It would be quite helpful to know the problems that Ovid has, that Dialog does not. It's a shame the NHS staff you refer to didn't reply to the list.
Could you summarise the main points to the list please Scott?
Regards
Sue Merriott
-----Original Message-----
From: UK medical/ health care library community / information workers
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Scott Gibbens
Sent: 16 June 2005 18:52
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: OVID vs DIALOG
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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