When PubMed searching yields few good results – 28 biomedical literature search tools evaluated

Image via Wikipedia

Have you ever searched PubMed and have been disappointed with the results?
Or have been frustrated with the search interface?

Read on for other ways to search the biomedical literature.

From the Krafty Librarian posting, 28 April 2011

“PubMed and beyond: a survey of web tools for searching biomedical literature” (free full text) from Database (2011) Vol. 2011, doi: 10.093/database/baq036

The article looks at and reviews 28 web tools for searching the biomedical literature and compares them to PubMed and each other and has a website dedicated to tracking existing tools and future advances in the area of biomedical literature search tools.

Abstract:

The past decade has witnessed the modern advances of high-throughput technology and rapid growth of research capacity in producing large-scale biological data, both of which were concomitant with an exponential growth of biomedical literature. This wealth of scholarly knowledge is of significant importance for researchers in making scientific discoveries and healthcare professionals in managing health-related matters. However, the acquisition of such information is becoming increasingly difficult due to its large volume and rapid growth. In response, the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is continuously making changes to its PubMed Web service for improvement. Meanwhile, different entities have devoted themselves to developing Web tools for helping users quickly and efficiently search and retrieve relevant publications. These practices, together with maturity in the field of text mining, have led to an increase in the number and quality of various Web tools that provide comparable literature search service to PubMed. In this study, we review 28 such tools, highlight their respective innovations, compare them to the PubMed system and one another, and discuss directions for future development. Furthermore, we have built a website dedicated to tracking existing systems and future advances in the field of biomedical literature search. Taken together, our work serves information seekers in choosing tools for their needs and service providers and developers in keeping current in the field.

Not only does the article look at these 28 interfaces but it also looks at the recent changes to PubMed that were often influenced by these and other outside interfaces.

There is no way any library or librarian can teach or support every one of these interfaces, but this paper is free and is a nice resource to whip out when somebody asks about one of them.

 

 

Related Resources and Articles

• Biomedical Literature Search Tools – Links to PubMed alternatives as well as a tool selection filter (natural language, similar results, semantic search with biological concepts)

* indicates the 28 systems surveyed in Lu, Database 2011 (PubMed and Beyond)

# indicates other systems added to the list after the above publication through request or regular update (last update: April 2011)

• How many Medline platforms on the Web? ( slide presentation, highlighting a few PubMed alternatives, Science Intelligence and InfoPros)

• Third Party PubMed Tools (slide presentation, highlighting a few PubMed alternatives, Alison Aldrich, National Network of Libraries of Medicine)
• PubMed Alternatives: Research Guide
  Margaret Henderson, Virginia Commonwealth University Tompkins-McCaw Library
• PubMed® Online and App Resources (NLM) includes links to PubMed alternatives (including individual search engines/interfaces)

 

• PubMed Mobile Beta (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• PubMed Toxicology Subset Streamlines Biomedical Searches in the Professional Literature (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• My NCBI Redesign (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• PubMed Health Provides Disease and Treatment Information for Consumers (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• PubMed’s Sudden Death Averted… For Now. (laikaspoetnik.wordpress.com)
• Related Services: Outside Tool and Document Delivery Service – LinkOut Help – NCBI Bookshelf (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
• Searching PubMed for Articles on Health Literacy (aa47.wordpress.com)
• PubMed Search Help Items (jflahiff.wordpress.com)