Gary Horrocks said:
> However, if you are trying to promote effective search strategy
> formulation in your organisation, this one-stop WWW import facility really
> offers lowest common denominator searching, using a retrieval interface
> that pales in comparison with an intuitive facility like the OVID WWW
Yes, this is a very real drawback. In fact the Z39.50 interface to
PubMed pales even in comparison with PubMed's own WWW
interface. For subject searches it is certainly quick, but very
VERY dirty!
However..... I've observed my users wanting to use Medline (etc)
not only as a tool for subject searches, but more generally as a
"productivity enhancer", helping them to build bibliographies.
Despite all my injunctions to our PhD students to start building
bibliographies at the _beginning_ of their projects, still many of
them leave it until the end. Then they come and ask how to use
Endnote and Medline to magically produce a perfect bibliography in
5 minutes! "Yes, I've got all the references ... here on this bit of
paper". A scrappy list of authors' names and years of publication
is then produced. Using OVID or PubMed on the WWW to find
these references is laborious. Using Endnote's Z-interface is still
quite a pain, but it can speed it up quite a bit (until you get to
"Smith, 1998"!).
So, I would argue that this feature should be seen as a way to help
users build local databases, not as a more general searching tool.
In that light it is very valuable.
Frank Norman National Institute for Medical Research
Deputy Librarian The Ridgeway, Mill Hill
London NW7 1AA, UK
tel 0181 959 3666 ext 2380 email [log in to unmask]
fax 0181 913 8534 http://www.nimr.mrc.ac.uk/personal/Frank
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