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SNOMED Clinical Terms® To Be Made Available in UMLS®

Technical Notes

SNOMED Clinical Terms To Be Made Available in UMLS

New Version of NLM Gateway Adds OLDMEDLINE Document Ordering

DOCLINE 1.6 Released

NLM Classification Updated

NLM Launches Historical Anatomies on the Web

The KIR Gene Cluster Added to NCBI Bookshelf

New City Scene Added to Tox Town Web Site

July 2003 PubMed, NLM Gateway, and ClinicalTrials.gov Training Manuals Now Available

Household Products Database Launched

Planned Changes to MeSH Publications

Suggestions for Authors' Keywords

Medline Unique Identifier (UI in PubMed) To Be Discontinued

July 01, 2003 [posted]

On July 1, 2003, Tommy G. Thompson, Secretary of Health and Human Services, announced an agreement with the College of American Pathologists (CAP) that will make SNOMED Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT®) available to U.S. users at no cost through NLM's Unified Medical Language System® (UMLS®). Please see NLM®'s Web page, SNOMED Clinical Terms® To Be Added To UMLS® Metathesaurus®, for further details.

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New Version of NLM Gateway Adds OLDMEDLINE Document Ordering

July 01, 2003 [posted]

A new version of the NLM Gateway was released on July 1, 2003, allowing users to use Loansome Doc® to order articles from OLDMEDLINE. Over 1.5 million citations from 1953 to 1965 are now available for ordering through the NLM Gateway.

To review document ordering through the NLM Gateway, see Hands On: Ordering Documents from NLM Gateway Results. NLM Tech Bull. 2002 Jan-Feb;(324):e5. Users may also want to review the article How to Search OLDMEDLINE Using the NLM Gateway. 2001 May-Jun; (320):e7.

For a description of OLDMEDLINE, go to: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/databases/databases_oldmedline.html

Please also see What's New on the NLM Gateway sidebar.

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DOCLINE® 1.6 Released

July 01, 2003 [posted]

A new version of DOCLINE was released on July 1, 2003. The highlights of the release included:

  • Alerting users ordering articles which are available free in PubMed Central and providing a link to the full-text article. The ability to immediately direct users to free copies of articles will eliminate unnecessary costs and delays in providing the user with their requested material. Watch for a forthcoming NLM Technical Bulletin article.
  • Document ordering of OLDMEDLINE citations. This enhancement makes more than 1.5 million additional citations available to users and libraries for ordering. Within DOCLINE, libraries will be using the Unique Key function of Borrow to initiate the request. Loansome Doc users will have access to ordering OLDMEDLINE citations from the Gateway. For more information see the Technical Note, New Version of NLM Gateway Adds OLDMEDLINE Document Ordering, in this issue for more information.
  • Exporting serial holdings from DOCLINE for importing into OCLC. Libraries can now authorize NLM to send their SERHOLD® data to OCLC on a quarterly basis eliminating the need to update holdings in both systems.

Please review the DOCLINE 1.6 Release Notes for complete details.

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NLM Classification Updated

July 14, 2003 [posted]

The online National Library of Medicine Classification, available at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/class, was issued in a newly revised edition on July 14, 2003. This revision incorporates all new index headings resulting from MeSH® terms added to the 2003 vocabulary and selected for addition to the Index. Requests for further information, questions, or comments should be addressed to: custserv@nlm.nih.gov .

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NLM Launches Historical Anatomies on the Web

August 01, 2003 [posted]

NLM's History of Medicine Division has launched Historical Anatomies on the Web, a new digital project that broadens access to the Library's rich collection of illustrated anatomical books, which date from the 15th century. The new Web site, which can be found at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/historicalanatomies/home.html, emphasizes images rather than text. So far, the site includes 120 images from five anatomical books by Andreas Vesalius, Johannes de Ketham, Magnus Hundt, Albrecht Dürer, and Bernardino Genga. Images from nearly 20 other anatomical works will be added in the future.

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The KIR Gene Cluster Added to NCBI Bookshelf

August 01, 2003 [posted]

The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) has added a new book to the Bookshelf:

The KIR Gene Cluster. Carrington, Mary and Norman, Paul. Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine (US), NCBI; 2003.

The books in Bookshelf may be searched directly from the Bookshelf site or via links from the Links pull-down menu from relevant PubMed® citations.

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New City Scene Added to Tox Town Web Site

August 01, 2003 [posted]

Tox Town—an interactive guide to commonly encountered toxic substances —has recently been enhanced with a new City scene, which is located at http://toxtown.nlm.nih.gov/flash/city/flash.php. You can go to the City for an urban perspective on environmental health concerns in locations such as airplanes and air travel, brownfields, construction sites, electromagnetic fields, and a hospital with an interior view. The original suburban Town scene and the new City also have many locations in common: a school, homes, drinking water and more. To read about the launch of the Tox Town Web site, please see: Technical Notes. NLM Tech Bull. 2002 Nov-Dec;(329):e1.

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July 2003 PubMed®, NLM Gateway, and ClinicalTrials.gov Training Manuals Now Available

August 05, 2003 [posted]

The July 2003 editions of the training workbooks are now available for downloading from the NLM Web site. The PubMed workbook was updated to reflect changes since May 2003. The NLM Gateway workbook was updated to reflect changes from January-July 1, 2003. The manuals are available for downloading in Portable Document Format (PDF) and Microsoft® (MS) Word formats. They are broken down into sections so you can choose the areas of interest to you. These materials correspond to the NLM's National Training Center and Clearinghouse training courses described at: http://nnlm.gov/mar/online/description.html Lecture guides used in training on Toxicology and Environmental Health Web Resources (i.e., TOXNET® and ChemIDplus) are also available from this Web site. These workbooks are not copyrighted. Feel free to use any part of the workbooks—you may customize parts for training programs, demonstrations, or workshops you conduct.

