After health, everything else

Priorities keep on changing and so do attitudes. In the recent past, we have started attaching much importance to health and the underlying implications of being careless towards physical well-being. The gradual change in perception towards health has seen a spurt in medical research and its relevant applications. With this in the backdrop, the National Informatics Centre has yet again risen to the occasion by providing instant access to biomedical database through an arrangement with the National Library of Medicine, USA. The database, known as MEDLARS, would go a long way in meeting the information requirements of doctors, medical researchers and students alike.

The concentrated efforts of NIC has seen the advent of Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval Systems (MEDLARS) in India. Designed and developed by the National Library of Medicine, USA, MEDLARS, comprising of 40 different databases, is the most extensively used Biomedical Information System in the world. The information provided by this system extends to published and unpublished literature in most areas of medicine.

About MEDLARS

An unmatched repository of biomedical information, the Indian MEDLARS Centre at NIC headquarters is the 17th such international centre that provides bibliographic information services to medical professionals, health administrators and para-medical staff. The information is gleaned from over 40 databases available under MEDLARS.

One of the most important databases of MEDLARS is MEDLINE, which covers articles from over 3,700 journals from 70 countries in the field of general medicine, including nursing, dentistry and preclinical sciences.

The MEDLARS database has vast resources of biomedical information, both bibliographic (citation plus abstract) and full text, relevant to the fields of medicine, pharmacology and biotechnology.

Partially supported by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the facility created by NIC at its Bibliographic Informatics Division can be accessed through NICNET. Biomedical journals can be located in any library in the Country from the Catalogue of Biomedical Periodicals. To help users locate their required journals, a database of the holdings of over 150 biomedical libraries has been created. This Catalogue can be searched interactively from any NICNET node.

Non-bibliographic information is available from GENEBANK (gene sequence databank), EMBL (DNA sequence databank), and other sequence databases under MEDLARS.

Information can also be obtained from a wide variety of CDROM databases in the fields of medicine, health and biological sciences. Full text of articles is provided from ADONIS document delivery system on CDROM which contains articles from over 600 core biomedical journals.

ADONIS gives the pages as they appear in the journal, including all halftones and graphics. The CDROM database at NIC headquarters comprises of MEDLINE data from 1986 onwards.

Access to MEDLARS

The services offered by the Indian Medlars Centre at NIC can be accessed by institutions and individuals alike. The services may be accessed in the following ways:

  • By a direct connection to NICNET using VSAT or a dial-up connection from NIC State or District Centres through a modem and telephone line, users can have unlimited access to MEDLARS.
  • By sending search requests to the Indian Medlars Centre through fax, postal mail or electronic mail from Regional, State or District centres of NIC. Results of search requests are mailed back to the user within 24-hours.
  • By personally going over to the NIC centres where NIC officials provide service instantaneously.

Training

The National Informatics Centre provides free training to doctors, librarians and other staff of the user organizations for efficient Medlars searching. Various tailor-made courses have been devised by the Indian Medlars Centre at NIC to impart training. These are:

  • USER AWARENESS PROGRAMMES: A number of such programmes are conducted every year in medical colleges and hospitals throughout the Country.

These programmes are intended to familiarize medical professionals with the use and relevance of Information Technology in biomedical research and health care.

ON-LINE SEARCHING OF BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATABASES - In this course expertise is imparted to the users for searching the Medline and AIDS databases using BRS/SEARCH, a bibliographic retrieval software package.

ON-LINE SEARCHING OF BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATABASES: This course teaches the techniques for searching CDROM databases and familiarizes the users with contents of different databases the centre subscribes to.

CUSTOMIZED COURSES: These courses are organized at user-sites, on demand, and are especially tailored to suit user requirements. NIC has now developed its expertise in offering tailor-made courses for its users, whenever a new service is launched by it.

SERVICES OFFERED BY INDIAN MEDLARS CENTRE

  • Online access to MEDLINE and AIDS databases.
  • Full text of selected journal articles.
  • Information from databases accessible via Internet.
  • Information from other NLM databases.
  • Interactive access to CDROM databases.
  • Online search of Catalogue of Biomedical Periodicals.
  • Assistance in setting up MEDLARS search facilities.
  • User Awareness Programmes.
  • End-user training

Other Services

Various other services supporting the Indian Medlars Centre at NIC are now available over NICNET.

Some of these are:

E-Mail services to all research and educational institutes in the country under the RENNIC scheme of NIC. All ICMR institutes in the country have been provided NICNET connectivity for E-Mail and access to MEDLARS.

VALUE ADDED SERVICES FROM INDIAN MEDLARS CENTRE

Content Page: The content pages of interest drawn from over 600 core biomedical journals, included in the ADONIS database, are made available on a monthly basis.

Disease Package: In case of epidemics, such as Plague and Malaria, exhaustive information is compiled from different sources and disseminated over NICNET for free distribution to doctors and voluntary organizations in the affected areas.

Drug Package: Information about pharmacokinetics, contradictions, adverse effects of pharmacodynamics are supplied on demand.

Patient Care Package: Top priority is accorded to information needs for patient care which is compiled and provided in the shortest possible time.

By virtue of its linkage to Sprintnet and Internet, NICNET now facilitates access to over 200 networks in about 150 counties around the globe.

With the setting up of the Centre for World Wide Web (C-WEB) at NIC Headquarters, it is now possible to connect to Web servers throughout the world including Biomedical Web servers.

Under the TELEMEDICINE programme, now in the pilot stage, doctors in remote districts can instantaneously consult specialists in major hospitals for patient care.

All of the above MEDLARS services offered by NIC can be accessed at very nominal charges. Services from the AIDS databases are offered free of cost.

For further information please contact:

MEDLARS Division, NIC, A-block, CGO Complex, Lodhi Road, New Delhi 110 033.

Ph: 4362359 FAX: 91-11-4362389 NICMAIL: ICMR&MEDLARS Email(uunet) nicnet!medlar0!root