Shouldn't those trying to end a discussion apologise to people who are
interested in it, not to those who are bored by it?
Gordon.
Gordon Smith
The Sally Howell Library
Epsom General Hospital
Dorking Road
Epsom, Surrey, KT18 7EG
Tel. 01372-735688, Fax 01372-735687
NULJ=HOWE, HLN=EP
<<Cela est bien dit>> rEpondit Candide
<<mais il faut cultiver notre jardin>>. - Voltaire.
>>> Scott Gibbens <[log in to unmask]> 16/06/2005 19:51:37 >>>
Apologies to those who are getting bored of this - these are my final
comments on this discussion..
So far I have had a number of personal emails from NHS library staff
telling me they prefer Dialog and pointing out problems with OVID that
Dialog does not have.
No system is perfect - but the core content team picked the resources
after
carfeully evalutating them on a number of criteria. This team is made
up of
NHS librarians with many years of experience.
This team choose Dialog. This resource HAS proved to be successful - 8
million searches in a year - and has been endorsed with long term
funding
from the SHAs.
I stand by the decision to work with Dialog, and the personal emails I
have
recived from NHS librarians back up that view,
Regards
Scott Gibbens
NHS Core Content Manager
On Thu, 16 Jun 2005 16:14:28 +0100, Gordon Smith <Gordon.Smith@EPSOM-
STHELIER.NHS.UK> wrote:
>No mention of Ovid here that I can see. Does anyone who has the
choice
>of Ovid and Dialog actually prefer Dialog?
>
>Gordon.
>
>
>
>Gordon Smith
>The Sally Howell Library
>Epsom General Hospital
>Dorking Road
>Epsom, Surrey, KT18 7EG
>Tel. 01372-735688, Fax 01372-735687
>NULJ=HOWE, HLN=EP
>
><<Cela est bien dit>> rEpondit Candide
><<mais il faut cultiver notre jardin>>. - Voltaire.
>
>>>> Scott Gibbens <[log in to unmask]> 16/06/2005 13:46:36 >>>
>Dear All
>
>For your information I enclose some information on the comments
below,
>as I
>know that our Account Manager at Dialog is out of the country at the
>moment
>and unable to reply. The NHS has a Technical Reference Group which
>works
>with all our information providers in improving the service they
>provide,
>and as such a number of improvements are always in the pipeline.
>
>Regards
>Scott Gibbens
>NHS National Core Content Manager
>
>Dialog:
>
>* Confusing language e.g. "link to fully indexed abstract" and not
>immediately obvious what different functions do (e.g. split, rank)
>SG: NHS staff have been asked what they would like "link to fully
>indexed
>abstract" to say instead as this text can be easily changed. I think
it
>is
>better then "link to full reference" which most end users think means
>full
>text!
>
>* Still being worked on/amended. Changes from day to day!
>SG: The service it being amended and improved based on customer
>feddback
>and certainly does not change day to day. I would much prefer to
work
>with
>an information provider that does respond so positively to customer
>feedback
>
>* Not very intuitive. Less obvious how to navigate through pages,
>download references etc...
>SG: Seems easy to me - click on next titles to see the next 20. Go to
>the
>bottom of the page to save, print or email.
>
>
>* 2 searches are registered whenever you use thesaurus mapping (so
>end up with much longer search history than necessary)
>SG: The standard results and thesaurus mapping results are both
shown.
>I
>would have thought this is a major advantage.
>
>* Downloading references is much more complicated/time consuming.
>Not immediately obvious how to go about it. Not all details of
>citation
>are entered into Ref man. Missed out year, and volume, issue and page
>numbers.
>SG: This depends on how much information you choose to download via
>the
>Short, Medium or Full format of records
>
>* Often problems with links to full text journals from Dialog
>SG: This is one of the issues ANY linking system will have. The term
>often
>implies this happens a lot - rarely would be a much better term.
>
>* Thesaurus mapping algorithms are different. Terms are displayed
>with the most common first so often get a bizarre list of terms to
>choose from in Dialog, rather than relevant related terms.
>SG: The Thesaurus mapping comment is often received. it should be
made
>clear that Dialog use standard thesaurus mapping - NOT vocaulary
>mapping as
>some other providers do.
>
>* Discrepancies when exploding descriptors: selecting Explode
>under Thesaurus mapping in Medline and Embase returns less results
>than
>if each of the related terms under all trees are selected.
>SG: Reasons for this have been discussed on the NHS Core Content list
>before
>
>
>* Sometimes very slow. Often down.
>SG: This is simply not true. We monitor ALL the core content
>resources.
>Dialog is the best performing of all of them and is usually only down
>during SCHEDULED downtime on a Saturday morning
>
>* No access to ACP journal club
>SG: This is not a resource the NHS subscribes to and is certainly not
>a
>Dialog issue!
>
>* Dialog is inadequate for systematic reviews as it can't cope
>with unlimited truncation
>SG: Yes it can - you just need to understand how to use the system
>properly!
>
>* Dialog is found to be fairly unresponsive, interface is too
>generic for people who like to focus on Medline and some of it's
>terminology can be misleading and/or confusing
>SG: Is the answer to have a radically different interface to each
>database -
>that would be a disaster.
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