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Household Products Database Launched

August 05, 2003 [posted]

On June 12, 2003, the Specialized Information Services (SIS) at the NLM launched the Household Products Database to provide easy-to-understand information on the potential health effects of more than 2,000 ingredients contained in more than 4,000 common household products. The database links these products to information from the Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) provided by the manufacturers.

Users can browse the database by product categories, by product brand names, and by product manufacturers. To find information on specific ingredients, you can browse an alphabetical listing of ingredients or you can search for ingredients by their chemical names or CAS numbers. You can learn which products produce specific health effects or conditions by conducting a text word search for the condition in the MSDS. For more technical information users can launch a search for a product or ingredient in TOXNET from the Product Page in the database.

The database is designed to help answer questions such as what the chemical ingredients and their percentages are in specific brands; which products contain specific chemical ingredients; who manufactures a specific brand and how to contact the manufacturer; and what health effects are caused by exposure to chemical ingredients in a specific brand.

Please contact SIS with any questions or comments at: tehip@teh.nlm.nih.gov.

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Planned Changes to MeSH® Publications

August 15, 2003 [posted]

For many years, NLM has published several MeSH publications each year: three MeSH "tools" (the Annotated Alphabetic MeSH, the MeSH Tree Structures, and the Permuted MeSH) and the Medical Subject Headings Supplement to Index Medicus (familiarly known as the "Black and White" MeSH), which combines the Alphabetic arrangement and the Tree Structures in a single publication.

Sales of the MeSH tools have been declining steadily for a number of years, while use of the MeSH Browser, other resources on the MeSH homepage, and the MeSH database in Entrez has climbed. Due to the greater coverage, flexibility, and currency of the MeSH Browser, NLM's own indexers and catalogers no longer use the print publications. The printed MeSH tools do not reflect more than 100,000 MeSH Supplementary Concepts, which are updated nightly, nor the infrequent—but highly important—additions to MeSH main headings that are made between annual editions of the vocabulary. The most recent examples of such additions are "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome" and "SARS Virus".

For 2004, NLM plans to cease publication of the MeSH "tools" and simultaneously to expand the content in the "Black and White" MeSH. The expanded "Black and White" MeSH will include additional listings (e.g., geographicals, publication types, new headings by category), a primer on the use of the MeSH, and more detailed material on indexing and cataloging practices. The "Black and White" MeSH is available from the Government Printing Office and can be ordered separately from printed Index Medicus. NLM will announce ordering information for the 2004 "Black and White" MeSH when it becomes available.

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Suggestions for Authors' Keywords

August 19, 2003 [posted]

A new Web site is available from the MeSH Section at NLM to help authors in finding keywords for articles. Some publishers and editors ask article authors to designate several keywords that describe the content of an article being submitted for publication.

Frequently, authors contact NLM to ask how to obtain the MeSH vocabulary. When asked about the planned use, the answer is most often that they want to find keywords for an article, following the instruction of their editor or publisher.

While the complete MeSH vocabulary is available for download, a better approach is described on the new Suggestions for Authors Web page. Rather than getting a file of 21,000 MeSH descriptors, the author can use the MeSH Browser to quickly find the four or five MeSH descriptors that most closely characterize the author's article. In just a few minutes, the keywords can be found, simply and easily.

The Web site offers suggestions for determining appropriate keywords and alternative approaches. However, it should be remembered that the NLM indexing staff do not rely on author-provided keywords. The indexing process considers the full content of each article, not only what is included in the abstract or on the first page.

Please see the Suggestions for Authors Web site at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/authors.html.

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MEDLINE® Unique Identifier (UI in PubMed®) To Be Discontinued

August 21, 2003 [posted]
September 24, 2003 [updated]

MEDLINE citations currently contain two unique identifying numbers, the MEDLINE Unique Identifier and the PMID (PubMed Identifier). Both numbers are found on PubMed and are also distributed to NLM's MEDLINE licensees. The MEDLINE Unique Identifier displays as the UI on the MEDLINE display format and is also known as MedlineID, MEDLINE UI, MEDLINE ID, and MUI.

There is potential confusion in having two identifying numbers on the same citation. Therefore, when MEDLINE is updated with 2004 MeSH vocabulary in December, 2003, the PMID will be the only unique number used in PubMed and on records distributed to licensees.

This change involves two steps. In early September, 2003, the positions of the UI and PMID fields on the MEDLINE display format in PubMed will switch, so the PMID displays first.

Currently:
UI        - 22739240
PMID   - 12855501
OWN   - NLM
STAT   - completed

Sept. 2003:
PMID   - 12855501
UI        - 22739240
OWN   - NLM
STAT   - completed

Dec. 2003:
PMID   - 12855501
OWN   - NLM
STAT   - completed

Notice of these changes is given now to provide time to change projects/services that may be dependent on the UI or the position of the PMID currently found in PubMed. PMIDs should be considered the only unique identifying number.

A simple MedlineID/PMID pairs file will be available upon request, if needed. Contact Jane Rosov, MEDLARS Management Section, for more information.

[Editor's Note: There is now a utility, the MEDLINE UI/PubMed ID Matcher, to help users match MEDLINE UIs with their PMID counterparts. Please see Technical Notes. NLM Tech Bull. 2003 Sep-Oct;(334):e1.).]

[8/24/2010: The link to the MEDLINE/PMID Matcher was removed because it is no longer available.]

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Last updated: 19 April 2012