Changes to how electronic journal articles are indexed

PubMed has announced that MEDLINE records would in many cases now refer to the online, electronic versions of journals rather than the print version. This reflects the fact that many publishers now deem the ejournal as the version of record with complete content for each issue. More about PubMed practice here

In parallel with this development, publishers such as BMJ have dropped traditional date - volume - part - page pagination in references and replaced it with a new method where the electronic article is given a unique number instead of page numbers.

BMJ references in in PubMed now look like this:

Should antihistamines be used to treat anaphylaxis?
Andreae DA, Andreae MH.
BMJ. 2009 Jul 10;339:b2489. doi: 10.1136/bmj.b2489.

The date (Jul 10) and volume (339) format remains the same but the article reference is now to " b2489 " a number unique to this article in this issue. Also referenced is the doi or digital object identifier, a unique string which enables a digital object to be searched and found on the internet.


Paul

Web of Science

Web of Science
Citation Indexes and Journal Citation Reports

Web of Science is a multidisciplinary journal index comprising Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. It includes 10,000 + journals and there are more journals indexed and more disciplines covered than Medline, especially in:

• Biomedicine
• Biotechnology
• Chemistry
• Social sciences
• Health services
• Healthcare management
• Pharmacology

More content than Medline with meeting abstracts and conference papers and these unique search features:

• Find all citations to a known paper or author
• Calculate citations for an author or a paper
• Show impact measures for an author, paper or institution
• Find an author’s h-Index

You can track from any one research article or any one author all those other researchers who have subsequently cited that work in other papers. Thus networks and clusters of research activity can be traced through following citations. The citation databases provide the basis for the calculation of the impact factors for biomedical journals worldwide. Also included is Journal Citation Reports, which gives the Impact Factors for all Web of Science journals in science and the social sciences.

Full download (including EndNote), personalized alert features, help and tutorials. Connect from the library’s web page at http://www.rcsi.ie/library/databases

Funded for RCSI by SFI and delivered via IReL

Paul

WHO
Information resources at the World Health Organization http://www.who.int/en/

Health Topics
An A-Z of hundreds of healthcare topics with each topic containing

• Fact Sheets
• Technical Information
• Statistics - country, regional, global
• Q & A

Country Profiles

• Facts & figures
• Healthcare systems
• Mortality

Data and statistics

• Diseases
• Risk factors
• Regional and global atlases
• Statistical information systems

Publications

• Database of WHO’s global libraries, reports & journals
• International health regulation, reports, disease classification

Paul

Irish tutorial online: information skills for PhDs

The Highter Education Authority has funded an online information skills tutorial which is aimed at Irish PhD students. Taking cancer research as an example, the tutorial features segments on resources, search techniques, literature reviews and records management. The tutorial was developed jointly by UCC, TCD and NUIG.

View it here http://sifinfolit.nuigalway.ie/


Paul

Lenus, the Irish Health Repository

LENUS is an online repository of health-related reports, research and official publications from 1960 compiled by the HSE Regional Library & Information Service in Dublin. LENUS includes policy documents, official publications, clinical research, theses and statistics. Authors can also submit their original research to the repository. LENUS includes documents from the former Irish Health Boards, the Health Service Executive and Department of Health and Children. It is an important resource for health professionals, policy makers, academics, librarians, students and the general public.

Paul

NCBI Biosystems Database

The NCBI Biosystems database has now gone public. The NCBI BioSystems Database currently contains biological pathways from two source databases, KEGG and the EcoCyc subset of BioCyc. It uses the same search interface as other NCBI databases as pubmed and Entrez Gene.

Use the database to list genes, proteins, and small molecules that are involved in a biological pathway. More

• Find the pathways in which a given gene or protein is involved. More
• Find the pathways in which a specific small molecule is involved. More
• Retrieve 3D structures for proteins involved in a biosystem. More

Paul

Paying open access publication charges - a report

The Research Information Network have published the following report on open access publication charges:

"Paying for open access publication charges. Guidance for higher education and research institutions, publishers and authors. A report by Universities UK and the Research Information Network"

Publication charges are the fees levied by some journals (such as BioMed Central) to publish articles and make them available free of charge to the reader. This report provides advice and guidance on the arrangements for paying open access publication fees and is aimed at research institutions, research funders, publishers and authors.

The report is available in the Mercer and Beaumont Hospital libraries. Alternatively you can view the full report by clicking on the link below
http://www.rin.ac.uk/files/Paying_open_access_charges_guide_March_2009.pdf