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May 2009

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From the Editor

Each month, the Chronolog showcases new and enhanced databases and products, and May is no exception. This issue illustrates Dialog's leadership in scientific information. Read about The Lancet, a premier medical journal now on Dialog and DataStar; check out the enhancements to the reloaded Inspec database; and see how Dialog's breadth of biomedical sources lets you search comprehensively in unique content on EMBASE and MEDLINE.

In addition to unmatchable content, Dialog is also committed to providing the best services at a reasonable cost as was recently recognized by Outsell, the research and advisory firm focused on the publishing, information, and education industries in its Insights newsletter: "In the March 2009 edition of its monthly newsletter to clients, Dialog acknowledged the spending pressures brought about by the current economic downturn and took the bold step to partner with its customers in weathering the difficult times. In announcing a price freeze, Dialog appears to have recognized the unique challenges in the current environment."¹

Following on the price freeze introduced last month, in May we again reinforce our partnership with our customers by introducing new transactional pricing for CSA technical and scientific databases and illustrate how you can get the most of your searches with tips from the interview with Dialog experts on searching technical files. You will also want to search the free file for May, ABI/INFORM, and read about the two free files for June.

¹"Dialog Announces a Price Freeze for 2009," Ned May, Insights from Outsell, March 9, 2009.

The Lancet introduced on Dialog and DataStar

The fulltext of The Lancet^®, widely considered to be one of the most influential medical journals in the world, and three other important specialist medical journals from The Lancet, are now available on Dialog (File 457) and DataStar (LANC). Four titles are included in this database:

• The Lancet — 1992 to the present
• The Lancet Infectious Diseases — 2001 to the present
• The Lancet Oncology — 2000 to the present
• The Lancet Neurology — 2002 to the present

Premier content

Published weekly, The Lancet provides medical news, original research and reviews on all aspects of clinical medicine and public health and is known for its independent, authoritative voice in global medicine. Its publishing history includes reports on numerous medical breakthroughs since 1823, from shell-shock therapy, penicillin and birth defects to more recent medical advancements such as the description of a new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and the identification of coronavirus as a possible cause of SARS. Published monthly, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, The Lancet Neurology and The Lancet Oncology contain review, opinion, original research and news covering international issues relevant to clinical infectious diseases specialists, neurologists and clinical cancer specialists. The articles' tables, illustrations, photographs and other graphical material are available in "text-and-graphic" and/or full-page format via links on the article display. The content has a two-month embargo from its appearance in hard copy.

With a mission to help medical professionals continually advance and improve the treatment and care of their patients, The Lancet counts among its readers the clinicians and researchers who have steered the course of medical progress and care for more than a century. Its commitment to international health is delivered through research and analysis from all regions of the world and its thought-provoking opinion is communicated by three editorials each week. Together with its specialty journals, The Lancet today makes a crucial contribution to the medical resources available to physicians and health professionals worldwide.

Check the Bluesheet (File 457) on Dialog and the Datasheet (LANC) and BASE on DataStar (search BASE-LANC) for more information about searching this new file.

More CSA content now available on a transactional basis

Previously, the way to gain access on Dialog to CSA Aerospace & High Technology Database (File 108), METADEX^® (File 32) and CSA Technology Research Database (File 23) was by subscription-only contracts. Because of Dialog's alignment with ProQuest, we are pleased to provide our corporate customers the opportunity to access these premier databases through the Dialog service on a transactional basis. Making this CSA content available helps Dialog continue to provide high-value, focused information that allows researchers to find the most relevant data in fields such as aerospace, engineering, materials science and technology.

Other CSA files now available on a transactional basis for corporate customers only include:

Usage in CSA  files will be covered for customers subscribing to a Dialog Advantage Plan or other all-inclusive subscription contract, as well as a basic access (pay as you go) contract. Note: Transactional access to Dialog Files 23, 32 and 108 is not available for academic and government customers. If you have questions regarding access, please contact your Dialog account representative.

Asking the right questions: Performing a technical search

As you begin a technical or engineering search, you must be thorough and ask yourself or your client for whom you are searching the right questions in order to obtain the most precise results. This preliminary planning can save you time and money. We recently sat down with two of our subject experts who provided us with10 Questions with Commentary to ask yourself when preparing a search for technical or engineering information.

