Monday, July 17, 2006

PubMed Pearls...Looking for an elusive citation?

You may have never noticed the little link to Single Citation Matcher lurking on the left-side navigation column in PubMed, but it's well worth the effort to find it. You can use it to locate a specific journal article if you have an incomplete or perhaps incorrect citation. Librarians love SCM, and we think you will too. How to do it:
1. Find and click on Single Citation Matcher. Blue column, left-hand side...finding it is the hardest part of the whole process.
2. Fill in only 3 or 4 boxes. I recommend volume, issue, and beginning page number. TIP: Don't type in the journal title on the first try because there's room for error if you have an abbreviation and try to guess the full title.
3. If you come up with no retrieval on your first try, take out one piece of information and replace it with another. TIP: Be suspicious of all pieces of information and ready to replace each one if necessary.
4. If you come up with too much retrieval, narrow it down by adding another piece of the citation such as a unique word from the article title.

Most of the time you'll find your article using these techniques. If you don't, call us, 692-0810. Ve haf other vays...
-Joy Graham