Medline: A Guide to Effective Searching in Pubmed and Other Interfaces

After reading this book I thought that it deserved a special review, this is, not the type of review that usually begins with "a must read for every clinician" but something special as this book deserves. Most of us have had already the necessity of accessing Medline database in our research but most of the times we get hit by the results that a simple search presents. We then start browsing and browsing the results and we get tired of so much information that some times does not correspond to our desires or doesn't focus on the subject we were looking for. Now what? - we ask. The answer is simple as the author says; the focus is not just on simple searching but on effective searching. Medline is a complex and very wide database and knowing some of its basic concepts will help us understanding how simple and effective can our search be made. This is what the author presents in this book, a "rutter" for easy and effective navigation in this complex and wide sea of scientific information. There are no secrets in Medline but there are basic concepts like knowing some of the 19,000 Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) or just simple understanding how they are organized and how this understanding will help us to get the effective search results for our needs. This is given by the author with many examples of ways to start an effective search in Medline and thus not waste so much of our precious time browsing through the great amount of information that this resource can present. The book is very accessible in the way that the concepts are presented with many examples and a glossary for quick reference on MeSH. In a couple of hours the reader will with no doubt find this book from Brian S. Katcher an excellent guide and a valuable acquisition. I must say that after reading it, I finally understood how much precious time I've wasted in my "not guided" Medline searches. Now things are easier and clear thanks to the time, the knowledge and the effort that the author has put in this book.

This book is an invaluable guide to Medline. The instructions are extremely clear and easy to understand and the historical information is fascinating. I highly recommend it.

After reading this book, I now know how to perform effective searches using MEDLINE. It has cut my research time considerably. My thanks go out to the author for helping make sense of a considerably complex system.

This book was enjoyable to read and has proven extremely useful already. Searching Medline can be a frustrating and unproductive endeavor. This book helped me find exactly what I was looking for without tearing my hair out. This book is a must for anyone who has to locate articles in the medical literature.