BIOMAIL versus Gooogle Scholar as awesome research/study tools

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

 

Google Scholar is amazing and very useful research resource. I use it

often but prefer its advanced engine:

http://scholar.google.com/advanced_scholar_search?hl=en & lr=

 

However, it has severe limitations as to the precision of search that it

can do, as compared with the extremely powerful search options

available on PubMed and PubMedCentral.

 

For example, in contrast to the limit of 32 search words on the main

Google engine, Google Scholar sets a limit of only 10 search words.

This means that Google Scholar cannot handle properly a complex

search that contains >10 search words.

 

In contrast, PubMed or PubMedCentral can handle highly complex

searches easily. Biomail [ http://www.biomail.org/ ], another NCBI free

facility, links seamlessly with PubMed or PubMedCentral. Users can set

up accounts (free) and easily programme Biomail to send weekly alerts

to specific search profiles.

 

For example here is a profile that I use for a weekly (automatic) search

of PubMed on herbal medicine (Biomail changes the Edat variables

automatically for the next weekly update):

 

(2006/01/10 [Edat]:2006/01/16 [Edat]) AND (herb? OR herbal* OR

phytother* OR kampo OR Ayurvedic OR ethnopharmacol* OR

((Traditional OR folk-medicin* OR healing) AND (decoct* OR infusion?

OR tea OR brew OR pill* OR powder* OR salve? OR ointment? OR

paste)))

 

To see how easily PubMed handles that complex search, see:

http://tinyurl.com/a3a6e

 

Here is another example of a Biomail Profile on acupuncture-related

topics:

 

(2006/01/10 [Edat]:2006/01/16 [Edat]) AND (acupo* OR acupu* OR

Electroacupuncture OR lllt OR " low-level-laser " OR moxib* OR

" transcutaneous electrical nerve " OR qi-gong)

 

To see outputs from that search, see: http://tinyurl.com/cyfpm

 

Such complex searches and automated weekly alerts on their specific

combination of terms are far beyond the capacity of Google Scholar.

 

Also, in spite of the misleading hype that it accesses all scholarly

publishers' domains, Google Scholar actually harvests only 10% of the

digital material open to it in those domains.

 

http://tinyurl.com/4gysk says: " More unnervingly, my test searches by

domain name clearly indicated that Google Scholar has gathered

information for only a small fraction of the articles available on several

publisher sites. For example, Blackwell claims that it has " 437,451

records for articles published in 755 leading journals. " Google Scholar

finds 53,400 records when doing a domain search. In other words,

nearly 90% of the records are not retrieved from Blackwell's archive

through Google Scholar. This is not an extreme example, and may have

serious consequences even if the record for some of those articles

missed by Google Scholar may show up in its results list from other

databases such as PubMed. These records, however, offer only the

descriptor-enhanced citation and/or abstract. They don't offer links to

the subscription-based journal archives to which the user's library may

. That's why the holes in the coverage of many scholarly

journal archives by Google Scholar is not merely an academic exercise

and issue for this reviewer, but something that is important to most of

the scholars and their libraries. That's why I elaborate on the coverage

issue, reporting about some additional test results here. "

 

BIOMAIL, which searches PubMed and/or PubMedCentral. is an

awesome research / study tool for professionals in medicine, veterinary

medicine, herbalism, acupuncture, homeopathy & other paramedical

areas. Practitioners, researchers, academics and students can get

AUTOMATIC weekly uptates of the latest abstracts in their chosen

fields of medical/veterinary study.

 

Those who may wish to register for BIOMAIL alerts can read about it at

http://www.biomail.org/biomail/quick.html and can register (free) at

http://www.biomail.org/

 

 

 

Best regards,

 

HOME + WORK: 1 Esker Lawns, Lucan, Dublin, Ireland

Tel: (H): +353-(0) or (M): +353-(0)

<

 

 

 

" Man who says it can't be done should not interrupt man doing it " -

Chinese Proverb