Grateful Med for Windows®

Searching for Chemicals

Gold Standard Search

Technical Notes

HHAI Order Form

AHA Order Form

Grateful Med for Windows Version 1.0 has arrived and is in users' hands - or should we say in the users' PCs. Registered users of the DOS version of Grateful Med who returned the Grateful Med for Windows request postcard were shipped their copy of the program in mid-January. Registered users who have not yet received a copy and who do not have Web access, should contact our software distributor, NTIS, at 800-423-9255 to have Grateful Med for Windows disks mailed to them.

Grateful Med users (or any interested individual) with Web access may download Grateful Med for Windows Version 1.0 and the User's Guide from NLM's Web site: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/databases/gmwin.html. [Editor's note: This Web page is no longer available. 26 October 1999] Please print this web page which includes, "Instructions for Downloading and Installing Grateful Med for Windows, Version 1.0." Web access offers the benefits of immediate delivery (no mail delay) and it is free!

This version of Grateful Med for Windows provides:

• access to MEDLINE® (1966 to present)
• Loansome Doc for electronic ordering of the full-text copy of articles
• direct access to MEDLARS for command language searching.

In addition, the Online Help contains detailed context-sensitive help and a troubleshooting section. Future versions of the software will provide access to additional NLM databases (e.g., AIDSLINE, HealthSTAR®, etc.)

Just a sample of the features in Grateful Med for Windows are described in this article:

Grateful Med's New Search Form

When you start Grateful Med, the program automatically displays a Search Form to let you begin formulating a search strategy. See Figure 1 below.

Figure 1 - Grateful Med Search Form

Customizing Retrieval Options

Grateful Med now lets you customize the information downloaded in the initial and detailed retrieval display to suit your needs. Select Retrieval List from the Preferences Menu to modify your retrieval options. See Figure 2.

Figure 2 - Customizing Retrieval Options

Display of Search Results

When Grateful Med runs your search it initially retrieves citations in a brief format (see the Initial Display column in Figure 2), downloading them in batches of 20. You can modify this default batch size to any number. On the Search Results screen, see Figure 3, you can select citations to:

• get more detailed information (e.g., abstracts)
• print
• save
• order copies of articles

Figure 3 - Search Result Screen - Initial Display

Search History

Each Grateful Med session is logged to a Search History that holds all of your search strategies, analyses and results. The Search History window, see Figure 4, lists your searches in the order in which you ran them. You can use this window to go back to an earlier search and retrieve additional citations, get details, save, print, or order items. In addition, you can save the entire Search History which in turn saves the search strategy, analysis, and results, and cost for each search listed. To save the Search History, select Save from the File Menu.

Figure 4 - Search History Window

If you cannot find the Search History window, select Search History from Window located on the menu bar.

There are more new features and options available with Grateful Med for Windows than can be covered in this brief overview. You are strongly advised to examine the chapter "An Overview of Grateful Med for Windows" in the User's Guide for a quick tutorial of the basic features and options. For assistance with all versions of Grateful Med you may send your inquiries via e-mail to gmhelp@nlm.nih.gov, or call the MEDLARS Service Desk at 800-638-8480.

--prepared by Rhonda Allard

MEDLARS Management Section

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