Selected Web Resources on Medical Sciences

DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, Vol. 28, No. 2, March 2008, pp. 86-92 © 2008, DESIDOC Selected Web Resources on Medical Sciences Mahabaleshwara Rao,* Mahesh V. Mudhol and Shivananda Bhat K.* * Health Sciences Library Kasturba Medical College Manipal University, Manipal-576 104 E-mail: Department of Library and Information Science Mangalore University, Mangalore-574 199 E-mail: ABSTRACT Web is becoming a major source of health information also. Computer networks in general and the Internet in particular are likely to play more important roles in many aspects of medicine in the future. But for the healthcare professional and the health consumer, accessing accurate information on the web is not easy. There is a growing supply of medical resources for teaching and learning available on the world wide web. Most large medical centres have put information on public domain and some large organisations, such as the National Institutes of Health, have extensive databases and services that can be used by medical researchers, clinicians, and educators. This paper makes an effort to list the selected web recourses on medical sciences which are useful for learning, teaching, patient care and research activities of the medical institution. Keywords: Web resources, medical sciences, medical information, medical libraries. 1. INTRODUCTION Advances in telecommunications technology have fostered the development of computer networks that allow access to vast amounts of information and services. Of the many computer networks that have been developed, the most prominent is the Internet. The amount of information available on the Internet is already enormous. There is an explosion of literature on medical sciences on the Internet also. Today, the medical literature is confronted with proliferation of knowledge with the exponential growth of information, eruption of new journals and electronic databases. The target recipients of health information are broadly grouped into five main categories; "researchers, teachers and students, health care workers, health administrators, and planners and the public". Medical information is mainly served for Received 27 August 2007 creating awareness among common people about health, for providing better medical service through improved patient care and teaching, and for research and planning purpose. The web resources have revolutionised the delivery of medical information. Medical libraries play a central role in information dissemination for their institutions by selecting the most useful and authoritative biomedical publications and making them available to faculty, students, and staff to support patient care, research, and education. Over the last two decades, changes in technology have transformed the way biomedical information is created, communicated and accessed. From their desktops using a web browser and an Internet connection, medical professionals now have access to data that include thousands of electronic journals and hundreds of electronic books. Many medical libraries have set up remote access to their collections, allowing medical professionals to use online resources from their campus office, hospital workstations, and offcampus computers, whether the physical library is open or closed. 2. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY The main objectives of the study are: ± To list the selected web resources available on medical sciences, which are useful for learning, teaching, patient care and research activities. ± To identify bibliographical and full-text databases, open access journals and drug information databases. ± To provide information on the selected web resources on medical sciences. 3. METHODOLOGY The methodology employed in this study is review of literature to know the various web resources available on medical sciences. Review of databases helped to list the selected web resources, which may be beneficial for doctors, and medical students and faculty. Medical students and faculty members of Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, and Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore as well as literature review helped in selecting the web resources. Discussions with faculty members, health professionals and postgraduate students of these medical colleges helped in finalising the list of selected web resources on medical sciences. 4. SELECTED WEB RESOURCES ON MEDICAL SCIENCES Following are some of the selected bibliographical and full-text databases, open access journals and drug information databases for medical science users for their teaching and learning activities. These resources are starting points for librarians and for the general public searching for health- related information. 4.1 Bibliographical Databases 4.1.1 PubMed PubMed(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/ query.fcgi?tool=cdl&otool=cdlotool), a service of the US National Library of Medicine (NLM) includes over 16 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals dating back to the 1950s. PubMed includes links to full-text articles and other related resources and provide access to citations DESIDOC Jl. Lib. Inf. Technol., 2008, 28(2) from MEDLINE, PreMEDLINE, other journals in the field of medicine and life sciences, and links to NCBI's (National Centre for Biotechnology Information) integrated molecular biology databases including nucleotide sequences, protein sequences, 3-D protein structure data, population study data sets, and assemblies of complete genomes in an integrated system. 4.1.2 Embase.com Embase.com (http:/www.embase.com/) is an integrated web-based service providing access to current, comprehensive and validated biomedical and pharmacological information. It provides: ± Comprehensive, timely access to pharmacological, biomedical literature ± More than 18 million records ± More than 11 million Embase records from 1974 and more than 7 million unique Medline records from 1966 till date ± The most current version of Embase available with records online on average within 10 working days ± Daily updates with more than 2,000 records added every working day ± More than 600,000 records added annually ± More than 7,000 journals from over 70 countries indexed; close to 2,000 more journals than covered by Embase or Medline individually ± Comprehensive international coverage ± Easy-to-use interface ± Select search options that best matches users requirement include forms, quick search, advanced search, field search, drug search, disease search, and article search ± Organise searches or entire sessions into named folders for future use ± Navigate from citations to full text from the world's leading Science, Technical and Medical publishers including: Elsevier Science Direct (including Cell Press), SpringerLink, KargerOnline, Thieme-connect and CrossRef (via DOI). 4.1.3 BIOSIS Previews BIOSIS Previews (http:/scientific.thomson. com/ products/bp/), one of the leading abstracting and indexing databases in the life sciences, (...truncated)