Q: What are the databases in which you plan to conduct your search?
C: As you prepare your search strategy, decide whether you need a comprehensive search or whether your intent is to do a "quick query" search to locate just a few records to show the client what is available. For a comprehensive search, you may want to use the large OneSearch^® categories or DIALINDEX^® to search numerous databases in the same subject category at once. This search strategy provides you with databases that contain your search terms, which you can then narrow, broaden or modify to obtain the information you need.

Q: What type of literature or directory information does your client need? Does the client want "peer-reviewed" papers, conference papers, or trade literature? For instance, do they require directory information on research laboratories?
C: The type of information your client needs will determine which of Dialog's 500+ databases to select. At this point, you can also select technical files like Inspec^® (File 2) or Ei Compendex^® (File 8) for peer-reviewed papers, Inside Conferences (File 65) for conference papers, or databases like UMB Computer Fulltext (File 647) or Cengage Gale Computer Database™ (File 275) for trade literature.

Q: What level of information is needed: experimental, practical or general review?
C: Some members of a newly-formed engineering team may require general review vs. theoretical material as a beginning to their research. As you delve more deeply into the topic, you may want to search databases with a more theoretical base, such as Inspec or Ei Compendex or PASCAL. When you decide on the databases to search, then you can take advantage of the indexing, including descriptors, identifiers and codes, to pinpoint the search to retrieve exactly the information your client needs.

Q: What is the ultimate purpose of the search? For instance, is it for a student or a manager of an engineering division?
C: Generally speaking, a technical paper that has the treatment code theoretical (e.g., TC=theoretical) may not be the best fit for an engineer with a bachelor's degree. Thus, you need to take into consideration the engineer's educational background, as well as your knowledge of how to search in a particular database. Get as much information from your client as possible before deciding on your search query.

Q: Should certain languages be excluded?
C: Dialog contains scientific and technical information in a variety of languages. Truly comprehensive searches should include all languages. Again, consider the kind of documents needed. Engineers may not be familiar with databases, but they do understand the differences between dissertations, technical reports, and conference papers. Ask your client what type of literature he or she has heard or read about on the topic.

Q: What, if any, previous research has been done and by what authors, companies, and/or cited people (experts)?
C: A number of the technical and engineering databases on Dialog contain archive files. If the researcher has an excellent but old paper of interest, you can search that paper in the appropriate database(s) and use its descriptors, identifiers and other indexing like authors, cited references, and companies, to find similar papers.

Q: What is the timeframe: retrospective or searching our vast archives, or using the CURRENT command to limit your search to recent information?
C: Dialog has archival information useful for trend or bibliometric analysis, and you can also use specific Dialog commands such as the CURRENT command or date (PD=) and year (PY=) ranges to restrict a search to recent or older information.

Q: Can the user of the information be present when the search is being done?
C: If researchers can be present during the search process, they may assist you in finding better keywords, more exact dates, additional author information, and more. End users are often in search of concepts. Watching the search process allows them to help guide the path you take.

Q: An important part of preparing a search is budget consideration. For example, does your client charge back or does the department pick up the costs?
C: There are a number of tools in Dialog that can assist you in determining cost. The Database Bluesheets provide cost for DialUnits, cost per record depending on format and costs for Alerts. During a search session a searcher can ask for costs incurred up to any point. The Subaccount tool lets searchers designate a client's name or a department name so that the incoming invoice costs can be matched to the particular client or department. It is probably never a good idea to give the client an exact cost but providing an estimate can be helpful. And, the searcher can let the client know ahead of time how many records have resulted from a search so that cost per record can be calculated. ONTAP Practice Databases are very useful for developing your search logic. There is no cost for using these databases, and all commands work exactly the way they do in corresponding databases.

Q: In summary, why is it so important to plan your search before going online?
C: I would say that we all work and think better when relaxed. Creating a search on the fly online can produce unnecessary pressure. A search planned out before going online can include a number of steps: discussion with the client, researching best keywords and synonyms, determining the type of material that will best meet the query, and, of course, making sure search commands are correct in terms of Boolean operators and that all words are spelled correctly.

