MeSH Subheadings, continued

To follow up on an earlier post, if you'd like to submit comments regarding the proposed subheading changes, the deadline has been extended to June 16, 2006. There will also be opportunities at MLA to talk with NLM regarding the changes. Here is an excerpt from a message posted to the GMR NN/LM listserv this week:

"We'd like to thank those who have sent us their comments on the proposal to revise subheadings in MeSH. It has been suggested that additional time to consider the proposed changes and provide input would be very helpful. Therefore, we're extending the deadline for comments to June 16, 2006.

"Additional information about the proposal will be presented by Stuart Nelson, Head, MeSH Section during the NLM Online Users Meeting, which is on Monday, May 22, 2006 at 7:15 am. Dr. Nelson will also be available at the NLM booth from 10:00-11:00 am on Monday to answer questions and hear further comments.

"Due to the long lead time needed to make changes in the MeSH file, the indexing manual, the online indexing system, documentation and training materials, etc., changes to subheadings will not take place until release of the 2008 MeSH. "

toxicity, standards, utilization, diet therapy

In case you've been vacationing in the Carribbean for the past few weeks, I wanted to catch you up on the fact that NLM is making some changes to MeSH subheadings (including the four listed above). Some of our favorites will be absorbed into other subheadings, although they will remain as entry terms in the database.

What will this mean for FPIN searching? Well, obviously this will mean changes in how we approach searching some topics, but relatively little will be changed in our FPIN protocol and filters. Probably the only change you will see on paper is an adjustment to the Diagnostic Testing search filter (Ovid, PubMed), which uses several of these subheadings in one of the search lines (analysis[sh] OR blood[sh] OR cerebrospinal fluid[sh] OR diagnosis[sh] OR diagnostic use[sh] OR immunology[sh] OR urine[sh]).

There has been a lot of discussion and formal statements made throughout the medical librarian community. If you’d like to catch up on some of these, I recommend that you take a look at the MLA Public Services Section list-serv (archives) or MEDLIB-L (archives). If you’d like to submit a formal comment to NLM, you can still do so through Friday, April 14 (yes, that’s tomorrow). More information is available online at the What’s New in MeSH page on the NLM website.

Questions or concerns about how these changes will affect FPIN searching may be addressed to myself or other members of the FPIN Librarian Team. If you would like to share comments or questions with other colleagues in our community, feel free to respond to the librarian community email list or post a comment here on the blog.