Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
Resources and tools for bibliographic research
MeSH : A Thesaurus for PubMed
Resources and tools for bibliographic research 2013
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Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
What is MeSH? Who uses MeSH?
Why use MeSH?
Searching by using the MeSH Database
Resources and tools for bibliographic research 2013
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Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
What is MeSH?
• Acronym for Medical Subject Headings
• The U.S. National Library of Medicine's controlled
vocabulary (thesaurus), created in 1960
• Gives uniformity and consistency to the indexing
and cataloging of biomedical literature and is a
distinctive feature of MEDLINE
• Similar to keywords on other systems
• Arranged in a hierarchical manner called the
MeSH Tree Structures
• Updated annually to reflect changes in medicine
and medical terminology
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Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
Who uses MeSH?
• Searchers of MEDLINE/PubMed, library catalogs,
and other databases -- to assist with subject
searching
• National Library of Medicine (NLM) Indexers -- to
describe subject content of journal articles for
MEDLINE
• Catalogers -- to describe books and audiovisuals
in the NLM and other medical library collections
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Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
2013 MeSH Vocabulary includes four types
of terms (1):
Headings
over 26,853 headings (descriptors) represent concepts found in the biomedical
literature (e.g. kidney, radioactive waste, self-medication). MeSH headings used
to describe the group or a person being studied are called “check tags”
(human,animal, female, male etc.)
Subheadings (also called qualifiers)
attached to MeSH headings to describe a specific aspect of a concept
(e.g. drug therapy, epidemiology, etiology)
Supplementary Concept Records
over 214,000 terms (in a separate thesaurus). These are primarily substance
terms, but also include some protocols and rare disease terms.
These terms are updated weekly
(e.g. cordycepin, tacrolimus binding protein 4, Snyder Robinson syndrome)
Resources and tools for bibliographic research 2013
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Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
2013 MeSH Vocabulary includes four types of
terms (2):
Publication Characteristics (Publication Types)
describe the type of publication being indexed, i.e. what the item is,
not what the article is about (letter, review, randomized controlled trial)
Also over 213,000 Entry terms that assist in finding the most
appropriate MeSH Heading
Resources and tools for bibliographic research 2013
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Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
The MeSH® Tree Structures
MeSH headings are organized in a "tree" with 16 main branches (i.e.
Anatomy, Diseases, Chemical and Drugs etc.)
Each branch has many levels of sub-branches, and each heading has a
position in the hierarchy (subheadings are arranged hierachically too !)
Some terms appear in more than one branch of the tree (e.g. Ear in
Anatomy-Body Regions and Ear in Anatomy-Sense Organs)
The hierarchy allows a MEDLINE/PubMed search of a broader term to
include the narrower terms in all branches automatically.
This is known as “exploding”
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Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
MeSH - Major Topics
Asterisks on MeSH headings and subheadings designate that
they are the major topics of the article, usually obtained from
the title and/or statement of purpose
e.g. Wound Healing/radiation effects*
Non-major (non-asterisked) headings and subheadings are
usually additional topics substantively discussed within the
article, terms added to qualify a major topic, or check tags.
Check tags are never major topics
Resources and tools for bibliographic research 2013
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Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
The MeSH Database allows you to:
 locate and select MeSH terms (Headings, Subheadings,
Supplementary Concept terms, Publication Types)
 see the definition and other helpful information for a
MeSH term
 see the position of MeSH terms in the hierarchy
 select MeSH heading/subheading combinations to build
a PubMed search
 limit MeSH terms to a major concept for a search
Resources and tools for bibliographic research 2013
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Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
More about the MeSH Database
Note 1:
Searching with MeSH subject terms excludes in process and publishersupplied citations, as well as other PubMed citations that are not indexed
for MEDLINE (e.g., citations that are out of scope for MEDLINE, such as a
volcanology article in Science) and Oldmedline records. These records do
not (or do not yet) include MeSH subject terms
Note 2:
Filters are MeSH term! Deactivate the function Filters activated, before
searching article in press, publisher-supplied articles and older MEDLINE
records
Resources and tools for bibliographic research 2013
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Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
PubMed coverage
[PubMed – as supplied by publisher]
Citations received electronically from
publishers.
No MeSH term
[PubMed - in process]
Records providing basic citation
information and abstracts before the
citations are indexed with NLM MeSH
Terms and added to MEDLINE.
