Stay Informed!
Tools for Keeping Current with Research Publications in Your Field
July 14th, 2011 ROBIN FEATHERSTONE
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
How many RCTs would you have to read today?
How do you stay informed?
Agenda
Email Alerts
RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
Objectives
By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:
1.Set up email alerts that match your areas of interest
2.Subscribe and manage RSS feeds using a reader
How do alerts work?
• AMED• BIOSIS• CINAHL• EMBASE• Medline• PubMed• PsycINFO• Scopus• Web of Science
Which health sciences databases offer alerts?
What kind of alerts can I set up?
1. TOPIC: Receive recent articles on a topic of interest
2. eToC: Receive electronic Table of Contents for a key journal in your field
3. AUTHOR: Monitor an important author’s work4. CITATION: Keep track of citations to a particular
paper
Demo - Topic Alert
Search PubMed for recent RCTs on gastric endoscopic ultrasonography
Exercise – Topic Alert
1. Create an account with MyNCBI2. Search PubMed for Reviews published on
withdrawal times for colonoscopies (or a topic of interest to you)
3. Set up an email alert for new abstracts on the first Monday of each month
Demo – eToC (Table of Contents)
Set up an eTOC for the Journal of Neurosurgical Anesthesiology
Exercise – eTOC (Table of Contents)
• Subscribe to the eTOC for the journal Cardiovascular Research using either the publisher’s website or …
1.Use Single Citation Matcher in PubMed to search for the contents of the journal
2.Save your search3.Set up a monthly alert using MyNCBI
Demo – Author Alert
Set up an alert to tell you when new articles are published by Simon N. Young from McGill
Exercise – Author Alert
Set up an alert to tell you when new articles are published by Beth S. Rachlis from the
University of Toronto
Demo – Citation Alert
Set up an alert in Scopus to tell you when the following article is referenced:
Liberman, M., Liberman, D., Sampalis, J. S., & Mulder, D. S. (2006). Delays to surgery in non-small-cell lung cancer. Canadian Journal of Surgery, 49(1), 31-36.
Exercise
Create an account and set up an alert in Scopus 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.
10 min break
RSS = Really Simple Syndication
http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/02/keeping_up.html
http://commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english
How does RSS work?1. Register for a
“feeder” (e.g., Google Reader)
2. Subscribe to “feeds”
3. Review and organize your feeds in your feeder
Demo – RSS from PubMed
Search PubMed to find published articles from University of Toronto in the journals
Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Gut
Create and RSS feed of your search and add it to your feeder.
Exercise – RSS from PubMed
1. Create an account (if you don’t already have one) for an RSS Reader
2. Search PubMed to find published articles from McGill in the journals Annals of Surgery,
Endoscopy and American Journal of Transplantation
3. Create an RSS feed of your search and add it to your feeder
Demo – RSS from the Web
Some excellent RSS feeds:http://firstwatch.jwatch.org/http://www.cmaj.ca/rss/http://www.imedicalapps.com/feed/
… and many, many more
Recap
• You would have to read ____ articles everyday to keep up with the number of published RCTs
• You can subscribe to eTOCS through a journal’s website or ______
• To use RSS you need a ______ & a ______• Use _____ to create a citation search• It makes your librarian very happy when you
fill out your ______