Health information and libraries journal
-
Comparative Study
A comparison of the coverage of clinical medicine provided by PASCAL BIOMED and MEDLINE.
The bibliographic databases PASCAL BIOMED and MEDLINE, available both at SilverPlatter, were compared for their coverage of clinical medicine. The main objective of the study was to identify the information in PASCAL BIOMED that is supplementary to MEDLINE. In PASCAL BIOMED and MEDLINE 10 searches were performed, all limited to publication year 1996. ⋯ Considering the numbers of relevant and unique references retrieved, MEDLINE performed better than PASCAL BIOMED. Yet a sizeable proportion of the relevant references were unique to PASCAL BIOMED. Probably PASCAL BIOMED would have performed better if lists of descriptors had been accessible in the database, preferably with support to trace them.
-
The paper articulates the problems of journal publication in a relatively small country such as Romania where locally (i.e. nationally) published journals include most of the national medical scientific output. The starting point was a study ordered by the Cluj University of Medicine and Pharmacy Scientific Council, for the purpose of obtaining an objectively ranked list of all current Romanian biomedical journals that could be used in the evaluation of the scientific activity of the university academic staff. Sixty-five current biomedical journals were identified--of which more than half were new titles that had appeared over the past 5 years. ⋯ The period covered, along with tools and formulas used are presented. The problems of Romanian biomedical journals as well as ways of improving publishing standards are discussed. Also emphasized is the necessity for increased awareness in the medical scholarly community and the role of the library in this respect.