OPTIMIZING LIT
SEARCHES
Marisa Conte
7 Nov 2011
meese@umich.edu
Agenda
• Library services
• Clinical resources
• Optimizing lit searches
• Techniques
• Resources
LIBRARY SERVICES
Research consultations
• Literature searches (resources, search strategies)
• Citation management resources
• Expert/collaborator identification
• Funding sources
• Copyright and publication options
www.lib.umich.edu/thl
MGetIt
MGetIt
Request PDF
CLINICAL RESOURCES
Clinical resources
Aggregated platforms
• Access Medicine
• MD Consult
• Stat!Ref
Clinical point-of-care tools
• Dynamed
• UptoDate
e-books
• Springer collection
• ScienceDirect
• Wiley
MD Consult
Science Direct
Springer ebooks
Home > Browse by
subject > Pathology
> Books/Reference
Wiley
SciVal Research Profiles
INTRO TO RESEARCH
RESOURCES
Get to know resource - search features
• Is there a controlled vocabulary?
• MeSH in PubMed, EMTREE in Embase
• Are there special searches (aka “canned searches”) you
can use?
• Clinical Queries or Topic-Specific Queries in PubMed
• Drug or Disease searches in Embase
• How are Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) treated?
• Are there special characters, eg. “” for phrase searching, *
for wildcard
Get to know resource – results
• How are results returned?
• Is there a related-results algorithm?
• Can you use the results to find more relevant citations?
OPTIMIZE LIT
SEARCHING
Overview
• Search construction
• Concept building
• Boolean logic
• Vocabulary
• Techniques
• Sources
• PubMed
• EMBASE
• Scopus and ISI Web of Science
Search construction
• Concept building
• Boolean logic
• Vocabulary
• Techniques
• Limits and filters
• Evaluating searches
Search construction: Concept building
• Identify major concepts of topic
• Identify synonyms for major concepts
• PICO helps for clinical questions
Search construction: Boolean Logic
AND
Breast
Cancer
Obesity
Breast
Cancer
Obesity
Breast
Cancer
Obesity
OR
NOT
Search construction: Boolean Logic
Concept 1
Concept 2
Concept 3
Breast cancer
Obesity
Incidence
OR
OR
Breast
neoplasms
OR
AND
Obese
OR
Overweight
Breast tumors
OR
BMI
OR
AND
Epidemiology
Search construction: Vocabulary
Keywords
Controlled
vocabularies
Search construction: Vocabulary
Keywords
Controlled
vocabularies
What are they?
 Literal search
 Looks for occurrences of words
When to use?
 Current topics
 Not easy to describe concepts
 No vocabulary exists in database
Examples
 Drug names (Lipitor, Prozac)
 Slang
 Concepts (Swine flu, oil spill)
Search construction: Vocabulary
Keywords
Pros




Very current projects/topics
No knowledge of controlled vocabulary
necessary
Slang
Broad, difficult to describe concepts
Cons


Controlled
vocabularies


Not consistent
Burden on end-user to discover
synonyms (might miss some)
Too many (irrelevant) results
Difficult to limit results
Search construction: Vocabulary
Keywords
Controlled
vocabularies
What are they?
 Set of words or phrases used to
describe concepts
 Dictionary of accepted terms for a
database
When to use?
 Searching a database that uses one
Examples
 MeSH (Medical Subject Headings)
 EMTREE (Embase)
Search construction: Vocabulary
Keywords
Pros

Burden on database to discover
variations in terms

Consistency & reproducible searches

Specific & targeted (increased
relevancy)
Cons
Controlled
vocabularies

Restrictive

Burden on end-user to learn vocabulary

Vocabularies differ (no consistency)
Search construction: Vocabulary
Keywords
Controlled
vocabularies
MeSH
Search construction: Techniques
• Truncation

• Wild cards

• Adjacency

• Phrases

• Boolean

• Parentheses

obes*
an?sthesiology
screen* adj10 cancer*
“breast cancer”
“vitamin d” AND cancer
(“breast cancer” OR “breast
neoplasms”) AND obes*
Note: Techniques vary from database to database
Search construction: Techniques
• Limits – use sparingly (language, species, pt)
Search construction: Techniques
• Exploding subject headings
• Use differs across databases
MeSH entry - pathology
Search construction: Techniques
• Subheadings
RESEARCH RESOURCES:
PUBMED, EMBASE, SCOPUS, WEB OF SCIENCE
www.pubmed.gov
BASIC SEARCH:
REVIEW
Spellcheck, ATM, wildcard and truncation,
phrases, Boolean, nesting
Embase
Useful Embase features
• Drug search
• Route of administration
• Subheadings – eg pharmacology, clinical trial, drug toxicity
• Specify animal studies: cell, tissue, model, experiment
• Disease search
• Controlled vocabulary - EMTREE
Emtree heading - pathology
Embase disease search
Embase: Advanced limits
ISI Web of Knowledge
ISI content & features
• Web of Science
• Conference proceedings
• Veterinary medicine journals
• BIOSIS Previews
• Conference proceedings
• Animal studies
• International coverage
Scopus
Life sciences and
biomedical sciences
Excellent for citation
tracking and
references
Google Scholar
Unclear content base
Good for known-item searching (PubMed content)
Citation information not reliable
Google - operators
• Use Google Images for photos, illustrations, etc.
• Limit search to specific filetypes, websites, etc. using
Advanced Search
• filetype:ppt OR filetype:pdf OR filetype:doc for specific
document types (eg protocols, whitepapers,
presentations)
• inurl:(website or domain) to search a specific URL – eg
inurl:cancer.gov or inurl:.edu to search NCI or
educational sites
MEESE@UMICH.EDU
Thanks!