IDS- and HIV-related journal citations unique to the former AIDSLINE database are now in MEDLINE and can be searched in PubMed. NLM began moving the AIDS-related meeting abstracts from AIDSLINE to the NLM Gateway in October 2000. As NLM continues to reorganize its bibliographic databases, the migration of these specialized citations to MEDLINE and the Gateway provides users with continued access to AIDS-related information.

Approximately 6,200 AIDS-related journal citations from the former AIDSLINE database were recently added to MEDLINE. Although the majority of the former AIDSLINE content was derived from MEDLINE, these 6,200 AIDS-related citations were not in MEDLINE until now. Furthermore, the AIDS-related, non-Index Medicus journals and newsletters from which these citations came are now being indexed by NLM for the enhanced MEDLINE.

When these 6,200 AIDS-related journal citations were converted to enhance MEDLINE, NLM made one notable change with regard to Publication Type [PT]. Newsletter Article [PT] (not a valid MEDLINE PT) was changed to Newspaper Article [PT] (a valid MEDLINE PT). Another notable, albeit temporary, change is that some of these journal citations currently lack their abstracts. This is because these abstracts were not written by the author. For now, MEDLINE carries only the abstract published with the original journal article. In the future, NLM plans to include other abstracts in a separate field (expected by September 2001). Abstracts written by authors were converted to MEDLINE.

1. AIDS Subject Subset - This subset uses a search strategy that incorporates MeSH, Text Words, Names of Substances, and journal title abbreviations. This is a comprehensive subject approach to limiting to AIDS-related information. Most searchers will probably prefer this approach. Choose the "AIDS" subject subset from the Limits Subsets pull-down menu or manually combine it with your search strategy using the [sb] search tag (e.g., tuberculosis AND aids [sb]).
2. AIDS Journal Subset - This subset contains only the non-Index Medicus journals covering AIDS-related information. These are largely newsletter titles. Use of this limit retrieves citations to articles published only in this set of serials (about 39 currently indexed titles) and does not include citations from Index Medicus titles on AIDS-related topics. If you are interested in only this narrow journal subset, use this strategy: AND jsubsetx (e.g., tuberculosis AND jsubsetx). The term jsubsetx does not use a search tag. Instructions for searching LocatorPlus to see the list of currently indexed journal titles for a particular journal subset are found at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/services/lptutorial.html.

For more information about the AIDS subject subset, the journal subset - jsubsetx, and field tags, please see the PubMed Help.

As they are new to MEDLINE and PubMed, these 6,200 AIDS-related journal citations may be pulled by a Cubby Stored search using terms in this subject area.

As of April 2001, there are approximately 54,000 AIDS-related meeting abstracts available for searching in the NLM Gateway. To retrieve AIDS-related meeting abstracts, limit your search to the Meeting Abstracts category. Currently there are two collections for the AIDS meeting abstracts: AIDS Meetings, which contains citations that are not indexed with MeSH terms; and, AIDS Meetings (with MeSH®). The AIDS Meetings (with MeSH®) contains citations indexed with MeSH terms through production year 2000 which were maintained to reflect changes made for the 2001 MeSH. The AIDS-related meeting abstracts include the 6th through the 13th International AIDS Conferences plus several other AIDS-related meetings. Future conferences will be added to the Gateway, without MeSH indexing, as they become available. For more information about the AIDS meeting abstracts, please see the Gateway Help available from the sidebar.

NLM encourages those of you who have not yet tried the "one-stop-shopping" offered by the NLM Gateway to give it a try. The Gateway should be used to search for meeting abstracts as it is NLM's repository for these records. See the November-December 2000 NLM Technical Bulletin article "NLM Gateway: Your Entrance to the Knowledge Resources of the National Library of Medicine" for more information.

By Nadine Benton
MEDLARS Management Section

Benton N. AIDS-related Citations Added to PubMed® and the NLM Gateway. NLM Tech Bull. 2001 May-Jun;(320):e6.