The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) has launched a new interface for their MyNCBI service. MyNCBI is easily accessed via PubMed in the upper-right hand corner of the homepage. With the newly redesigned MyNCBI, you can more easily access stored information from your NCBI databases searches. The layout of the homepage allows for seamless perusing and at-a-glance retrieval of data. It is even possible to reorder boxes on the homepage to fit your research or personal needs. Simply drag a box to its desired location on the page; eliminating boxes can be done by clicking on the “customize this page” link at the top of the homepage.

Continue reading →

Quertle is not your average search engine; it’s a powerhouse semantic search engine. It trolls the internet in search of facts within documents and creates its own database of relationships. So, when you search with Quertle, you receive results that are closely associated to your desired research query. Quertle also supplies relevant results because it covers only the medical field and a select few databases such as Medline’s collection in PubMed, BioMed Central, PubMed Central, and various news sources. Continue reading →

This week’s Resource Highlight is another open access resource: PLoS One.  Labeled with an acronym of its publisher, the Public Library of Science, PLoS One is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access, online publication. Not only can you access quality open source articles from around the globe, but you can retrieve them from anywhere with an internet connection.

PLoS One also strives to publish articles as quickly as possible, without delaying the process to gauge which pieces will gain the greatest readership; a huge plus of open access publications. Resting on the belief that the impact of research should be based on the individual article as opposed to the journal as a whole, PLoS One has implemented a process for assessing metrics on the article level. They record article’s usage statistics, blogosphere coverage, and citation metrics, for example. PLoS One invites users to visit their Blog for more detailed information about article-level metrics.

As always, an easy way to access the PLoS One database is by visiting the MSK Library web site and keying in “PloS One” into the EResources search box.