LON-CAPA MEDILINE SEARCH ON MADISON CAMPUS

- LITERATURE SEARCH AT THE INSTITUTE -

The computer-assisted literature search available on campus is either from:

the Steenbock library
the Middleton library
NIH

There are 3 interface software generally available to perform such tasks:

OVID
Silver Platter.
A World Wide Web browser like Mosaic or Netscape.

There are many databases. Maybe the most importants are MEDLINE and Biological Abstracts.

To find out more about the OVID, Silver Platter softwares or MEDLINE check out the online help (click here)at the University of Michigan.

There are 3 methods for doing literature search at the Institute that I am aware of:

METHOD 1: Silver Platter on DOS or Macintosh through the Steenbock library
METHOD 2: OVID via telnet or DOS software through the Middleton library
METHOD 3: Web search with e.g. Netscape

Depending on the method, only MEDLINE or MEDLINE and other databases are available.

METHOD 1: Silver Platter on DOS or Macintosh

DOS: Computer in room 821A and 5th floor library. The latter may fail due to hardware requirements.
Macintoshes: Rollie has configured one Mac per lab for this task.
Click on the Apple menu () and search for the entry called "Silver Platter". A roll-out menu will let you choose the databases that Rollie has preconfigured for that particular machine.

METHOD 2: OVID via telnet

This search is restricted only to the MEDLINE database, but it contains most of what we need.
I find this the fastest method, but it requires understanding of the OVID interface and all commands are entered via keyboard. This is still experimental and restricted to campus connections. Calling from home on a modem via WiscWorld qualifies as a valid connection.
Telnet at the following address: chslib.biostat.wisc.edu and enter the username as librem. You will find a screen similar to the following: (The ^ sign signifies the CRTL key).

 ^F File  ^E Edit  ^A Search  ^L Limit  ^V View  ^T Tools  ^O Options  ^Y Help
qqqqqqqwqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqwqqqqqqqq
       x                                                               x
       x                                                               x
       x                                                               x
       x                                                               x
       x                                                               x
       x                                                               x
       x                                                               x
       x                                                               x
       x                                                               x
       x                                                               x
       x                                                               x
       x                                                               x
qqqqqqqvqqqqqqqqqqqq Ovid - Medline <1991 to August 1995> qqqqqqqqqqqqqvqqqqqqqq

     [To select option hold Ctrl and letter indicated.  Press ^Y for Help.]
     Enter subject, then press 
     _:

qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq
     ^U Author     ^J Journal    ^G Limit Set   ^N Combine     ^B Save
     ^R Textword   ^D Database   ^K View Set    ^P Print Set   ^X Exit
qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq

Saving your searches: the useful ways to save your data is either ftp or e-mail. You can ftp the saved sets anywhere, for example on your account on MOLVIROL (ftp://mvftp.bocklabs.wisc.edu) or on your account on bioinformatics (ftp://bioinformatics.bocklabs.wisc.edu). You need to have a valid username and password and specify the directory into which you want to save your data.

METHOD 3: Web search

Alternatively you can use the free World Wide Web connection offered by NCBI at the following address: http://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/medline/query_form.html which is also available as a Bookmark (Bookmarks=> Common Sites=> Medline Subset Query Form) on all Macintoshes as implemented by Rollie.

� 1995 Jean-Yves Sgro --- This page is http://www.bocklabs.wisc.edu/imv/medline-search/medline-search.html

Last Modified August 25, 1995