This document discusses the challenges of keeping up with the vast amount of new medical literature being published each year. It notes that PubMed alone indexes over 5,000 journals and that thousands of new citations are added each week. It then estimates that it would take over 600 hours per month to read all new entries. The rest of the document provides recommendations on tools and resources that can help researchers and medical professionals keep current, including table of contents alerts, saved search alerts in PubMed, Google alerts, blogs, Twitter, podcasts, and synthesized literature from sources like the Cochrane Library.

1. Keeping Current with the Literature
Mark MacEachern
Liaison Services Librarian
Health Sciences Libraries
markmac@umich.edu

2. The problem
• Pubmed alone indexes approximately 5200 US journals
• MEDLINE contains 18+ million citations
• About 2000-4000 citations are added each week
• 670 943 added in 2007 (NLM data)*
*http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/bsd_key.html

3. The problem is not new

4. So, how much time would it take?
627.5
hours / month

5. So, how much time would it take?

6. What can I do?
1. Table of Contents alerts (PubMed, OvidSP, ISI)
2. Literature alerts (PubMed, OvidSP, ISI)
3. Google alerts
4. Blogs
5. Twitter
6. iTunes U (podcasts)
7. iGoogle
8. Read synthesized literature
– Cochrane
– ADA EBD

7. Definition aside – RSS
• Really Simple Syndication
• Communication medium (like email)
• RSS feeds – coupled with client aggregators – provide
a way to keep track of frequently updated, web-based
content…
• …without having to constantly go to individual
websites to see if they’ve changed
• Updated web content automatically comes to you
– Blogs, News, TOCs, Searches, Grant opportunities, etc.

8. RSS
Common Craft. RSS in Plain English (http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english)

9. 1. TOC Alerts – PubMed – Find Journal(s)

10. 1. TOC Alerts – PubMed – Find Journal(s)

11. 1. TOC Alerts – PubMed – Find Journal(s)

12. 1. TOC Alerts – PubMed – Save Search

13. 1. TOC Alerts – PubMed – Save Search

14. 1. TOC Alerts – PubMed – Save Search

15. 1. TOC Alerts – PubMed – Save Search

16. 1. TOC Alerts – PubMed – RSS

17. 1. TOC Alerts – PubMed – RSS

18. 1. TOC Alerts – PubMed – RSS

19. 1. TOC Alerts – PubMed – Google Reader

20. 2. Literature Search Alert – PubMed – Conduct
Search
((periodontal diseases) OR (periodontium) OR (periodont*) OR
(periodontics)) AND (((diabetes mellitus) OR (diabetes insipidus)
OR (diabet*) OR ("dm 1" OR "dm i" OR "dm 2" OR "dm ii")) OR
((glycosylated hemoglobin a) OR (a1c OR "hb a1c" OR hba1c) OR
(blood glucose) OR ("blood sugar") OR ("glucose control") OR
("glucose level") OR ("sugar control") OR ("sugar level") OR
(hyperglycemia) OR (hypoglycemia) OR (glycemi*) OR (glycaemi*)
OR (hyperglyc*) OR (hypoglyc*)))

21. 2. Literature Search Alert – PubMed – Conduct
Search

22. 2. Literature Search Alert – PubMed – Save
Search

23. 2. Literature Search Alert – PubMed – Save
Search – MyNCBI

24. 2. Literature Search Alert – PubMed – Receive
Email

25. 2. Literature Search Alert – PubMed – RSS

26. 2. Literature Search Alert – PubMed – RSS

27. 3. Google Alerts
e.g.: (smoking OR smoker OR tobacco) AND dental implants
e.g.: “mark maceachern”

28. 3. Google Alerts

29. 3(a). Google News Alerts

30. 3(a). Google News Alerts (email)

31. 4. Blogs – Dental
http://www.thenewdentistblog.com/

32. 4. Blogs – Dental
http://implantblog.wordpress.com/

33. 4. Blogs – Dental
http://dentaltechnologyblog.blogspot.com/

34. 4. Blogs - General
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/

35. 5. Twitter
http://twitter.com/

36. 6. iTunes U – Dentistry

37. 6. iTunes U – Dentistry

38. 7. iGoogle
http://www.google.com/ig

39. 8. Synthesized Litearture – ADA EBD
http://ebd.ada.org/

40. 8. Synthesized Literature – Cochrane

41. Questions?
Mark MacEachern / UM Librarian / markmac@umich.edu