ways to obtain it without charge, including an affiliated library or interlibrary loan. The bibliographic information, shown in Figure 1.4, is sufficient for these two latter options.
Because Ingenta covers so many publications, you can expect to find information of interest on almost any subject. (For example, an Ingenta keyword search on “Lakers” locates articles in Sports Illustrated, TV Guide, Newsweek, Sport, and People Weekly.)
Other Free Indexes to Help You Locate
accessing literature in the field of education. The database, updated monthly, indexes about 1,000 journals, plus other docu- ments submitted and accepted by ERIC (lesson plans, conference papers, guides, speeches, and more) including some full text called
“ERIC Digests.” More than 1 million items dating from 1966 to the present are available for searching.
What you get from the free AskERIC service:
• Free access to bibliographic citations for use in conjunction with a document delivery outlet
• Free ERIC Digests
• No subscription fees
Figure 1.4 BINGO! This is as good as a bibliographic database can get!
Courtesy Ingenta, copyright 2003.
Many commercial database vendors license the database and offer it to libraries by subscription. Regardless of the apparent inex- pensiveness of the database, it is more prudent to access it without charge, especially for individual end-users. An ERIC search done by a subscriber using a top vendor (DIALOG) costs 58 cents per minute and 80 cents for each citation. An ERIC Digest document in full text also costs 80 cents. A quick search on the topic “Suzuki musical instruction” limited to journal articles yields four items in AskERIC’s free service. For each I can read the bibliographic information with- out charge. Using DIALOG’s subscription service, the same search costs approximately $7. This may not seem like much, but a thor- ough literature review or sequence of search requests executed by an “information intermediary” could add up.
ERIC is a bibliographic database. Users receive the information required to seek the text of an item from another source. Many of the items in the ERIC database may be purchased from ERIC, but the journal articles found in the database must, in general, be obtained from libraries or other outlets. ERIC Digests are the exception. ERIC produces the digests internally; the digests syn- thesize selected research and usually run two pages in length;
2,200 digests are available free at AskERIC.
MEDLINE/PubMed
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed
MEDLINE—PubMed—what’s the difference? For the end-user the difference is hardly worth discussing. PubMed contains all of MEDLINE’s citations plus additional citations from literature somewhat peripheral to MEDLINE. The contrast is thoroughly explained at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/dif_med _pub.html.
MEDLINE is also a bibliographic database. Although it will occasionally link to free full-text documents, its primary function is to allow the user to search through the literature, determine
what is of interest, and use the information to secure important documents from other resources.
You could choose to pay for your access to MEDLINE from ven- dors that license the database, but why would you? It’s free at the National Library of Medicine’s Web site. MEDLINE consists of three subset indexes: Index Medicus, the International Nursing Index, and the Index to Dental Literature. These indexes cover 4,600 journals published in the United States and more than 70 other countries.
Hundreds of thousands of articles are added to the medical, den- tal, and nursing literature each year. Since 1966, the database has totaled 11 million citations. Even if some of them are dross, con- sumers and health professionals should not overlook the literature on their topic. PubMed is the one-stop searching source for find- ing the literature in these fields.
PubMed is relatively easy to search, but users should read the help found by clicking “Index/Preview” when they first visit the site. Keywords can be used, though many professional biomedical searchers adhere to the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH).
MEDLINE for the Consumer:
Reality Database Searching
In 1990, a mother and father were alarmed by the number and frequency of ear infections suffered by their toddler. The pediatri- cian recommended evaluation by an otolaryngologist. After a physical examination, the verdict was that tympanostomy tubes would need to be inserted to help drain the child’s ears. Although the physician was forthcoming concerning the possible complica- tions and relative efficacy of the procedure, a certain diagnostic test had not been performed.
Just prior to the scheduled surgery, the parents asked a medical librarian to perform a MEDLINE database search. The parents agreed to pay the $30 cost recovery fee. The search yielded several
citations that indicated one further test that could rule out the surgery.
The parents returned to the specialist and requested the addi- tional test. The physician complied; the results were negative, and the procedure was cancelled. The child’s ears and hearing are perfect today. Without knowledge of the test acquired from the MEDLINE search, the child may have undergone unnecessary surgery. (See “Objective diagnosis of otitis media in early infancy by tympanometry and ipsilateral acoustic reflex thresholds,” by C. D. Marchant in the Journal of Pediatrics, Volume 109, pages 590–595, October 1986).
Thirty dollars is negligible when health and peace of mind is at stake. In 1990 the parents could not have accessed MEDLINE and performed the search themselves. Now consumers are empowered to do so, and at no cost.
National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) http://www.ncjrs.org/search.html
The NCJRS offers two great services for site visitors seeking criminal justice information from books, pamphlets, government reports, unpublished research reports, and journal articles. You may search either the “Abstracts Database” for citations or the
“Online Full Text” database. Periodicals indexed include Prison Journal, Justice Quarterly, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Police Chief, and Crime & Delinquency. Approx- imately 100 journals are scanned for inclusion in the searchable database.