Watch for interviews with other groups at Dialog in the coming months. View an on-demand version of the interview.

 Business & News Content Updates

Free File of the Month: ABI/INFORM

With more economic challenges still on the horizon, access to business research in top-quality journals from premier publishers is more vital than ever. If you are looking for new developments and research in economics and management science or the most recent business and industry news, look no further. Produced by ProQuest, ABI/INFORM^® (File 15), the Dialog free file for May, has been a premier source of business information for more than 35 years. ABI is an essential tool for planners, managers, administrators and consultants requiring reliable information on business methods and their applications.

File 15 provides in-depth analysis not only of human resources issues, commerce and finance, corporate structure and organization, but also unparalleled examinations of industries, manufacturing, products and processes as well. Its international coverage gives researchers a complete picture of companies and business trends around the world. The database covers from 1971 to the present and is updated daily so you get the most current articles available. Fulltext is included from 1991 forward. Review the Overview of ABI/INFORM to learn more about the database.

During the month of May, you can explore ABI/INFORM (File 15) up to $100 (either DialUnits or connect time) for free. Note: Output and Alerts charges are not included. Take advantage of this opportunity to try out File 15.

Coming Soon: NewsRoom Plus from Dialog

Looking for access to premium news and open Web content all in one search? NewsRoom Plus has what you need—a simplified search experience that includes easy-to-use search forms, tabular displayed results, saved searches, Dialog Alerts, and enhanced article display available in multiple formats. NewsRoom Plus also lets you search across the open Web and multimedia content including video. Look for Dialog's newest innovation—NewsRoom Plus--coming soon!

 SciTech Content Updates

Inspec Reload adds new functionality

All Inspec^® databases on Dialog (Files 2, 3, 4, 202 and ONTAP^® File 213), produced by The Institution of Engineering and Technology (The IET), were reloaded earlier this month. The reload resulted in enhanced records, an improved database design and an updated Thesaurus.

Several new indexes and other enhancements also were added to the Inspec databases, during the reload, including:

• Greater clarity in record output, particularly for scientific and chemical information, with superscripts, subscripts, bold and italics
• New indexes — PD=(publication date); NR=(number of references) indexed for searching and sorting; DT=standard (abstracts of standards) now searchable (This is not a retroactive change.)
• DOI (Digital Object Identifier) — provides a link to publisher sites to access the full-text documents
• Corporate Source field (CS) — word- and phrase-indexed and available for RANKing
• Conference Date (CY=) — an 8-digit field date indexing the conference beginning and ending dates.

The primary focus of the Inspec databases are abstracts of journal papers, conference papers and proceedings, books, book chapters, dissertations, reports and report sections. Inspec also contains 20,629 abstracts for patent records for U.S. and U.K. patents published between 1968 and 1976. Check the revised Bluesheet for all changes.

Spotlight on EMBASE: The importance of comprehensive searching

By Rosemary Stevens, Knowledge Center Science Specialist

This month we shine the "search"-light on EMBASE^® (Files 72, 73), a biomedical bibliographic database produced by Elsevier. A thorough biomedical search would not be complete without EMBASE. It contains over 5,000 journals—2,000 of them unique from MEDLINE^®. It has a strong European emphasis as evidenced by its peer-reviewed journals from more than 70 countries comprising 30 languages. EMBASE utilizes Elsevier's life science thesaurus EMTREE to support powerful searching. EMTREE contains over 55,000 preferred terms (27,000 drug terms) and 220,000 synonyms. The in-depth drug indexing makes EMBASE a powerful tool in the pharmaceutical researcher's arsenal. In comparison, MeSH^®, MEDLINE's thesaurus, contains 25,000 preferred terms containing 7,000 drug terms.

