Biology Library News

PscyINFO and other databases change to a different interface

Some OCLC Firstsearch databases, including PsycINFO, are now available on EBSCOhost instead. More info.

SciFinder client discontinued; use SciFinder Web now

SciFinder Scholar (Chemical Abstracts and some other databases) is now only available using the web interface. We have moved all our concurrent usage to the web and eliminated the client interface. If you have not used the web version, your initial registration must be done while you are using a WU campus IP address and a wustl.edu email address. More info about registration.

Medline news

I usually don't alert you to NLM Technical Bulletin stories but several seem important this month!
    - Look for the Advanced Search Beta link next to the PubMed search box and try this. More info. Since it's "beta", comments are welcome via Write to the Help Desk link on the bottom of PubMed pages.
    - Automatic term mapping and Citation sensor - more changes in PubMed which you may want to know about
    - Authorship in Medline, a new NLM factsheet that will tell you more than you ever wanted to know. I hadn't known about the differentiations between authors, group authors, and collaborators.

Other options for off-campus access

Proxy Options for Off-Campus Access details some other options when you don't use the proxy-enabled links from the library web site or the Proxy Server Login directly.

Help locating journal RSS feeds

Using RSS Feeds to Keep Current with Medical Literature, RSS links for many journals now available in Becker Library Catalog

Access to 2 new ejournals and one new database this month

Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment

Full text, v.1, 2003+; WU access only; Ecological Society of America.

GreenFILE

Information covering all aspects of human impact on the environment. Indexes scholarly, government and general-interest titles. More info.

Molecular Cytogenetics

Full text, v.1, 2008+; freely available; BioMed Central.

EndNote Web class

EndNote Web introduction class, Wednesday, 3/19, 5:00-5:30pm, in the Arc, Level A, Olin Library and many more Olin Library Spring Research Workshops.

SciFinder Web now available

SciFinder Web (Chemical Abstracts and more) is now available! It requires an individual logon. Use this registration form to sign up for your account; this requires a 'wustl.edu' email address and must be done from a 'wustl.edu" IP address. Also, since this is a secure site, accessing it from off-campus via the proxy server will give you a certificate error. Click continue or OK to access SciFinder via the web. Many biofolk will find this a very useful database (and the web is much more convenient than downloading the client software or using the client software on a library workstation) so I strongly encourage you to check this out. More info.

PubMed - Google Scholar comparison

Many biofolk use Google or Google Scholar first, so you may be interested in this article: Comparing test searches in PubMed and Google Scholar, by Mary Shultz, J Med Libr Assoc 2007 October; 95(4): 442-445. There's no clear recommendation, since both tools retrieved unique items. Here's a snip from the Results section:

Across all searches, Google Scholar retrieved a total of 247 citations, 125 (50.61%) of which were unique to Google Scholar. Analysis revealed the following characteristics:

• Thirty-two items (12.96%) retrieved by Google Scholar were formats other than journal articles.
• Some unique Google Scholar items (10 items, 4.05%) appeared in journals not indexed by PubMed.
• Google Scholar covered a wider date range and returned 4 items (1.62%) older than 1950 that were not in PubMed.
• Google Scholar retrieved items based on its ability to search the full text of many articles rather than solely on citation data.

PubMed retrieved a total of 147 citations across all searches, and, of these, 46 (31.29%) were unique.

Library toolbar now available for download

Quick links to many library resources and several useful "right click" options are available from our new LibX toolbar. More information and download are available at http://library.wustl.edu/research/toolbar/. We welcome your comments and suggestions for improvement!