4 GB memory, which meets current WSU Spokane IT standards, spending just over $3,500.

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Wonder why your request came back unfilled? Sometimes, things happen without a reason. But in DOCLINE, there is always a reason!  There are three types of reasons for a request to route on to another library, or discontinue routing and retire:

1. Routing Reasons are system generated during the routing process.
2. Removal Reasons are system generated in Time Triggered actions.
3. Reasons are chosen by a potential lender as a reason for not filling a request. 

 Here is more detail on each type:

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Of recent interest to medical librarians is an article that was published in BMJ regarding search results in PubMed and how evidence from randomized clinical trials is retrieved. Here is some updated information from the National Library of Medicine, Bibliographic Services Division:

Re: Wieland LS, Robinson KA, Dickersin K. Understanding why evidence from randomised clinical trials may not be retrieved from Medline: comparison of
indexed and non-indexed records. BMJ. 2012 Jan 3;344:d7501. doi: 10.1136/bmj.d7501. PubMed PMID: 22214757.

Readers of this article should recognize that the authors assumed no changes took place in the NLM indexing of Randomized Controlled Trial
[publication type]. In fact, NLM has made changes since 2005 that we think affect the conclusions and projections made in the article. These changes
are: (more…)

Edit: A recording of the webcast is now available at https://webmeeting.nih.gov/p97232219/

Below are the resources mentioned in the presentation, and they are also accessible via the LinkOut section of our website:

LinkOut Home: Journal Lists, Provider Lists, Library Submission Utility, etc.
FAQ on LinkOut: LinkOut for Libraries Frequently Asked Questions.
LinkOut Help: National Center for Biotechnology Information Help Manual.
How LinkOut Works For Libraries: Detailed Information on How to Register for LinkOut and Manage Holdings.
Training and Educational Resources: Animated Tutorials, LinkOut Presentations from MLA Meetings.
Promotion: Materials to Assist Libraries in Training Users and Promoting LinkOut.

Are you curious about LinkOut? Do you have questions? Are you interested in what’s changed?

Come join us on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 1pm Pacific time (Noon Alaska, 2pm Mountain) during our free monthly webcast at http://webmeeting.nih.gov/rendezvous  for a LinkOut Refresher session presented by Patricia Devine, PNR Network Outreach Coordinator. She will cover the benefits of LinkOut, getting started with LinkOut, the Submission Utility and which vendors provide holdings, and getting statistics from LinkOut.

If you are unable to join us then, we invite you to view a recording of the webcast at the Rendezvous website later.

As part of our Federal agency services regarding electronic and information technology resources being accessible to people with disabilities, closed captioning is available on this and future RML Rendezvous webcasts.

For more information please visit How do I connect to the Rendezvous? to test your computer connection as a Flash update may be needed. We look forward to seeing you at the webcast!