[Foreign international bibliographic databases. Index Medicus: presentation and use (CD-ROM edition)]. / Les bases de données bibliographiques internationales étrangères. Index Medicus: présentation et mode d'emploi (édition CD-Rom).

This paper provides technical assistance for bibliographic retrieval using the Medline CDRom, Medfive, with Ovid Search Software. Using a particular search as an example, we show, step by step and screen by screen, how to work using all the available features of this valuable bibliographic search tool.

Online and offline print costs in MEDLINE.

The NLM and DIALOG user will normally make the cost-effective choice by printing online at 1200 baud rather than offline. At 300 baud the offline print remains the economical choice. Given the most reasonable estimates of citation length, offline printing is now the choice in all cases for the BRS user of MEDLINE. The cost estimates are based on the application of the Boyce-Gillen formula. Page charges are converted to citation charges where necessary.

MEDLINE, cancer-CD, SCI-CD addition on CD-ROM.

Compact Disc Read-Only-Memory, CD-ROM, is a powerful resource which combines the best features of both online and print access to the literature: multiple access points and leisurely browsing (online accessibility without a modem or without its cost). Applied to the MEDLINE database, this technology has created a brand new market, one which is increasingly competitive and therefore evolving rapidly. Five MEDLINE and two non-MEDLINE products are reviewed. The MEDLINE products include: BRS/COLLEAGUE DISC, Compact Cambridge, Ebsco's Core MEDLINE, Online Research System's Compact Med-Base, and SilverPlatter's MEDLINE on CD-ROM. The two other products include: Institute for Scientific Information's SCI CD Edition and SilverPlatter's CANCER-CD. The market is still wide open and the buyer is wise to try before he buys. However, there are great differences between the various packagings of a rather familiar product. In our view, in terms of ease of use, SilverPlatter was the clear winner. Ebsco's product is attractive because of its containment on one CD. Med-Base is the most original and offers special features not found elsewhere. Finally, personal preference is a strong consideration and should not be overlooked.

How to keep up with the medical literature: V. Access by personal computer to the medical literature.

Access to the medical literature through personal computers is now readily available and can greatly reduce logistical barriers to using recently published journal articles to support clinical decisions. In this article, we describe many of the options available to clinicians who wish to do their own computer searching of MEDLINE, the largest of the electronic services for the biomedical literature. The "bare bones" computer equipment needed includes a terminal or personal computer, a modern and telephone line, and a printer. Access to MEDLINE is then gained through subscribing to any of a burgeoning number of database vendors. A comparison of 17 permutations and combinations of software and vendors shows that the software and vendors vary substantially in efficiency, cost, and ease of use. Direct subscription to MEDLINE is least expensive, PaperChase is the simplest service to use, and Colleague and Medis provide both MEDLINE access plus full-text journals online. Basic search techniques are illustrated for three clinical problems.

A MEDLINE feasibility study.

A MEDLINE feasibility study was conducted with the Northeastern Consortium for Health Information (NECHI) and sponsored by the New England Regional Medical Library Service. It is based on the theory that most potential users and supporters of MEDLINE within hospitals are unaware of its usefulness and applications, and that there exists a need for expanding MEDLINE services to more hospital libraries. The purpose of the study was to provide NECHI with an evaluation of MEDLINE as a feasible service by ascertaining the need and by evaluating the usefulness, satisfaction, and costs of the system. The study demonstrated sufficient use of MEDLINE to justify implementation within NECHI and it provided useful data to determine the future of MEDLINE in each institution. It documented that utilization improved rapidly with publicity and the presence of the system within an institution, that MEDLINE can be an effective and economical complement to the traditional reference services used to support information needs in hospitals, and that more hospital libraries should be able to implement MEDLINE to their advantage once potential users and supporters have been exposed to the system.

The greening of medical computing: federal policy and the information industry.

