IDEAL new "features"

[David Goodman <dgoodman@princeton.edu>]

I received the message below from ideal-users; as there seems to be no way
of replying directly, I am making my comment here:

Searching PubMed has for some time been easily available through an
excellent native interface free to everyone. I suppose its good that AP is
providing yet another link to it.

I can think of very little good use, though, for searching only the
Academic Press journals. Even the times when a library user comes and
asks, "I'm told something about ABC was published in X, but I don't
remember where or when," turn out to be in other journals frequently
enough that its more effective to search PubMed or some other Medline
version. Publishers have gone to considerable trouble and expense offering
this sort of my-brand-only search; the user is either looking for a
particular journal and couldn't care less who publishes it, or looking for
a particular subject and ought to be using an appropriate index to search
all the literature, not just one publisher's subset.


Subject: IDEALSearch Now Available
Date:  Tue, 8 Dec 1998 23:11:10 -0500 (EST)
From:   IDEAL Users <ideal-users@lists.academicpress.com>
      =20
> **************************ANNOUNCEMENT********************************
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> This month, the online journal library, known as IDEAL, has been
> enhanced with the introduction of IDEALSearch, a customized searching
> tool with an easy-to-use interface.
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> IDEALSearch allows users to:
> =B7  Search by subject area or journal, or conduct a broad search across
> all fields=20
> =B7  Search six specific fields: abstract, affiliation, author, date,
> keywords and article title
> =B7  Search across either PubMed or IDEAL databases.
=20
> The PubMed search feature on IDEALSearch allows users to submit a
> search across either PubMed or IDEAL from a single search screen.  A
> new window displaying PubMed results is opened.  From here, users can
> return to the IDEALSearch page or follow the PubMed links.
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> The IDEALSearch results include a "More Like This" link with each
> outcome. Clicking the link will submit a new search using the terms
> from the article.  Search results can be sorted by relevance, date, or
> journal.
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> For easy, advanced and quick journal searching online try IDEALSearch.
> Login and Search today from the IDEAL homepage at
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>      http://www.idealibrary.com
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> Click on the "login and search" option to access IDEALSearch.
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> Please feel free to forward this e-mail to IDEAL users in your
> institution.

--=20
David Goodman=20
Biology Librarian, Princeton University Library=20
dgoodman@princeton.edu         http://www.princeton.edu/~biolib/
phone: 609-258-3235            fax: 609-258-2627