Date: Mon, 21 Mar 94 08:50:53 MEZ
From: "Dr. Stefan P. Mueller"
Subject: MEDLINE on CD-ROM [Summary]

On Wednesday, 23 Feb 94 I asked for advice on MEDLINE systems on CD-ROM:
>
> We want to buy MEDLINE on a CD-Rom (medical reference database). I am
> aware of "SilverPlatter" (we are using it on a PC in the campus library)
> and "Knowledge Finder".
>
> 1.  Which other MEDLINE systems are available?
> 2.  Are there comparative reviews?
> 3.  Please send your personal experiences!
>

I want to thank tan@aeolus.vmsmail.ethz.ch (Song Tan), WJST%GSF.DE (Matthias
Wyst), jerry_di_salvo@merck.com (Jerry Di Salvo), deutsch@sfu.ca (Maurice
Deutsch), gormanp@ohsu.EDU (Paul Gorman), ACAPUTO@ACS.SAULTC.ON.CA (Aldo J
Caputo), and sridar@nil.mni.mcgill.ca (Sridar Narayanan) for their comments.

Thefollowing systems are available:

    - Silver Platter
    - Knowledge Finder
    - Ovid Medline by CDPLUS
    - Stat-Ref
    - Peruse (used by McGill's McIntyre Medical library)
    - Macintosh Medline by Telnet (call 800-638-8480)

Paul Gorman sent the following brief reviews which also reflect the opinions
found in other responses:

-  KNOWLEDGE FINDER: Mac and Win versions have same interface; scalable to
networks of varying sizes, available in magnetic (much faster) as well as
CD-ROM formats; offers natural language query entry, MESH mapping, subheadings,
relevance ranking; especially attractive to novices who find it "intuitive."

-  CD-PLUS (OVID): Win, DOS, and terminal versions have same interface and
functions (Mac said to be in planned); scalable to networks of varying sizes,
(Novell or Unix) available in magnetic and cd-rom formats; MESH mapping, scope
notes, subheadings;  easy to use for novices, appeals to experienced searchers
because it offers most full MEDLINE functionality, etc.  Can add other
databases, such as CINAHL, etc.

-  STAT-REF:  Mac and Win versions have same interface and functions; no
network version of which I am aware;  combines clinical subset (eg primary
care, cardiology, etc.) of recent MEDLINE with separately licensed full-text of
textbooks on same disk;  natural language queries without MESH or full MEDLINE
functions.  Intended more for physicians in practice.

-  full text of various high-profile journals are available if you're needs are
narrow and clinical.

-  don't forget NLM Grateful Med access over internet.  (contact NLM).


-  Silver Platter:  Paul has no experience with Silver Platter. Silver Platter
is in use at our campus library and has been satisfactory for me and others,
however, I haven't had a chance to compare it to other systems. It uses plain
English as well as MESH heading searches with a Boolean search logic.


Song Tan sent the following comparison of Silver Platter and Knowledge Finder:

"...  By some strange coincidence, I posted almost exactly that same question
on bionet.software about one or two weeks ago.  I've gotten a few replies, but
nothing hugely illuminating.  A couple of people said they were using Silver
Platter and were satisfied. One person was strongly against Knowledge Finder
because he felt that the search engine wasn't very good.
    I've played with a demo disk of Knowledge Finder, and I have access to
Silver Platter, so I have some idea of these two different front ends.
Knowledge Finder makes a big deal that one can use plain sentences or phrases
to search, instead of using Boolean type logic. I don't really see any
advantage to Knowledge Finder's scheme since our lab is perfectly happy to use
Boolean searches (AND, OR, NOT). Silver Platter's search engine seems fine
(Boolean search logic). The major difference between the Silver Platter and
Knowledge Finder seems to be that SP comes with one year's of Medline on one
CD-ROM, where KF has 2-3 years of Medline per CD-ROM.  Prices are about the
same for SP and KF, so we are leaning towards KF.  At the present time, SP does
not support multiple year searches (i.e., even you have several CD-ROM drives,
so that all the disks you want to search are accessible, SP will not perform an
uninterrupted multiple year search.  You will have to tell the program to check
each year individually, although you don't have to actually type in the search
words again.  KF doesn't support multiple year searches either, but at least
you have less CD-ROMs to cover.
    I'm going to try and ask our local distributor for a trial version of KF so
that I can really test whether KF's search engine is faulty. The person who
wrote and said that he didn't like KF said that KF seemed to miss items that SP
picked out.  Bit worrying, that. If not for this, KF would be our choice."

I followed up on the missed search items with Knowledge Finder and got a reply
from Matthias Wyst in German. He had the opportunity to evaluate both systems
over extended periods of time in daily work. His comparison of Knowledge Finder
and Silver Platter led to the conclusion that the coverage of Knowledge Finder
is clearly inferior to Silver Platter. He asserts that this is also reflected
in the smaller number of CD's the system is stored on.

Maurice Deutsch recommended SilverPlatter "... but if you can afford it, take a
look at Medline on CDPLUS's Ovid. It'll run on either a dos or, better yet, a
unix platform. It's fast, has a very fast search engine, lots of built in help,
intelligent searching--will normally look for something typed in in Mesh; if
that fails it will search titles and abstracts--you can search Medline in
groups of years, 4 groups from 1966 to the present. At Simon Fraser University,
I have access to a unix version running at the University of British Columbia.
It has lots of smart features built in; cdplus really did it homework. The
version at UBC also has Nursing and Allied Health, and Health Planning and
Admin. I was really stuck by the speed of doing complex exploded searche ..."
Maurice also suggested a recent article: Ovid/Medline, A gourmet choice. Pter
Jacso, DATABASE, Feb, 1994, 31-38.

Network based systems were suggested by Aldo J Caputo who read about the
possibility of connecting to Macintosh Medline by Telnet (call 800-638-8480).
Paul Gorman suggested the NLM Grateful Med access over internet (how does this
work?) and Sridar Narayanan mentioned the Peruse system at McGill's McIntyre
Medical library: "... Basically they have a server at the library with a huge
disk array containing the database, which I believe is updated weekly.  Your
perform the search using the Peruse client on a workstation or networked PC or
Mac, which connects to the server via the net.  It's actually faster than using
the CD-ROMs locally, and can be conveniently used at your desk."

Unfortunately, nobody gave addresses and phone/FAX numbers of the publishers
(preferably not just 1-800 numbers which are not accessible from Europe). I
wouldn't mind if this sparked some controversy (e.g. about the relative merrits
of the search engines) and I am also perfectly willing to compile a second
short summary with addresses and phone numbers of the publishers of MEDLINE
products.

Thank you again for your responses.

Stefan