The View from the VA

The National Library of Medicine is constantly working on refining and improving access to MEDLINE through PubMed. One of the more useful features they have added recently is the ability for local libraries to identify their holdings so that searchers can limit the retrieval to local library holdings. Just this past month, the CAVHS Library has done just that. In order to take advantage of this feature users must connect to PubMed either through the link on the Learning Resources Service Homepage or by entering a special URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?holding=arcavhlib.

Once connected, the user must then add the following to any search statement: AND loprovarcavhlib[sb].

In many cases, full-text articles will be identified with a button that can be clicked to take the searcher directly to the article. What makes this especially valuable is that access is provided not only to the print subscriptions the library maintains but also the full-text articles available through EBSCOhost and MDConsult!

One proviso, though, is that access to full-text online is dependent on the Librarian working in concert with the publisher to activate the links, and policies vary with the publishers on how this is accomplished. Searchers are asked, then, to contact any of the Librarians at the VA when they encounter a problem.

George M. Zumwalt,
Chief, Learning Resources Service

[Editor’s note: for those wishing to access this service via the UAMS access to PubMed, and to be able to limit to journals owned by UAMS, we have included this information: The first step is either to access PubMed via the UAMS home page (www.library.uams.edu) or to use this url: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?holding=uamslib . Then to limit to UAMS holdings, add the following to any search statement: AND loprovuamslib[sb]. The rest of the above information is the same. ]