While PubMed’s advanced search is most often used to combine previous searches together to create more complex strategies and to rerun previous searches, it has other functions that are often overlooked. The default field codes are All Fields, however by clicking on the drop down button reveals an expansive number of options to customize your search. Below are some of the most useful, but often overlooked field codes.

Affiliation: This field code searches the author affiliations. For example, this can be used to search for results where one of the authors is affiliated with MSK (or was at the time of publication).

Author-First/Author-Last: These field codes identify results where the author is only the first or last author listed. This can be useful when looking for articles that came out of specific labs (as the last author is typically the primary investigator).

Author-Corporate: This field code can be used to narrow down when an author is not a person, but rather a group/organization/corporation.

Grant Number: This field code can locate articles associated with a specific grant number, which can be helpful for keeping up with public access compliance, or identifying trends in research.

Even though the medium has changed, the MSK Library still provides access to thousands of textbooks to our users. To locate a specific textbook, you can start at the Library Website, and look for the search box under ONESEARCH for “Books and More” which will search across our print and electronic book collection. Note: This method is not meant to browse our collection.

To browse eBooks that the library subscribes to, there are a variety of sources and platforms. The following are just a few you can access.

• AccessMedicine and AccessSurgery, where you can discover a large array of major clinical textbooks (e.g. Harrison’s, Fitzpatrick’s, Goodman & Gillman’s, Hurst’s, Schwartz’s, and William’s). These two platforms also have a variety of other resources and tools for clinicians and you can search across the platform or within a specific text. Chapters can be individually saved and printed.
• STATRef! is another platform that includes a large number of textbooks (e.g. 8th Edition of the AJCC Staging Manual, Decker, ICD-10, Merck Manual, and Red Book).
• Wiley Online Library houses 22,000 eBooks covering 60 different subject areas.

Have a question regarding MSK eBook collections or want to learn about other available eBook platforms, don’t hesitate to contact us!

My NCBI is a tool that provides a customized database searching experience for PubMed and all the other databases within the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). Users can save articles and search strategies as well as create automated email alerts and customize preferences in how they interact and search PubMed. My NCBI is also a key component to keeping publications in compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy, through My Bibliography’s integration with eRA Commons. Creating a My NCBI account is quick and easy!

Here’s a breakdown of some popular features:

1. Keeping track of research
   • My NCBI allows users to Save Searches (including applied filters), so that they can be run again and even displays how many new articles have been added since the last time the search strategy was executed.
   • The Save Search feature allows users to set the format (what citation information they want to see) and how frequently email alerts should be delivered.
   • Organize articles in Collections, which can be continually added to, and can even be made public with a shareable URL to send to colleagues and collaborators.
2. Customizing search experience
   • Filters allow for customized categories to be identified and filtered from a search strategy. Up to 12 filters can be added to a user’s account at a time, and they range from general topics such as English language, Clinical Trials, Reviews, and Humans, to more complex and customized filters such as the Cancer subset topic search, and even specific search strategies.
   • Edit and customize Preferences, such as the number of references per page, the layout (Summary, Abstract), and the default sort (Most Recent, Best Match, etc), as well as linking accounts, setting up delegates, and much more.
   • Add Highlighting to search terms found in titles and abstracts for quick and easy scanning for relevant articles.
3. Staying compliant
   • The My Bibliography portion of My NCBI serves as a place to organize and store a user’s publications.
   • This section links to eRA Commons, so that users can quickly identify which of their publications are NIH-compliant and address those papers that are not.