July/August 2000
SDI FEATURE
What's the best way to find the new information on your topic?
Scan the new journals as they come in each day? No! OVID has
a feature that allows you to save a search strategy, rerun it on a weekly
or monthly basis and download the results. Called the SDI feature,
it stands for Selected Dissemination of Information. In the old days,
only librarians could save and run this special type of search, but now,
anyone with access into OVID through the Virtual Desktop can set up an
SDI.
SDIs can be setup in any OVID database.
It is important to know how often the database you choose is updated.
Our most popular databases, Medline and Current Contents are both updated
weekly, usually on Thursday night.
Keep in mind, when you login into the Virtual
Desktop with your UAB ID, you are grouped into departmental accounts, so
all searches done within a department will be saved together and can be
run or deleted by anyone in the department.
The general directions for setting up an SDI using the web interface
of OVID are below. If you have problems or questions about SDIs or
the Virtual Desktop, contact the InfoDesk at 934-2230.
To set up a weekly SDI. Steps 1-6 only have to be done once.
1. Login into OVID and select your database.
2. Conduct your search using as many search statements as you
need. Limits and special features all may
be used.
3. Limit to Latest Update. This is the last segment of
articles added to the database.
4. Click on Save Search History.
5. Choose to save the search permanently and enter your name
and any comments. This is helpful if you
choose to set up more than one SDI. Please remember that
the SDI is stored with others from with
in your department, you may want to consider this when naming
your saved search.
6. Click on Save Search. A screen will display all the
searches saved under that particular OVID login ID.
Your new one should be added.
7. To run the search, login to OVID, choose the database, click
on Run Saved Search, choose the search from
the list and click on Run Search.
To set up a monthly SDI. Steps 1-5 only have to be done once.
1. Login into OVID and select your database.
2. Conduct your search using as many search statements as you
need. Limits and special features all may
be used.
3. Click on Save Search History.
4. Choose to save the search permanently and enter your name
and any comments. This is helpful if you
choose to set up more than one SDI. Please remember that
the SDI is stored with others from with
in your department, you may want to consider this when naming
your saved search.
5. Click on Save Search. A screen will display all the
searches saved under that particular OVID login ID.
Your new one should be added.
6. To run the search, login to OVID, choose the database, click
on Run Saved Search, choose the search
from the list and click on Run Search.
7. To limit to the last month, click on Search Fields.
8. Check the box beside Entry Month, type the year and month
(e.g. 199906) in the enter box and click on
Display Index.
9. Check all the entries for the weeks in 199906, for example
19990601 (week one, etc.)
10.Combine the last statement of your search strategy with the statement
for the entry month.
Instruction for setting up an SDI in other systems can be found at:
New Pubmed interface
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query/static/help/pmhelp.html#SavingaSearchStrategy
Old Pubmed interface
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/linking.html
Instructions for Static Linking
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query/static/linking.html
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