My NCBI Collections: Save PubMed® Search Results

[Editor's Note: This feature was implemented in PubMed on February 28, 2006.]

y ou can temporarily save PubMed search results using the Clipboard. You can also save search strategies using My NCBI. Soon you will be able to save search results indefinitely within PubMed - using a new My NCBI feature called Collections. The Collections feature is used in conjunction with Clipboard to save search results. Important: If your Web browser is set to block pop-ups, you will need to allow pop-ups from NCBI Web pages to use My NCBI to save searches and collections.

Use My NCBI Collections to:

• Create collections
• Append to collections
• Manage collections
• Delete from collections
• Merge collections

Other changes coming to My NCBI:

• Sorting saved searches
• Added security during registration

Create collections

Saving search results to a collection is a two-step process; search results are sent first to the Clipboard and then to My NCBI Collections.

Step 1: From the PubMed search results page, select items you want to save using the check box next to the item number. Select Send to Clipboard from the Send to pull-down menu. (If you do not select items, all search results will be sent to the Clipboard up - to 500 items, the maximum number of items the Clipboard holds.) Note the asterisk on the Clipboard tab indicating that there are items on the Clipboard and the message displaying the number of items added to the Clipboard. You may continue adding (up to 500) items to the Clipboard.

Step 2: Go to the Clipboard by clicking on the Clipboard tab. Select the items you want to save to a collection using the check box next to the item number. Choose Send to My NCBI Collections from the Clipboard Send to pull-down menu (see Figure 1). (If you do not select items, all items on the Clipboard will be saved to the collection you are creating.) If you are not already signed into My NCBI, you will be prompted to do so.

A Save Collection pop-up window will display (see Figure 2) where you can create a new collection or append to an existing collection. Choose Create new collection. Below we explain how to Append to an existing collection. A default collection name is created using the number of items you are saving in the collection. We recommend you rename your collection using a short, yet meaningful, title. Click OK to finish.

You may want to remove the items you saved to a collection from the Clipboard. There are two ways to do this:

1. While you are creating the new collection and, if you want to remove all the saved items, check the option, Remove these items from clipboard? on the Save Collection pop-up window (see Figure 2).
2. If you want to remove some but not all the items, do not use the Remove check box. Instead return to the Clipboard, select the items you want to remove and then select Clip Remove from the Clipboard Send to pull-down menu.

Append to collections

To append search results to an existing collection, follow the two-steps above under Create Collections. On the Save Collection pop-up window, select Append to an existing collection. The window will change to display a Collections pull-down menu with your collections (see Figure 3). Choose the collection to which you want to add items and click OK. You may want to remove these items from the Clipboard.

Note: You can add up to a maximum of 1500 items to a collection.

Manage Collections

• To view your collections, click on My NCBI on the PubMed sidebar and then select the Collections tab (see Figure 4). Like saved searches, saved collections will display in groupings by database if you save collections from multiple databases (e.g., Nucleotide, Protein, PubMed).
• The check boxes on the Searches and Collections tabs are a "Select All" feature.

• Collections can be sorted:
  • alphabetically by name (PubMed Collections column)
  • date last modified
  • number of items in your collections (Details column)
• Saved searches can be sorted:
  • alphabetically by name (PubMed Searches column)
  • date last updated
  • update schedule (Details column).
• To sort, click the descending or ascending arrow next to the column heading. A pink arrow indicates the currently selected sort option (see Figure 5).

• Click on the number of items to display the Details of a collection (see Figure 6). Use Collection Details to view collection contents, change the collection name or remove items from the collection. Collections with more than 11 items are displayed in Brief format. Collections with fewer than 11 items are displayed in Summary format. The author(s) link for an item goes to the Abstract display of that item in PubMed.
• Click on the name to display the collection in PubMed. A History search statement number will be created when a collection is displayed in PubMed.

• To delete items from a collection, display the Details (see Figure 6) by clicking on the number of items for that collection. Select the items you want to delete and click the Delete Selected button (see Figure 7). A pop-up window asks you to confirm that you want to delete the selected items.

Merge Collections

On the Collections screen, select the collections you want to merge by clicking the check box next to the collections' names. Click the Merge Selected Collections button (see Figure 8).

On the Merge Collections pop-up window, name the newly merged collection using a short, yet meaningful, title. If you want to remove the two, separate collections that are being merged, use the Delete collections being merged? option (see Figure 9). Click OK to finish.

About collections

• The total number of saved searches and collections for a My NCBI account cannot exceed 100 each. Create a new My NCBI account if you need additional saved searches and/or collections.
• The maximum number of items in a collection is 1500.
• Be careful when naming your collections. Identical names for different collections are allowed and can cause confusion.

For a demonstration of some of the features in this article, see the new My NCBI Collections Quick Tour.

By Margaret McGhee
MEDLARS Management Section

McGhee M. My NCBI Collections: Save PubMed® Search Results. NLM Tech Bull. 2006 Jan-Feb;(348):e6.