1. NCBI (PubMed) toolbar
The NCBI (includes PubMed) has a toolbar (in beta testing) for use with either Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox.
If you use Google's toolbar, the NCBI toolbar is similar. Instead of choosing to search the web, news, images, etc., (as in Google), the NCBI toobar allows you to select from several databases (PubMed, gene, nucleotide, all). As in Google, you can also highlight your search terms.
- Read more and download here: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/toolbar/
2. Automatic e-mail updates
PubMed now offers automatic e-mail updates in conjunction with saved searches, which are now called "My NCBI" (formerly "cubby"). NCBI is the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the US National Library of Medicine.
The e-mail updates automatically notify you when new papers are published with your search criteria and can be scheduled for various periods (daily, weekly, monthly). It's a nice feature for monitoring the latest literature. You can also log-in and run your saved searches at any time.
- Get a free account here: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez
3. And don't forget Full text articles in PubMed
PubMed Central provides access to journals that provide free full text articles but did you know that a better way to get free full text articles is by using PubMed's "Search Field Descriptions and Tags"?
Enter search terms as usual in PubMed and add (exactly as shown):
AND Free Full Text [Filter]
Try this search:
transfusion AND platelets AND 2004:2005[dp] AND English[la] AND Free Full Text [Filter]
Pretty cool, eh? Of course, to get all of the important literature you will still need to drag your sorry you-know-what to the library! <8-)
