Dear Daniel,

 

It wasn’t that complicated when I set up our PubMed LinkOut!

 

For more info: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/linkout/doc/liblinkout.html

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard Sherratt 

Electronic Resources Coordinator

Knowledge & Library Service,

Warrington & Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust,

Warrington Hospital,

Education & Research Division,

Education Centre, Thelwall House,

Lovely Lane, Warrington, WA5 1QG.

 

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Dear LIS-MEDICAL,

 

Last week I emailed the list to ask if anyone wanted any information on signing up to the PubMed LinkOut service. A lot of people have responded so I have written a short description of the process I went through to get my library signed up to the service. Please note that I do not claim this to be a comprehensive guide to accessing PubMed and that I am no expert on it! However, I had to work a lot of these things out for myself so hopefully others will find the process a bit quicker and slightly easier with this everyday-language description of the process we went through.

 

PubMed LinkOut

 

Please note this not a comprehensive guide to accessing the PubMed service. A reasonable level of IT skill and a working knowledge of WorldCat LinkResolver is assumed.

 

You need 2 xml files – a providerinfo.xml file and a pubmedlinkout.xml file. I had never dealt with xml files before but they are quite easy. An important note about editing xml files: saving an xml file with a .txt ending makes it a text file that you can edit in notepad. Then by resaving that .txt file with an .xml ending turns it back into an xml file with your changes included.

 

The providerinfo file is very short and you can just copy an example from the PubMed help files and then enter your info (editing in notepad as mentioned above then save as providerinfo.xml). Here is a template and below that is our providerinfo:

 

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<!DOCTYPE Provider PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD LinkOut 1.0//EN"

"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/linkout/doc/LinkOut.dtd">

<Provider>

<ProviderId>given by PubMed so leave blank</ProviderId>

   <Name>your library/service name here</Name>

   <NameAbbr> given by PubMed so leave blank</NameAbbr>

   <SubjectType>Libraries</SubjectType>

   <Url>your WorldCat URL here</Url>

</Provider>

 

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<!DOCTYPE Provider PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD LinkOut 1.0//EN"

"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/linkout/doc/LinkOut.dtd">

<Provider>

<ProviderId>7943</ProviderId>

   <Name>Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre Library</Name>

   <NameAbbr>igbnoclib</NameAbbr>

   <SubjectType>Libraries</SubjectType>

   <Url>http://nhs4223522.resolver.library.nhs.uk/</Url>

</Provider>

 

The pubmedlinkout file is much longer and more complicated because it details your holdings but handily WorldCat have a prepared one for you which you can download from the ‘Title List Admin’ bit of WorldCat. Open the file and check to see that the IconUrl line ends in .gif, .png or .jpg.– like this one does:

                                                

<IconUrl>http://images.lm.worldcat.org/images/btn_worldcatlink_link.gif</IconUrl>

 

If it doesn’t you will need to contact WorldCat and ask them to change it for you. When they have done that you will need to re-download the file.

 

You send these two files (providerinfo.xml and pubmedlinkout.xml) off to PubMed who will check them then, if they are ok, will email you back with a NameAbbr and ProviderID to add to your providerinfo.xml file. You make the changes then send the files back, they check it again, and email you to ask you to upload the file to an ftp drive.

 

Again, I had never used (or even heard of) ftp before but its quite straight forward. Ftp is a weird thing where you go to an online address using a web browser but instead of it being like a normal website it actually appears more like a folder on a computer that you keep files in. Using Internet Explorer (only some browsers are compatible with ftp and Internet Explorer is one of them) you go to an address they give you, login with the details they give you (by right clicking the mouse and selecting ‘Login As…’) and then uploading your files just as you would into any other folder – copy and paste or drag them across. Then close the window down. You email PubMed to let them know you’ve done it and then after a while they email to say that you’ve been added to the LinkOut service and that after 48 hours the filters will be usable.

THEN you need to sign up for a PubMed account. In the Preferences section of your new account choose ‘PubMed filters and icons’, click ‘Search for Filters’ and search for the name of your library. Tick both boxes to add the filter to this account. Please note that there might be other filters that would be useful to you/your users and that you could put on this account – for example I have also added Core Content (called ‘NHS core content’) and the filter created by Oxford University because some of our users have access to their resources.

Now the good bit. You, and more particularly your users, want to access these filters without having to log on to the account. To do that click Preferences again, click ‘Shared Settings’ and tick all those boxes. Now log out of your account. Copy this:

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?myncbishare=username

                                                                                 

into your address bar and change username to the username of the account you just created. Hit enter and this will take you to the front page of PubMed – bookmark this page! This is now PubMed but with the filter options of the account you created. So now, when you use this link to PubMed, you can search for articles and see instantly if they are accessible either online or, if you’ve added the info to WorldCat, in print from your library. You can now forward this URL to your clinicians so they can access articles easier and quicker.

 

Kind regards,

 

Daniel Croft

Librarian

Tel & Fax: (01865) 738147

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Girdlestone Memorial Library, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Windmill Road, Headington, Oxford, OX3 7LD

 

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