Daily updated
No MeSH term
[PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]
New citations that have been indexed
with MeSH terms, publication types,
GenBank accession numbers, and
other indexing data.
Daily updated
MeSH terms available
[PubMed]
The out-of-scope citations from
certain MEDLINE journals, (not
biomedical science journals) for
which the life sciences articles are
indexed for MEDLINE.
No MeSH term
[PubMed – OLDMEDLINE]
OLDMEDLINE records (1948-1965)
MeSH terms -Not for all records
Resources and tools for bibliographic research 2013
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Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
More about the MeSH Database
Autocomplete feature available from the search box
Relevance-ranked order display of Search results
When a user’s search exactly matches a MeSH Term, that Term is
displayed first
Year Introduced is the year the term was added to MeSH
If more than one year is shown, the term was available
for indexing back to the earliest year noted
Resources and tools for bibliographic research 2013
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Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
PubMed Automatic Term Mapping and MeSH
Translation Table
Untagged terms that are entered in the PubMed Search box
are matched (in this order) against :
 a MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) translation table
 a Journals translation table
 the Full Author translation table
 Author index
 the Full Investigator (Collaborator) translation table and
an Investigator (Collaborator) index
Resources and tools for bibliographic research 2013
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Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
The MeSH Translation Table contains:
 MeSH terms (i.e. liver, scoliosis, amiodarone etc.)
 The See-Reference mappings (also known as entry terms) for
MeSH terms
 MeSH Subheadings (diagnosis, drug therapy, etiology etc.)
 Publication Types (review, guideline, historical article etc.)
 Pharmacologic action terms (from 1996-)
 Terms derived from the Unified Medical Language System (ULMS)
that have equivalent synonyms or lexical variants in English
 Supplementary concept (substance) names and their synonyms
(CAS numbers, chemical names etc.)
Resources and tools for bibliographic research 2013
R. Sato
Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
PubMed Automatic Term Mapping and MeSH
Translation Table
If a match is found in this Translation table, the term will be
searched as MeSH (that includes the MeSH term and any specific
terms indented under that term in the MeSH hierarchy, i.e. Explosion
of the MeSH term), and in all fields
Important! Use of a field tag (i.e. Title [TI]) or use of asterisk * for
truncation and use of quotes “ ” for a phrase searching will turn off
the Automatic Search Mapping and bypass a search of MeSH!
Try your search without tags, quotes and truncation first!
Resources and tools for bibliographic research 2013
R. Sato
Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
PubMed Automatic Term Mapping and MeSH
Translation Table - Example
1. Search: avian virus
Search Details :
"parainfluenza virus 2, human"[MeSH Terms] OR "human
parainfluenza virus 2"[All Fields] OR ("avian"[All Fields] AND
"virus"[All Fields]) OR "avian virus"[All Fields]
(17128 results)
2. Search: “avian virus”
Search Details:
"avian virus"[All Fields]
(199 results)
Resources and tools for bibliographic research 2013
R. Sato
Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
New in PubMed 2013!
 Non-english abstracts in PubMed, if supplied by publisher
(links on the Abstract display)
 PubMed now displays author keywords when supplied by
publishers
 Download history link was added to the Advanced page
History feature
 New system of registry number identifiers for chemical
substances (Unique Ingredient Identifiers - UNIIs)
 MEDLINE indexed citations and the MeSH database have
been updated with 2013 MeSH vocabulary
Resources and tools for bibliographic research 2013
R. Sato
Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
NCBI Databases – Entrez cross database http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gquery/gquery.fcgi
Information literacy in chemistry: resources and tools (2012)
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Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
Web Tutorials and Training Resources
Basics of MeSH
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/disted/mesh/
Branching out: The MeSH Vocabulary (11 min video)
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/disted/video/
Medical Subject Headings Homepage
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html
MeSH Browser
Online vocabulary look-up aid designed to help quickly locate descriptors of possible interest
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html
PubMed Online Training
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/disted/pubmed.html
For all the NLM electronic resources follows this link
http://wwwcf2.nlm.nih.gov/nlm_eresources/eresources/search_database.cfm
Resources and tools for bibliographic research 2013
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Polo Bibliotecario di Scienze, Farmacologia e Scienze Farmaceutiche
Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Farmacologiche e in Biomedicina
BIBLIOGRAFIA
PubMed Help: NCBI Help Manual. Bethesda (MD): National Center
for Biotechnology Information (US), 2005-.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK3830/
Resources and tools for bibliographic research 2013
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