December 30, 2005

Dear Dialog DataStar Alerts Customer,

Every year, MEDLINE has a gap in updating while the National Library of Medicine (NLM) switches to next year's version of the file. This year, all updating of completed records stopped on November 16, 2005, while waiting for NLM to resume the updates and for Dialog DataStar to adapt its load programs to accept the 2006 records.

Updating has now resumed and you should receive your first Alert output today. Please note that the new updates only show the 2006 Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). All other records show the 2005 MeSH terms. If you use the thesaurus function (THES or MESH), you will see the 2005 MeSH terms. This situation will remain until MEDLINE is reloaded early in 2006.

We will be providing a full summary of the main changes to MeSH when MEDLINE on Dialog DataStar has reloaded. If you would like to find out more about the thesaurus changes at this stage, we recommend that you consult the National Library of Medicine's comprehensive articles, "What's New for 2006 MeSH" and "MEDLINE Data Changes - 2006", both of which can found on the NLM's Web site: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/current_issue.html.

Further MEDLINE developments will be announced in the Dialog DataStar file banners.

Should you have any questions regarding MEDLINE updating or the MEDLINE reload, please contact the Knowledge Center within North America at +1 (800) 3-DIALOG (334-2564) or outside North America at +00 (800) 333-42564.

Yours sincerely,

Dialog Customer Service