Table of Contents: 2016 MAY–JUNE No. 410

Redesigned FTP Site for MeSH Downloads

Pash J. Redesigned FTP Site for MeSH Downloads. NLM Tech Bull. 2016 May-Jun;(410):e11.

2016 June 21 [posted]

The Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) FTP download site, ftp://nlmpubs.nlm.nih.gov/online/mesh/, has been updated to include separate directories for each release year of MeSH (see Figure 1).

The FTP directories include:

A single directory for earlier files from 1999-2010 (see A in Figure 1).
The yearly release directories from 2011 to the latest full release which occurs in November of the preceding year (for example, 2016 MeSH was released in November of 2015) (see B in Figure 1).
The directory "MESH_FILES" with the latest release files that are updated every morning Monday – Friday (see C in Figure 1).
File names ending with .nt and .ttl extensions that are for the MeSH RDF format (see D in Figure 1).

Figure 1: Updated MeSH FTP directory.

The MESH_FILES directory and MeSH file naming conventions for previous years' data are shown below (Figure 2 and Figure 3).

screen shot of MeSH subfolders included under MESH_FILES folder and individual year folders

Figure 2: MeSH subfolders included under MESH_FILES folder and individual year folders.

screen shot of MeSH data file naming convention using 2015 MeSH year

Figure 3: MeSH data file naming convention using 2015 MeSH year.

We hope that making these archive copies more readily available to the public will be useful for those of us who are interested in studying the history of MeSH terminology as it has progressed over the years. Distributed MeSH files are freely available to the public provided that you agree to our Memorandum of Understanding.

Your questions and comments about MeSH are welcome. Please send them to NLM Customer Service.

By James Pash
MeSH Section