… and search Methodologies! A friend asked me a little while ago about how to account for 4 articles that were found serendipitously by some researchers she is working with (they had forgotten how they had come across them). I said I’d help. So…. lets come up with 3 ways she could include these articles in the search methods.
a] Four papers by Smith, Smart, Aleck and Right, were located by researcher B using keywords in Google Scholar. These papers were considered relevant for inclusion by others in the research team.
b] Four papers [Hip, Hop, Tic, and Toe] deemed relevant for inclusion by the research team, were located by researcher B by browsing in PubMed and Google Scholar using select keywords from the search strategy.
c] Four papers located by researcher B [Smith, Wesson, Pain, and Gore], were found by entering keywords from the search strategy in PubMed’s simple search box. The research team on consultation deemed these papers relevant for inclusion.
What librarians would really like to say: I wish you’d keep track and record how you came across these papers you are insisting on including. Why can’t you do this? Now I have to make up something that maybe could’ve happened. SIGH!!! How would you approach this issue? I’d love to know your thoughts.
PRISMA in search methodologies: doesn’t it annoy you to smithereens when you read in a systematic review that “… the search was conducted according to PRISMA…” or “… this systematic review has been conducted using PRISMA guidelines.” No no no and NO!!! Yes, PRISMA is a guideline, but it is a guideline for what should be reported. It is not a guideline for conducting a systematic review. There are a few handbooks and manuals out there that do that job.
And now for MeSH! MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) is the thesauri used to index biomedical literature in Medline. There was a period every year where MeSH was unavailable because the thesaurus was being updated. It now seems that MeSH is updated daily. Is this AI at work? The MeSH Browser is very useful for building searches without going into Medline. It is also fun to browse. Did you know there is a subject called Legendary Creatures? It’s under Anthropology and includes unicorns, werewolves and vampires. There was some concern on Bluesky #medlibs a few months ago that the terms Sexual and Gender Minorities and Transgender Persons would be altered or removed since the ultraconservative anti-vaxxer Kennedy was installed as head of Health & Human Services. It all looks OK so far. Has anyone noticed any changes?
A few years ago, not that long ago really, I participated in a voluntary effort to review and add to NLMs revised Population Groups. Before this project was undertaken, the NLM had reintroduced the concept ‘Blacks’, which resulted in a huge outcry. This project to look deeply at population groups was timely (and really, it was very very overdue). We finally have a MeSH term for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. This means all the work into updating the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders filter has to be redone though. And my personal reading goal to read more African authors writing stories set in their own countries came in use – I knew what areas of the continent peoples were located.
Subheadings are great to use in MeSH, and when there isn’t a subheading you want to use with a subject, you can use a technique called floating subheadings. This is where you can search for a subject and then search for a subheading, then pair them together. Supplementary headings are like placeholder subject headings that are separate from MeSH. These headings are mostly used for substances like drugs, proteins, toxins, bacteria, viruses etc. The about page says this is updated daily in order to increase accessibility to new information. Does this mean that the annual MeSH refresh is still a thing?
Have you any favourite MeSH terms? Do tell!
Up next: N is for Nesting!
Medical Libraryland 