Here's an example illustrating the differences. The top-selling drug Lipitor (ATORVASTATIN) is indexed in EMBASE with a variety of subheadings:

?EXPAND ATORVASTATIN
Ref   Items   RT  Index-term
E1        2       ATORVASTAFIN
E2        8       ATORVASTAIN
E3    12104   15  ATORVASTATIN
E4     1848       ATORVASTATIN --ADVERSE DRUG REACTION --AE
E5        2       ATORVASTATIN --BUCCAL DRUG ADMINISTRATION
E6     3597       ATORVASTATIN --CLINICAL TRIAL --CT
E7       26       ATORVASTATIN --DRUG ADMINISTRATION --AD
E8      204       ATORVASTATIN --DRUG ANALYSIS --AN
E9     1740       ATORVASTATIN --DRUG COMBINATION --CB
E10    2205       ATORVASTATIN --DRUG COMPARISON --CM
E11     180       ATORVASTATIN --DRUG CONCENTRATION --CR
E12     110       ATORVASTATIN --DRUG DEVELOPMENT --DV
E13    2157       ATORVASTATIN --DRUG DOSE --DO
E14     980       ATORVASTATIN --DRUG INTERACTION --IT
E15    8320       ATORVASTATIN --DRUG THERAPY --DT
E16      78       ATORVASTATIN --DRUG TOXICITY --TO

But there aren't any subheadings associated with it in MEDLINE:

?EXPAND ATORVASTATIN
Ref   Items   RT  Index-term
E1        3       ATORVASTAIN
E2        1       ATORVASTANINO
E3     3528       ATORVASTATIN
E4       22       ATORVASTATINA

Since Atorvastatin is not associated with subheadings in MEDLINE, you will have to do a keyword search that might result in missed records. In addition, EMBASE contains 12,104 records about Atorvastatin compared with MEDLINE's 3,528. However, it is still necessary to search in both databases because MEDLINE contains records that EMBASE doesn't and vice-versa. In my sample search: S Atorvastatin, MEDLINE retrieved more than 900 unique records.

Stay tuned for next month's Chronolog, when we delve deeper into EMBASE's drug indexing and explore the world of Paula, the pharmacovigilance researcher!

 Intellectual Property Content Updates

A Proximal and a Distal Tip

By Ron Kaminecki, MS, CPL, JD, Director, IP Segment, US Patent Attorney

The trouble with titles
When searching non-patent literature, one is often overwhelmed by the number of hits actually received over and above what is expected. A somewhat simple search (if there is such a thing) often "blows up" in the face of the searcher, especially when searching full-text databases, patent or not. Typically, the searcher will then try to narrow the search, quite often by limiting the occurrence of the search terms to, say, only part of a record. Usually the title fits the bill. In Dialog, this would be done very simply by adding /TI to the end of the set or even the search string as in SELECT RFID/TI to find RFID (radio frequency identification) only in the title. The rewards are immediate; the number of hits decreases. Further, when the output is reviewed, the searcher is rewarded to see the search term in the titles, thus allowing many hits to be reviewed quickly and easily and also at minimal cost. The bibliographic data can be added, along with perhaps an abstract and the results sent off to the ultimate requestor. The searcher can rest smugly in the knowledge that there probably won't be a call from the end-user wondering why some records were hit because each one will have the proper search term in the title. Done!

But . . . try this with a patent file, and you may be disappointed. Yes, the output will still have the search term in the title and the number of hits will be minimized, but there is a good chance the searcher may have missed a substantial portion of the relevant patents! Why would this be?

Man bites dog while testifying on drugs
When Dialog was owned by Knight Ridder, a newspaper chain, we learned that titles of news stories were usually clever or catchy (one of my favorites being, "Woman Testifies on Drugs," found in the Chicago Tribune), some of which leave you wondering what the story is about and, thus, your curiosity overwhelms you into reading an article you normally might have skipped.

In addition, the entire story had to be told rather concisely in the lead paragraph. Typically, right after the lead paragraph was the first quote and the "boilerplate" or background material followed, with the knowledge that the most important facts came first because the article sometimes had to be cropped to fit into the news page. The next time you read a story in the press, see if the following format fits: Catchy title followed by the lead paragraph then the first quote and finally, the background. And, yes, the lead paragraph can be one sentence as long as it is concise. So, titles in news databases tend to be descriptive, but use more sensational language than scholarly discourse. Here, though, the title and lead paragraph can be combined (as in /TI,LP) to focus a news search quite nicely.

