[e-drug] PubMed search by email

[kirsten.myhr@relis.ulleval.no]

E-drug: PubMed search by email
---------------------------------------------
[Kirsten found this service at Biomedcentral infoservice 
(www.biomedcentral.com). I investigated how to get directly to the 
email search service without having to go through the website.  The 
instructions have been supplied.  We would be interested to get feed 
back from e-druggers about this service, see below. BS]

New "PubMed search by email" delivers the full text of BioMed Central
articles to developing countries

In many developing countries web access can be very slow and expensive,
making it difficult for physicians and scientists to access databases like
PubMed. In the light of these problems, a new system has been developed that
allows PubMed to be searched by sending a simple email enquiry.

As well as retrieving the abstracts for all your hits, this system can also
deliver the full text of research articles that are freely accessible, such
as those published by BioMed Central.

This service is provided by the West Africans Doctors Network. Further
information can be found at http://ipath.krot.org/cgi-bin/pm2mail/pm2mail

[SEARCH PROCEDURE
Send an email message to ipath-ref@krot.org
with Subject PM

In the body of the message, type:
query "search term"

For example, to search for articles about malaria, type
query malaria

Thus, you produce an email like:

EXAMPLE EMAIL
To:        ipath-ref@krot.org
Subject: PM

Body:  Query    malaria
  You may add qualifiers, using AND, OR, NOT
(always in uppercase) and another "search term"

EXAMPLE
query malaria AND anemia AND treatment

You may also add other filters, such as:

Clinical Queries filter (category: therapy, diagnosis, etiology, prognosis
and emphasis: sensitivity, specificity

Systematic Reviews filter (systematic reviews, meta-analyses,
reviews of clinical trials, evidence-based medicine,
consensus development conferences, and guidelines.)

EXAMPLE:
query hypertension AND guidelines

There are options on the type of search done and results returned:

max: n
limits the number of abstracts returned, default is 50 items

Results in pdf
results are returned in PDF format, requires the free Adobe PDF Reader

cc: x,y,z,...
sends copies to other recipients.  Multiple recipients should be separated
by commas.  This may be useful to researchers, clinicians and 
scientists who want to send copies of queries to their collaborators. 
It will also be
useful if you want copies of queries to a different email address than you
currently use. Sample query:

EXAMPLE:
From: Paul Font <font@abc.def.com>
To:   ipath-ref@krot.org
Subject: PM
Body: query myocardial infarction AND diagnosis
randomized controlled trial
max: 10
pdf
cc: may@june.com

To get a fulltext article by email:
The abstracts in the results you receive will indicate if full-text 
articles are available
PMID: xyz   [FULLTEXT AVAILABLE!!].

To get the full-text articles, send email
to ipath-ref@krot.org with Subject PM.

In the body of the message type:
get xyz
Where xyz is the PubMed identifier of the article you want to retrieve.


EXAMPLE full-text retrieval request:
From: example@yahoo.com
To:      ipath-ref@krot.org
Subject: PM
get xyz
pdf

You may also use options such as:
pdf retrieve fulltext article as pdf file, ready for printing. Default is
html which comes without figure and tables and thus has much smaller size!
I hope you can understand this.  Please get back to me if you can't. 
BS co-moderator]

Kirsten Myhr, MScPharm, MPH
Head, RELIS Ost Drug Information Centre
Ulleval University Hospital
0407 OSLO, Norway
Tel: +47 23 01 64 11  Fax: +47 23 01 64 10
kirsten.myhr@relis.ulleval.no (w)
www.relis.no
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