INFORMATION UPDATE "Offering Information Solutions" July, 2002 Number 34 A Monthly Publication of Shamel Information Services mailto:InfoUpdate@shamelinfo.com ============================================================ Welcome to INFORMATION UPDATE, the free monthly newsletter for people who need to know. For subscription information, refer to notes at the end of this newsletter. ------------------------------------------------------------ IN THIS ISSUE ------------------------------------------------------------ => Do It Yourself - A PubMed Quiz - Follow-up => Did You Know - It's Important to Check More than One Source => Notes, News and Announcements => Subscribe/Unsubscribe Information ------------------------------------------------------------ DO IT YOURSELF - A PubMed Quiz - Follow-up ------------------------------------------------------------ Last month's Information Update included nine questions about the content of PubMed. Several scientists and one Information Update reader were kind enough to participate in this project. Of those participating in the Quiz project, scores ranged from 3 to 5 correct answers. The average was 4 correct answers. For an explanation of the questions and answers, scroll down to the bottom of this newsletter. Remember, PubMed is so good, we tend to forget that it doesn't have all the answers. As discussed in the next article on "It's Important to Check More than One Source," when thorough- ness matters, it is important to look beyond PubMed for medical and healthcare information. ------------------------------------------------------------ Did You Know? - It's Important to Check More Than One Source ------------------------------------------------------------ Recently a group of librarians representing several inter- national pharmaceutical companies met to discuss information needs in this industry. Given the nature of drug discovery and development, pharmaceutical companies need a wealth of scientific, patent, and business information. In order to assure the validity of the information they gather, pharma- cuetical company librarians rely upon multiple sources. The librarians participating in this discussion agreed that, while they sometimes must do with only two or three sources to verify the information they gather, they actually prefer four. The sources these information experts prefer have proven track records for accuracy, thoroughness, and currency. An information center within a pharmaceutical company would have access to a number of sources which could provide similar information, so that one could be checked against the other. For instance, to research drugs in the pipeline of a competitor, one would want to check databases such as Pharmaprojects from PJB Publications, NDA Pipeline from F-D-C Reports, IMSworld R&D Focus, and Adis R&D Focus. Shamel Information Services provides value-added research from multiple sources. We have access to hundreds of data sources and strive to provide accurate, verified research results. For more information, call 858-673-4673. ------------------------------------------------------------ Notes, News, and Announcements ------------------------------------------------------------ Information Update editor, Cynthia Shamel was recently quoted in an article by Reid Goldsborough, published in the Philadelphia Inquirer. The article discusses when to do your own research, and when to hire a professional to search the commercial databases. You can link to the article from the Shamel Information Services homepage, http://shamelinfo.com Shamel Information Services will be closed for vacation from July 15 through July 22. We will be checking e-mail during that time, but response may be a bit slower than usual. ============================================================= The Shamel Information Services web site at http://shamelinfo.com contains Information Update archives. Just click on "Newsletters" and check for any issues you might have missed. -------------------------------------------------------------- SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE -------------------------------------------------------------- Subscriptions to INFORMATION UPDATE are free. You may subscribe or unsubscribe by sending a message to: mailto:InfoUpdate@shamelinfo.com with SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Copyright 2002 Shamel Information Services Please feel free to forward this issue to colleagues, in its entirety. Other uses without permission may violate copyright. Online archives at http://shamelinfo.com/newsletter.htm =============================================================== Cynthia L. Shamel, editor Shamel Information Services Poway, California mailto:cshamel@shamelinfo.com Ms. Shamel is currently President-Elect of the Association of Independent Information Professionals http://www.aiip.org and a member of the Special Libraries Association. Telephone: 858-673-4673 Toll Free: 800-330-9939 ================================================================ The Quiz Answers 1. False. PubMed includes a) out-of-scope citations (e.g., articles on plate tectonics or astrophysics) from certain MEDLINE journals, primarily general science and chemistry journals, for which the life sciences articles are indexed for MEDLINE; b) citations that precede the date that a journal was selected for MEDLINE indexing; and c) some additional life science journals that submit full text to PubMedCentral™ and receive a qualitative review by NLM. 2. True 3. True. References just added to the PubMed database do not yet have MeSH terms assigned. Using keywords is the only way to retrieve them. 4. False. PubMed does not contain conference proceedings or abstracts. 5. False. The National Library of Medicine recently combined CancerLit and PubMed, so they no longer need to be searched separately. 6. A 30-35% overlap between PubMed and EMBASE 7. C over 6,000 titles 8. C BIOSIS 9. B the mid-60's For material published before that, it is important to use the print Index Medicus.