Some of the most valuable medical databases in existence are created and maintained by the federal government. Yet, in most cases, to access them the user must go through expensive commercial channels. In effect this forces the user to pay for them twice--once as a tax-payer and again as a user. It is argued that computerized medical information is no longer a novelty or a luxury item and is becoming fundamental to patient care, administration, education and research. As a result these data ought not be locked up by commercial vendors, but rather should be made widely and freely available to all--especially when the information was developed with public monies in the first place.

MEDLINE at BRS, DIALOG, and NLM: is there a choice?

Since May 1981, MEDLINE has been offered by three vendors: Bibliographic Retrieval Services, DIALOG, and the National Library of Medicine. Although the contents of these MEDLINE files are basically the same, they have major differences: on-line versus off-line coverage, costs, hours, software capabilities, and bibliographic variations. MEDLINE searchers need to know about the important differences among these three files whether or not they have direct access to them. Ideally, a searcher should have access to all three MEDLINEs. However, staying up to date on the basics of comparative MEDLINE searching should be the responsibility of each MEDLINE searcher. A broad-based decision about a vendor must consider the characteristics of each MEDLINE file and of each search request.

Computer searching of the medical literature. An evaluation of MEDLINE searching systems.

Although clinicians can now search the medical literature electronically from the clinic, bedside, or operating suite, little is known about the performance characteristics of online information services. Fourteen access routes to the MEDLINE database of journal literature were compared for retrieval quantity and quality, user and online search time, and cost for randomly ordered, standardized searches on common clinical problems. All routes produced the articles we judged to be the most definitive on the clinical problem. However, routes differed significantly (p less than 0.01) for the same searches with respect to online time (range, 5.15 to 18.72 minutes), total search time (8.37 to 20.55 minutes), cost (US $3.38 to $11.62), and proportion of articles relevant to the topic (98% to 75%). "User friendliness" aside, our results showed that the higher the cost, the worse the product. Clinicians should consider these major differences when deciding which search system to use.

[The role of support elements in medical education]. / El papel de los elementos de apoyo en la educación médica.

There is a definite and inexorable trend in medical schools toward changes in the training of physicians. This transformation of medical education is being seen in the most traditional schemes, which predominate in the medical schools of Latin America, and the most modern and complex approaches, even though they are relatively a minority phenomenon in many countries. This article examines the support facilities needed at each stage of this evolution: libraries, communication media, teaching and physical resources and technologies, and hospital and laboratory facilities. It also describes the influence of each of them on the physician's training. The author is of the view that the common denominator among all aspects of medical education, from the student's physical environment to the sophisticated resources embodied in computers, must be the interpersonal relationship. The ideal situation in which the healthy professions can profit fully from the rationalization and management of knowledge in the medical school setting is one of rapprochement between the transmitters (teachers) and receivers (students) of information, whether medical or in any other subject.

An evaluation of four end-user systems for searching MEDLINE.

This study compared features and determined which of four end-user systems (PaperChase, GRATEFUL MED, Med-Base, or Compact Cambridge: MEDLINE) would best serve the Medical Sciences and Optometry Libraries of Indiana University in providing biomedical information to faculty and graduate students through MEDLINE. Cost, ease of use, retrieval, training needs, equipment requirements, and adequacy of documentation were examined. The study consisted of a comparison of the features of each system based on available documentation; a controlled search performed by the investigators on each system and on regular NLM MEDLINE; and a user study based on observations, questionnaires, and interviews with eleven library patrons who performed the same search of their choice on each of the four systems.

Comparison of fixed-fee Grateful Med database use and searching success rates given the continued availability of MEDLINE in other formats.

This study compared in-house Grateful Med database use and searching success rates for four-month periods at four sites of the Library of the Health Sciences of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Data were collected from Grateful Med workstation uselogs and analyzed. Database use patterns and searching success rates were fairly consistent across the four sites. Though MEDLINE was available in other formats and use in these other formats remained high, 65.48% of all Grateful Med searching was done by using MEDLINE, and an additional 21.34% was done by using the MEDLINE Backfiles. In-house use patterns were similar to the overall use pattern for the University of Illinois, with the exception of MEDLINE Backfiles. Overall, 54.30% of searches were successful.