Case Study—Biomedical Indexing
U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), MEDLINE/PubMed, Index Medicus
Challenge
The U.S. National Library of Medicine has an ongoing need for
careful, current and precise indexing of biomedical literature from all
over the world. Researchers need to access the latest information on
disease research, new medications, current clinical trials, and other
vital topics. NLM requires that over 500,000 biomedical journal articles
be indexed each year for Index Medicus® and its online counterpart
MEDLINE®, the NLM's comprehensive database of references to more than 11
million international articles published in approximately 4,600
biomedical journals and categorized by nearly 22,000 keywords. This
information pertains to highly technical scientific subject areas such
as anesthesiology, biochemistry, cardiology, genetics, hematology,
immunology, microbiology, neurology, pharmacology, and radiology.
Contribution
IVI's professional staff analyzes and indexes English and foreign language articles in all biomedical and scientific disciplines for inclusion in MEDLINE®. IVI's highly trained indexers excel at analyzing each journal article for subject content and applying appropriate headings using NLM's controlled vocabulary, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH).
Outcome
Since 1982, IVI has made a continuous contribution to this complex and highly disciplined medical informatics system, making it easier for researchers and lay people to find and understand the scientific information they need. In doing so, we have developed a diverse, knowledgeable multilingual staff, well-trained and experienced in MeSH standard terminology.
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