MLA 2007:
NLM® Online Users' Meeting: Questions and Answers
NLM Online Users' Meeting: Questions and AnswersNLM Online Users' Meeting: PowerPoint Presentations for Remarks, MedlinePlus, DOCLINE
NLM Theater PowerPoint Presentations, Voice Recordings, and Transcripts
NLM Update PowerPoint Presentations
Question:
Does NLM® compile Go Local usage data to show how the program is going? I am from a state that does not participate yet and I’m curious to know what you’ve learned so far that might help us prepare to participate.
Answer:
We do have usage data but we’re actually interested in more than just numbers: we're interested in finding out if Go Local is helping people. We have a preliminary study being done by one of our Associate Fellows, Marisa Conte. She is going through much of the data that we have to see what we already know about the use of Go Local. We met with the Regional Medical Library Directors at a meeting at NLM in December and asked them, "What do you want to know about Go Local?" "What do sites that are performing this service for their users need to know and what do those sites who are still considering performing this service for users need to know?" We collected many questions from the user community and now we're in the process of categorizing those questions. We're working with Marisa to figure out which questions we can answer from available data, which we can answer from anecdotal data, and which questions need further research.
Go Local usage is higher for higher population states. Page views are in range of over 300,000 per quarter which is a modest number for NLM, but we plan to continue with the program for the long term and watch the numbers grow as we improve the service based on more evaluation data.
Question:
I'm glad to hear that you’ll be putting the Web-based training for indexers on the NLM Web site. I like what’s been done so far but more would be even better. Now that there is automated indexing done on meeting abstracts can you tell us how soon it will be before automated indexing for PubMed®, for the MEDLINE® part of PubMed, is available?
Answer:
NLM already uses an automatic indexing process to suggest terms to our indexers and we are exploring ways to expand on this technology.
For more information see the MEDLINE/PubMed Resources Guide which includes more on indexing procedures and other resources, as well as The Basics of MeSH guide put out last year.
Question:
What is the correct way to search in PubMed using Boolean operators? Should they be capitalized?
Answer:
Most PubMed searches do not require Boolean operators to be in uppercase characters. The system recognizes both Boolean OR and NOT in either lower or uppercase. However, lowercase Boolean AND is processed as a stopword rather than a Boolean operator because it is sometimes embedded in MeSH Terms and Subheadings. When you search with a lowercase Boolean AND, click the Details tab to see how the search is translated, e.g., breast cancer and therapy is translated so that and becomes AND. Processing lowercase and as a stopword works well for most PubMed queries that simply include search terms; however queries that include search tags or search history numbers may require an uppercase AND. See the two examples that include a search tag below:
For example:
breast cancer AND therapy[sh] successfully translates to: (("breast neoplasms"[TIAB] NOT Medline[SB]) OR "breast neoplasms"[MeSH Terms] OR breast cancer[Text Word]) AND "therapy"[Subheading]
breast cancer and therapy[sh] fails to translate correctly because the system searches for the complete phase in the subheading field.
Please note that the majority of searches (especially those that do not user search tags or search numbers) do NOT require the Boolean AND, therefore, breast cancer therapy is the recommended format. The Details feature will show you how PubMed translates the search.
Question:
Considering that a growing number of people are using Wikipedia®, are there any plans for the library to create and edit pages in Wikipedia and include links back to MedlinePlus to increase the number of users?
Answer:
There are a lot of entries in Wikipedia about NLM that we've looked at, including the NLM organization, MeSH, and MEDLINE/PubMed. Some of the entries are factual, and some of the entries contain personal opinion. Due to how Wikipedia is set up and how it works, we cannot easily go in and edit changes to reflect the facts. Anyone else can go in and edit the material that we've added, and these edits or additions may or may not be factual. We could easily get into an online argument or flame war. We don't believe that we have the time or resources to monitor and constantly try to update entries on Wikipedia or engage other Wikipedia "editors" in disagreements.
Question:
I like the new design of MedlinePlus except for one feature that I'd like you to consider changing back. There was a feature that did a pre-set search in PubMed for the last 90 days' worth for consumer health articles on the 700 MedlinePlus topics. The icon for this feature used to be on left side of the screen but now it is very hard to find. I find that users are saavy and they want to read what the doctors are reading; they don't necessarily want just consumer health. They love being introduced to PubMed and the fact that it's more natural language searching. I teach them a little bit with simple, natural language searching and point out the limits.
Answer:
It’s actually still on the same page, just scroll down. Usability testing shows that if your information is in a linear display as opposed to left and right-hand sides of the page people will see it more often. That's why the newspapers put that ad right in the middle of that article you’re trying to read because they get better click stream through that ad when they put it right in the middle. We hope that general discovery improves with the new location. Although I can see how it would hamper your ability to teach it easily since it’s not as close to the top and it doesn’t make screen shots quite as nice. We also believe that, by labeling it "Research" it would be better truth in advertising that this is a feature for the advanced user and not for everyone. I appreciate that it looks like it’s more clicking for the users you're instructing; however, as you've indicated, people who are doing advanced research of their disease appreciate these links. Also, depending on which source of data we look at, anywhere from 10-20% of MedlinePlus users are health professionals.
Question:
Is it possible to customize the RSS feeds so that local information, such as my LinkOut® icons or document delivery tool would appear?
Answer:
There are no immediate plans to add library LinkOut icons to user customized PubMed RSS feeds, however, this feature may be added at some point in the future. A list of NLM RSS feeds and podcasts is available at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/listserv/rss_podcasts.html
MLA 2007: NLM® Online Users' Meeting: Questions and Answers. NLM® Tech Bull. 2007 May-Jun;(356):e7b.
