HSLS Update

Personalize PubMed With MyNCBI – Save Searches, Set Up Alerts, and Create Filters

A new feature called MyNCBI allows you to create an account in PubMed, or any other Entrez Databases available from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). My NCBI replaces the Cubby feature, which previously offered the option to save searches only. The MyNCBI account allows you to:

• save searches so you can run them in the future;
• create e-mail alerts so that you are notified of new articles that match your search strategy; and
• create filters that allow you to easily sort PubMed search results by date, search terms, specific limits (such as publication type, age group or language), as well as other criteria

PubMed is the free-to-the-public version of MEDLINE available on the Entrez search system. Entrez includes a number of other databases such as Entrez Gene, Entrez Nucleotide, Entrez Protein, BLAST, PubChem, PubMed Central (Open Access articles), and a collection of online books, among others. For a list of all Entrez resources, go to <www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gquery/>
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To Save a Search

(Note: the following examples are based on PubMed searches.)
To log in, look for the MyNCBI box at the top right of any Entrez database. You must first register (there is no fee) and your browser must accept cookies. Once you have registered, completed the sign-in, and run a search, you will see a new option to the right of the search box - a link that reads 'Save Search'. Click this link, name your search and click OK.

To Save a Search as an E-mail Alert

Follow the same steps above. Note that you can create a search/alert based on an author name, a journal name, or a set of subject-based search terms. Once you have created your search, click 'Save Search', then indicate that you would like to receive e-mail updates based on this search. On the next page, you can customize how frequently you receive updates, whether you’d like to receive abstracts, the maximum number of results, etc. The image below provides an example of the available options.

To Create Filters

Log in and click on MyNCBI in the toolbar on the left of the screen. Then select 'Filters' and choose a database. Browse or search a list of possible filters, or create your own based on search terms. You can set up to five filters. Once you have created a filter, tabs will appear above your search results list that allow you to view only the results which your filter allows. For example, you can quickly filter out any non-English language articles.

When searching PubMed, it is advisable to link to the database through the HSLS Web site Quick Links <www.hsls.pitt.edu> or Database by Title page <www.hsls.pitt.edu/resources/databases/titles>.This route assures that you will have access to the full text journal articles to which HSLS subscribes, (indicated by a purple 'Health Sciences Library System' icon on the journal abstract page).

HSLS Reference librarians are available to help you set up MyNCBI, and to help you develop search strategies that ensure you are retrieving everything on your topic. Contact the Reference Department at 412-648-8796 or medlibq@pitt.edu.

—Ammon Ripple