When searching the medical literature to identify the studies that can serve as the “best evidence” for answering a focused clinical question, the PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) model is a useful way to use to ensure that you have considered all the component parts of the question.

To make this process easier on the database searcher, EMBASE has now created a new PICO search form that can be used to easily develop this type of multi-component search strategy. Continue reading →

The MSK Library subscribes to a subset of bibliographic databases called Citation Analysis Tools, including Web of Science (Thomson Reuters) and Scopus (Elsevier).  When you conduct literature searches in these databases, along with the standard citation and abstract information for the article, you also get to see each article’s bibliography, as well as, which publications have cited that article since its publication.

Here’s why these databases are considered to be “powerhouse” research tools by librarians:

• Great for electronically harvesting relevant citations from the bibliographies of relevant articles. These are very useful tools for identifying more articles that are similar in topic to the one where you begin your search (potentially leading to both older articles and more current ones). Continue reading →

Registering for a My NCBI account – if you have never done so – is a great way to start off your year doing research. “My NCBI is a tool that retains user information and database preferences to provide customized services for many NCBI databases.”

Here are some ways that My NCBI will enhance your PubMed user experience:

• A My NCBI account extends PubMed’s capabilities to allow for more permanent saving of one’s work. With a My NCBI account searchers can not only save lists of relevant article citations, but they can also save entire search strategies to be re-run at a later date. This can translate into a significant reduction in the duplication of effort over time. Without a MyNCBI account, a PubMed user can only save their literature search strategies and selected citations for up to eight hours in the Clipboard (provided their browser is set to accept cookies).

• A My NCBI account makes sharing lists of selected citations with colleagues easier than ever. When a “Collection” of citations is saved in My NCBI, the account owner has the option to make this list public or private. If set to “Public”, a persistent URL is generated that can be “copied and pasted” into other documents/email for sharing with others. With PubMed, collaborating on a manuscript with co-authors or generating a shareable bibliography does not have to involve commercial citation management software. Continue reading →