PubMed My NCBI: Saving Searches & Creating Alerts

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1 PubMed My NCBI: Saving Searches & Creating Alerts My NCBI feature of PubMed allows you to: Save and rerun your search strategies Create an automatic notification of new articles Build a bibliography of select citations using Clipboard and My NCBI collections Customize PubMed with My NCBI preferences and filters Quick Tours: an online My NCBI Tutorial NOTE: To use all the features of My NCBI, your web browser must accept cookies and pop-ups from the National Library of Medicine. Add the following URL to your allowed sites : Registering for My NCBI To use My NCBI, you must register for an account look for the My NCBI box in the top right corner of PubMed. 1. Click on "Register." 2. Create an easy-to-remember user name and password. 3. Choose a Security Question and Answer. 4. Type the verification code. Optional settings: Keep me signed in use this feature if you are working from your primary computer and others do not use it. address needed for setting up alerts. 5. Click the Register button. A confirmation screen will appear briefly, and then your browser will return to the main PubMed page. Saving a Search and Setting up an Alert 1. Run your search. You can store a search using any terms and limits necessary for your topic. (Specific dates or close ended date ranges (i.e., ) are not recommended for stored searches.) 2. Click the Save Search" link to the right of the search box. 1

2 3. If not already signed in, you will be prompted to do so. 4. A pop up window will appear allowing you to name your search and set up automatic e- mail updates of new articles on this topic. (NOTE: Initially only items a & b appear. Change the setting on item b to Yes and the other settings will appear). a. Accept the default name or give it a more meaningful one. b. Click Yes to receive updates. c. Adjust the delivery settings as desired when and how often do you want to receive the alerts, and how many at a time (the default is only 5, so common topics set for monthly delivery may need a higher maximum). d. Click OK. Building a Bibliography - Saving Citations in My NCBI Collections Building the bibliography is a two step process: specific citations are first sent to the clipboard and then to My NCBI Collections. Save Citations to the Clipboard 1. Select the desired citation(s). 2. Use the Send to pull down menu and select Clipboard. 2

3 Send to My NCBI Collections 1. Click on Clipboard Tab to view citations sent to the Clipboard. 2. Select the articles to save in My NCBI Collections. 3. Use the Send to pull down menu and select My NCBI Collections. 4. You will be prompted to start a new collection or add these to an established collection pick the option that works best for you. Managing My NCBI Searches, and Collections Sign in to My NCBI using the link in the top right corner in PubMed or along the left side in the blue side bar under PubMed Services. Searches: A saved search can be rerun to see all available citations. o Simply click on the name of the search to execute the search. A saved search can also give you just the latest articles since it was last executed. o Click in the box to select search and o Click on the button, What s New for Selected. When finished with a particular search or alert, it can be deleted. o Click in the box to select the search and click on Delete Selected. 3

4 Collections: See the details of your collection o Click the link with the number of items in the Details column to view the list, change the collection name, or delete items from the list. See the list in PubMed o Click the link with the collection s name. Combine multiple collections into one big list o Click the box by the names (see image above) o Click Merge Selected Collections. o Give the collection a new name (the default name may not be helpful) o If you select the delete collections... option, you will be prompted to verify that choice click OK if you are sure you will never need the original set. Settings for Customizing PubMed s Interface Adjust some of PubMed s default settings by applying User Preferences and selecting Filters. See My NCBI Quick Tours for full details. User Preferences: Turn on highlighting of search terms in PubMed searches Note: Useful for quickly identifying the search term in keyword searches. Turn the Links to other resources into a pull down menu or a pop up window Note: Choosing the pull-down menu can alert you when more links are available. 4

5 Filters: Use filters to group search results by areas of interest. You may select up to 5 tabs (i.e. Review articles, Clinical Trials, free full text). So how do these adjustments change PubMed? What benefit do they offer? 1. The user preferences can make scanning the search results easier. 2. The filters can make frequently requested limits quickly accessible with tabs. 3. Add links to resources that would not normally be included. (They appear in LinkOut). PubMed s look before Preferences & Filters were selected: PubMed s look after some Preferences & Filters selected: 1. Highlighting turned on. 2. Some common limits and selected filters appear as tabs. 3. Links option changed to pull-down menu note larger box and check LinkOut for links to additional resources. 5