Case studies of the indexing and retrieval of pharmacology papers

摘要

This article reports a detailed analysis of the coverage and indexing of 30 papers on pharmacological topics by BIOSIS, CAsearch, EMbase, and MEDLINE online, and Biological Abstracts, Chemical Abstracts, Excerpta Medica, and Index Medicus printed versions. Only MEDLINE, Index Medicus, and EMbase had adequate coverage of letters. There was considerable variation in the indexing applied with drug formulations, drug syntheses, clinical trials, pharmacokinetics, drug synergy, and other pharmacological aspects of the papers often inadequately indexed. The value of natural language words in online searching was demonstrated.