Keeping Current with Scholarly Literature

Robin FeatherstoneClinical Medicine LibrarianTaylor Library, University of Western Ontariorfeathe@uwo.ca

Slides available: www.slideshare.net/featherr

In 1980, reading 1 RCT per day would keep you up to date…

http://trusttheevidence.net/carl-heneghan/how-many-randomized-trials-are-published-each-year

... In 2008, you would have to read 71 per day

Prediction: 500,000 RCTs per year published by 2018-9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wp3m1vg06Q

How can we keep up?

• Email Alerts– Table of Contents (ToC)– Topic Search– Author (or institution)– Cited Reference

• RSS (Really Simple Syndication)

How do alerts work?

• Search a database (CINAHL, Scopus, etc...)

• Have the search run regularly and new results sent to you via email

Which databases offer alerts?

Biological Sciences

Engineering

Health Sciences

Medicine

Physical & Mathemati

cal Sciences

•BIOSIS•EMBASE•Medline•PubMed•Scopus•Web of Science

•Compendex•Inspec•ProQuest ABI/INFORM•Scopus•Web of Science

•AMED•CINAHL•EMBASE•Physical Education Index•PubMed•PsycINFO•Scopus

•BIOSIS•EMBASE•Medline•PubMed•Web of Science

•arxiv.org•Inspec•Scopus•Web of Science

What kind of alerts can I set up?

1. TOPIC: Receive recent articles on a topic of interest

2. ToC: Receive Table of Contents for a key journal in your field*

3. AUTHOR: Monitor an important author’s work4. REFERENCE: Keep track of citations to a

particular paper

* Check the journal’s website too

Demo - Scopus

Set up an alert to tell you when the following paper is cited:

Williams, M. (2008). Infection control and prevention in perioperative practice. Journal of Perioperative Practice, 18(7), 274-278.

Exercise

Set up an alert to tell you when the following paper is cited:

Couch, R. B. (2008). Seasonal inactivated influenza virus vaccines. Vaccine, 26(SUPPL. 4), D5-D9.

RSS = Really Simple Syndication

http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/02/keeping_up.html

http://commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english

How does RSS work?

• Subscribe to a “feeder” (Google Reader, Bloglines, etc…)

• Locate a “feed”

• Add the feed’s URL to your feeder

Demo - PubMed

Create a topic RSS feed in PubMed on prevention of MRSA through hand washing.

Exercise

Subscribe to an RSS feeder (if you haven’t already) – Google Reader and Bloglines are two free ones

Run a topic search (your choice) in PubMed or CINAHL

Subscribe to the feed from your search results

Recap

• Impossible to keep up with the rising number of scholarly publications

• Use alerts to send regular email updates• Use RSS to add summaries of new publications

to your feeder

QUESTIONS

Robin Featherstonerfeathe@uwo.cahttp://www.slideshare.net/featherr