INFORAD - COMPUTERS FOR CLINICAL-PRACTICE AND EDUCATION IN RADIOLOGY - SEARCHING ONLINE DATA-BASES

Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System (MEDLARS) is the National Library of Medicine's family of on-line health-oriented data bases. The MEDLINE (Index Medicus on-line) data base is probably the most well known. GRATEFUL MEI) is an inexpensive, user-friendly program for searching the MEDLARS data bases. With this program, a user can sort through a data base on author name, title, journal name, and subject words. A search can be further restricted to only articles written in English and to review articles. For a subject word search, the program helps the user select index terms used in the data base: The user types in a subject, and the program suggests appropriate terms available in the data base. Subject terms can also be linked to further restrict the search. When the search has been completed, the user can ask the program to print selected citations, copy them to a specified disk file, or cite them as relevant. For relevant citations, the program analyzes the associated index terms and suggests terms that might better retrieve the desired subject matter. The new terms can be used to revise the previously conducted search.