You can trust a professor
In scholarly literature (not to say that patents are not scholarly), the author's motivation in writing a title is to entice the potential reader to actually do more than just glance at the publication. The intent of the scientist, when writing a publication, is to disseminate the information to the widest audience while still maintaining a somewhat dignified tone of authority — something that would appeal to other scholars. Thus, titles for such publications tend to be lengthy and filled with proper terminology to ensure the proper researchers actually read the article. No doubt the author wants to inform colleagues of important work, such as discovering of a new cure for a terrible disease, but also to illustrate that the author knows what he is talking about. Thus, titles in many non-patent literature databases, being based on scholarly writing, tend to be reliable descriptions of the work.

Patents, on the other hand, are not written with the same intent as academic or popular literature. The titles in patents are descriptive insofar as the examiner allows whatever legally describes the invention, given the need to minimize words by the inventor. I have talked about titles in a previous issue, but let me summarize my point by saying that when restricting a patent search, titles are not the best way to go. What works for non-patent literature does not work as well in patents.

Cutting ever finer
What should be done to narrow a patent search? Restricting a search by abstracts will not work much better because abstracts tend to be taken from the first claim. However, a search by the scientific part of the patent, the specification outside of the claims, may help a bit, because, like academic literature, it is written to be understandable by persons having skill in the art. Typically, a patent attorney/agent will draft the entire patent, but will get help from the scientists, inventors or technical advisors who tend to focus on the specification. Thus, scientific lingo works its way into the examples found in the specification. The scientist/inventor/advisor will use terminology used in normal scientific discourse to talk about the examples or the results in an effort to disclose the invention fully.

Thus, a search can be limited to the parts most likely written by scientists in language understandable by such by restricting the search to the Specification (/SP). This could be done by SELECT ISOTOPE/SP in U.S. Patents Fulltext (Files 652,654). Yes, you can just use only the /TX field (for TEXT) to search both the specification and the claims fields, but this defeats the advantages of searching scientific information over the legalese in the Claims field. Indeed, if you use scientific terminology while searching just the text (/TX), the fact that you also include the Claims may not hurt the search too much because the terms used may not hit anything extraordinary in the Claims. And if they did, at least the Claims specify intent.

All of this work just to avoid searching a patent title? Since the number of patent documents published has increased exponentially over time, new strategies must be devised to minimize time wasted, and one way is by picking apart an individual patent into its scientific and legal components while keeping in mind the intent of each part.

Speaking offhandedly
Next month: Just like the meat and vegetable slices on a store-bought sandwich, how to cut things finer yet!

 Learn about ProQuest

A winning combination: Dialog/DataStar and ProQuest Central

Do you count on precision searching? Do you need the fulltext of articles across a broad range of disciplines at your fingertips? If so, then Dialog/DataStar and ProQuest Central offer a powerful combination. You can search precisely in abstracted and indexed literature on Dialog and DataStar and easily locate the fulltext of those items via ProQuest Central — Professional Edition. With its clean, intuitive interface and award-winning Smart Search feature, ProQuest Central can be used by levels of searchers. With fulltext across a wide variety of disciplines, including charts, graphs and images, end users can build robust results sets with full detail.

Wealth of content
ProQuest Central is the largest aggregated full-text database in the market today with 10,000+ journal titles, approximately 7,000 titles in fulltext. It serves as the central resource for researchers at all levels in all markets, with coverage in over 160 subject areas — from science and medicine to humanities and social sciences. And, ProQuest Central continues to grow to include titles from countries around the world:

• 250 international titles added from 24 countries, such as The Hong Kong Journal of Psychiatry, Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs, Hebrew Studies and International Lawyer
• 64 full-text newspapers from 20 countries, including Arab News (Jordan), El País (Spain) and La Raza (Chicago)
• Over 100 titles already added in 2009, including books, videos, trade publications and journals, newspapers, scholarly journals, as well as more than 5,200 dissertations

New full-text titles are added to ProQuest Central weekly. Ask your Dialog account representative for more information on ProQuest Central — Professional Edition.