How to search and harvest the medical literature: Let the citations come to you, and how to proceed when they do

Abstract

Background: There is a virtual avalanche of medical information available to clinicians and researchers. The traditional 'search' can be substantially augmented by proactive 'harvesting.' Aims: To describe how to search and harvest the medical literature. Materials & Methods: Survey of selected resources available on the internet. Results: PubMed remains the backbone of the traditional literature search. The availability of automated delivery of electronic tables of contents ('eTOCs'), electronic feeds of targeted search results, and workflow tools allows relevant articles to find the reader. Electronic storage and retrieval tools make it possible to manage this information and make day-to-day clinical and research activities more efficient. Discussion: Searching and harvesting the medical literature is made easier with the advent of the internet and email. In addition, there are internet resources that screen and filter potential articles of interest. Managing one's electronic library of PDF documents requires attention to appropriately naming files and the use of indexing programs. Conclusion: In addition to readers searching for relevant citations, these citations themselves can be searching for readers. Clinicians and researchers can take advantage of this and efficiently harvest the medical literature with a modest investment of time. © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.