Technical Notes - e1

Remembering ELHILL - e2

NLM Home Page Redesigned - e3

• Notice of NLM Z39.50 MEDLINE Server Ceasing
• New Fact Sheet, Print and Electronic Journals in MEDLINE®, Available
• NTIS Billing Plans for ELHILL Demise
• PubMed Enhancements
• Correction to the September-October 1998 NLM Technical Bulletin Article Titled MeSH Coming Attractions
• TRI97 Available on TOXNET
• HealthSTAR Files Reconfigured

Notice of NLM Z39.50 MEDLINE Server Ceasing

The National Library of Medicine will discontinue its Z39.50 server to the MEDLINE data (back to 1966) and the PREMEDLINE data effective December 13, 1999. This server communicates with the ELHILL command language, mainframe online system which is being discontinued for billed public access on September 30, 1999. (Read the March-April 1999 NLM Technical Bulletin article announcing this demise online at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/ma99/ma99_elhill.html) In consideration for those organizations that may be providing Z39.50 MEDLINE/PREMEDLINE access to their users, NLM will continue to support its server until nearly the end of the calendar year through the completion of the December 9912 (EM) update of MEDLINE data. In mid-December, NLM changes to the new indexing year using the new edition of Medical Subject Headlings, all of which would require significant changes to the Z39.50 server. There is no Z39.50 replacement currently planned for the MEDLINE data. NLM provides free Web access to all its databases and users have been encouraged to transition to the Web for more than a year. PubMed, Internet Grateful Med, LocatorPlus, and TOXNET on the Web provide free access using state-of-the-art search engines (http://www.nlm.nih.gov). Please direct questions to NLM Customer Service at: custserv@nlm.nih.gov.

New Fact Sheet, Print and Electronic Journals in MEDLINE®, Available

The Print and Electronic Journals in MEDLINE Fact Sheet [This link has been removed because it is no longer valid] describes NLM's policy for indexing journals issued electronically or in print or in both media. For related information on this subject, please review the article in the March-April 1999 NLM Technical Bulletin, Citing Articles in Journals Published in Print and on the Web, (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/ma99/ma99_electronic.html).

NTIS Billing Plans for ELHILL Demise

Because ELHILL public billed access will terminate on September 30, 1999, there are several points to clarify about NTIS (National Technical Information Service) billing of ELHILL services.

• Final invoices or Statements of Account will be sent during October, reflecting usage during the July-September 1999 quarter and/or any outstanding charges.
  
  
• Deposit Account users may close out NTIS accounts after October 1999. In order to close out a deposit account, the customer must put the request in writing. E-mail your request to dhaynes@ntis.fedworld.gov or fax it to the attention of Denise Haynes at 703-605-6743.
  
  To speak to a deposit accounts representative, call 1-800-423-9255 and press 4 on your touch-tone phone.
  
  Alternatively, you may continue to keep your Deposit Account open for other NTIS services, such as publications, DOCLINE, etc.
  
  
• NTIS Customer Service for NLM ELHILL users will cease on March 30, 2000. If you have questions about your account, please contact NTIS with your MEDLARS billing questions before March 30 at:
  
  eyates@ntis.fedworld.gov or
  
  Call 1-800-423-9255 and press 2 on your touch tone phone.

These plans refer to ELHILL online services only. NTIS billing for DOCLINE services and MEDLINE licensees will continue.

PubMed Enhancements

At the end of July, the following search capabilities were added to PubMed:

• Stand-alone numbers in both the Title and Abstract fields are indexed in the Text Word field while Title numbers are also indexed in the Title field, e.g.: healthy [ti] AND people [ti] AND 2000 [ti].
  
  
• The Secondary Source ID Field is now indexed as a separate field with the search field tag [SI]. The field is composed of a source followed by a slash followed by an accession number. The indexing is (a) the source, (b) the accession number, and (c) the entire field, e.g.:
  
  genbank [si]
  AF001892 [si]
  genbank/AF001892 [si]
  aha [si]
  hta [si]
  
  Note that searchers may use this field to limit to or exclude the unique HealthSTAR citations in PubMed.
  
  For example: hospice care AND (aha [si] OR hta [si])
  
  
• The following journal subsets are now available to search:

For example: baseball AND jsubseta

Please note that there is no field qualifier; just use the search value.

• To search for citations with abstracts in PubMed use the value hasabstract.
  
  For example: baseball AND jsubseta AND hasabstract
  
  Again, no field qualifier is needed.
  
  
• A Consumer Health link to MEDLINEplus has been added to the sidebar on the PubMed Home page.

Please see PubMed's New and Noteworthy feature to keep up to date on all the features, enhancements, and changes to PubMed.

Correction to the September-October 1998 NLM Technical Bulletin Article Titled MeSH Coming Attractions

The article titled MeSH Coming Attractions (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/so98/so98_mesh.html), as published in the September-October 1998 NLM Technical Bulletin contains the following erratum:

Under the final section, Changed Publication Types, the text reads as follows:

Abstract was changed to Meeting Abstract
(this PT is used for abstracts of presentations at various types of meetings, not for designating abstracts accompanying journal articles; it is currently used in AIDSLINE, HealthSTAR, HISTLINE, POPLINE, SPACELINE, and TOXLINE)

The text should read: Abstract was changed to Meeting Abstracts. The September-October issue has been corrected to show the plural form.

TRI97 Available on TOXNET

As announced in the May-June 1999 Technical Notes [http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/mj99/mj99_technote.html#tri], the TRI97 (Toxic Release Inventory 97) file became available on TOXNET on July 21, 1999. On that day TRI87-94 and the TRIFACTS file were removed from TOXNET due to budget constraints. Please see the original technical note for more information about the TRI files.

HealthSTAR Files Reconfigured

The HealthSTAR ELHILL file configuration changed on July 29, 1999. In the new file configuration, HealthSTAR contains citations from 1992 forward and HealthSTAR75 contains citations from 1975-1991. Two years of data (1990-1991) were moved from HealthSTAR to the backfile, because the current file had run out of the space needed for the addition of new data. The messages you see when you connect to these files in ELHILL will NOT be changed, that is they will continue to show the past years of coverage.

The IGM HealthSTAR search screen year range pull-down menu has changed so that the current file shows the correct start date of 1992, rather then 1990.

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