Support : Publications : Chronolog Archives : April 2002

MEDLINE® Changes for 2002

MEDLINE is reloaded every year because the National Library of Medicine (NLM) changes some of the existing Medical Subject Headings (MeSH®) and introduces new terms not previously used in MEDLINE.

Changes for 2002 are summarized below:

1. MeSH changes in 2002
   These are some of the more important changes:
   1. All viruses were reviewed and updated to conform with the 7th Report of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV).
   2. The terminology related to complementary and alternative medicine has been re-structured into sub-groups in order to facilitate searching those divisions.
   3. Terminology related to plant family and genera headings have been greatly expanded with more use of the scientific Latin binomial names and less use of common names as preferred terminology.
   
   
2. Full author names
   The NLM is starting to provide full author names for some articles, including some dated before 2002.



3. Comments and corrections
   Beginning in 2002, the comments and corrections notes may have fuller notes on the type of comment available. These include "Corrected and republished in", "Erratum for," "Retraction of," "Summary for patients in," "Update of," etc.



4. Information provider
   The information provider is available for records where the originator of the information is not the National Library of Medicine.



5. Keywords
   Some articles provided by organizations other than the National Library of Medicine have their own keywords, and these are added to, or are used instead of, any MeSH headings. Keywords are not part of the MeSH system so they will not be retrieved in a ..MeSH search.



6. Additional information supplied by non-NLM providers
   Some of the non-NLM providers supply information not normally seen in a typical MEDLINE article is included. This might include information on a space flight mission, details of any grants associated with a project, names of investigators, and general notes.

See the story on DataStar MEDLINE reload changes. Watch the Dialog logon and banner messages for further information on the upcoming Dialog MEDLINE reload.

If you have any questions on the MEDLINE reloads or need further information, please contact your nearest Knowledge Center Help Desk.

top