INFORMATION UPDATE January 2006 Number 70 Welcome to INFORMATION UPDATE, a monthly resource for information seekers and users. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ IN THIS ISSUE ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ => Do It Yourself - A9.com - More Tips and Tricks => Did You Know? - Searching for Articles in the Medical Literature => Notes, News and Announcements => Subscribe/Unsubscribe Information ************************************************************ DO IT YOURSELF - A9.com - More Tips and Tricks ************************************************************ Last month I introduced A9.com for your consideration. This month I want to share a nifty feature with you. OK, you know how it is when you search the web and get a list of search results. You can work your way through that list by clicking on one item, looking at the web site, then clicking back to the search results to see which web site you want to view next. Well, the A9.com tool bar eliminates the need to keep clicking back to the search results to work your way through the list. Install the A9.com tool bar and use the left and right arrows to advance through your list of search results. On the A9 toolbar there is an icon that looks like a little note pad with a drop down arrow that says "list." Click on the arrow and see 10 of the hits from your list of results. The page you are viewing will have a little pointer by it. Now you can select from this drop down list to go to another page. If you want to simply click your way through the list of search results without going back to view the results list and without using the toolbar drop down list, you have another option. On either side of the little note pad icon there are left and right arrows. Click on the left arrow to go up the list of search results, and click on the right arrow to go down the list. Take my word for it. It's alot easier to do than it is to explain. Simply install the A9.com tool bar and try it for yourself. http://a9.com/ In the top right hand corner of the page click on Toolbar. Let me know how it goes, and if you have other A9.com tips to share, please send them along. I'll include them in the next Information Update. Happy Searching! ************************************************************ DID YOU KNOW? - Searching for Articles in the Medical Literature ************************************************************ "There are many search engines and many ways to gain access to the online medical literature. At the moment, however, Google is the most widely used." This quote comes from Robert Steinbrook, M.D. "Searching for the Right Search - Reaching the Medical Literature" in the January 5, 2006 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. In context, what Dr. Steinbrook seems to be saying is this. Based on his findings and a look at the statistics from June of 2005, most of the referrals (56.4%) to the HighWire Press list of 844 journals came to the HighWire Press web site from references located during a Google search. The rest of the referral activity came from other Internet search engines (25.1%), PubMed (8.7%), Google Scholar (3.7%), Yahoo! (3.4%), HighWire (2.1%), and MSN (0.6%). Steinbrook wants to make the point that a great deal of the medical literature is available full-text online through journal web sites. HighWire Press hosts just over 900 of these journals and their electronic archives. Over 900 titles is a lot, but it is by no means all. PubMed, for instance, indexes the content of over 4,800 biomedical journals. Steinbrook points out the number of searches in PubMed has grown steadily to about 70 million for July 2005. July 2004 had just under 55 million. While PubMed searchers are often led to HighWire Press to view articles, Google searchers are often led to PubMed to view references and abstracts. Google is the largest single source of referrals *to* PubMed. OK, so what does all this mean to you, the searcher? I think it means that if you use Google or Google Scholar to search for biomedical literature, you may well have some success in locating articles in full-text. If you use PubMed to search for biomedical literature, you may also find the information you seek without the "noise" of other non-literature hits. If you find what you need using these search tools, that is great. If you do not find what you need, if you do not have time for this kind of searching, or if you need some assurance that the search has been thorough and systematic, then you may need to seek professional search assistance. New England Journal of Medicine http://content.nejm.org/ HighWire Press http://highwire.stanford.edu/ Google http://www.google.com PubMed http://www.pubmed.gov Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com/ Yahoo! http://www.yahoo.com MSN http://www.msn.com/ For more information, contact Shamel Information Services, 858-673-4673 or mailto:cshamel@shamelinfo.com ************************************************************* Notes, News, and Announcements ************************************************************* Happy New Year! >>Information Seekers may now subscribe to Information Update using the web form at http://shamelinfo.com. If someone has forwarded this newsletter to you, why not register for your own free copy? Use the form on the Shamel Information Services web site at http://shamelinfo.com. ************************************************************** Shamel Information Services Web Site ************************************************************** 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. Cynthia L. Shamel, editor Shamel Information Services Telephone: 858-673-4673 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Subscriptions to INFORMATION UPDATE are free. Copyright 2006 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 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^