The PubMed Help Online Book:
Digital Publishing with the National Center for Biotechnology Information Bookshelf

Medical Library Association 2005 poster presentation abstract

Authors

Jeffery Loo
National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD

Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, Jo McEntyre, and Kathi Canese
National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD

Keywords: e-publishing, end-user training, XML

Objective

The popular PubMed database offers rich functionality for searching the medical literature. PubMed is regularly searched by over 500,000 users each day. This project created a more usable help system for PubMed by editing the instruction manual and then digitally publishing the manual as a searchable online book.

Methods

The existing hypertext markup language (HTML) manual was improved in the following ways:

  • The manual was edited to provide user-friendly answers to common PubMed searching questions.

  • Instructions are provided in note-point form for easier online reading and referral.

  • Search examples are linked to live PubMed searches for demonstration.

  • Instructional graphics concisely explain the PubMed interface and some of its complex functions.

  • The needs of different levels of users were addressed. Advanced skills are explained in supplemental sections for advanced users. For the new user, a quick start guide provides short introduction to the basics of PubMed searching.

  • The PubMed database will be linked to the help manual in a context-specific manner.

The manual was then converted into extensible markup language (XML) format. The digital publishing system generated the online book to include powerful search, organizational, and navigational features. A portable document format (PDF) copy for printing was also generated.

Results

The first draft of the help manual has been written. The infrastructure is in place for continuous editing, searching, and contextual hyperlinking from different parts of PubMed. Upon full publication, the manual will be regularly updated alongside developments in the PubMed database.

Conclusions

The PubMed Help Online Book will be the prototype for the future development of searchable, XML-based, online help manuals for National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) resources.



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