How to Generate PubMed RSS Feeds
David Rothman has a nice "how to post" on generating RSS feeds from PubMed, complete with pictures. Having an RSS feed deliver updates on saved searches or tables of contents is a great way to bring the library services to the patron. However there PubMed's RSS feeds are not without their drawbacks.
As David mentions:
Things still needed to make PubMed RSS as good as it needs to be...
- As pointed out to me by Medworm's Frankie Dolan, PubMed doesn't make full use of the RSS tags, to note date, author, etc. All this information is instead wrapped up in the description tag. This makes any further parsing of data received from PubMed via RSS
extremely challenging. Further parsing of these feeds will likely be very important in making efficient, customized, future SDI systems. Step up, NLM! Be a pioneer! Commit to full use of standards! Lead the world of medical publishing and show 'em how it should be done!- PubMed RSS feeds should contain LinkOut icons, or at least contain a link: "Click here to see if you can get full-text access to this article now through your library," and this link should take the user to the PubMed citation with LinkOut Buttons.
One of my biggest pet peeves with PubMed and RSS feeds are the lack of LinkOut icons. Grrrrrr! If somebody sets up an PubMed RSS feed the publisher's icon comes through but the LinkOut icon does not, unlike the email updates which include the LinkOut icon. So, if you set up an RSS feed for a search that contains Elsevier journals or LWW journals (LWW's only accessible institutionally through Ovid) you only get the publisher's icons which if clicked bring you to these pages Elsevier and LWW publisher pages. Your users will be absolutely confused, they are not going to know what your library's "institutional entitlements" are.
I just used Elsevier and LWW as examples, this can happen with many of the journals in PubMed especially if your library gets a journal through an alternative way such as MDConsult or Ebsco (which aren't available from the publisher icons). We have been training users to use the LinkOut icons to get their articles and it is frustrating to not see them included in the RSS feeds. If the publisher icons can be present in the RSS feed and if the email alerts can contain the LinkOut icons then the RSS feeds should include the LinkOut icons as well.
I really am very happy about RSS feeds as a great way to increase and extend the library services to patrons, unfortunately without the LinkOut icons patrons will be frustrated by the perceived lack of full tavailabilitylity. NLM get with the program and find a way to include the LinkOut icons, you are doing libraries and users a huge disservice by not including them.
4 Comments:
We don't use LinkOut, as we have SFX. But when I checked a PubMed RSS feed, my institution's Find It button appeared--and I hadn't been in PubMed that day. However, I do have My NCBI set as "leave me signed in," and I have the Outside Tool set for here, so I think that gets around the generic institution issues w/ the RSS tools. (I hope that makes sense.)
Does adding your Link Out to your My NCBI filters, and staying logged in, solve the issue?
Not really. The thing I think should happen (perhaps I am wrong) but I think the LinkOut icon should display in the feed reader whether it is Bloglines, Google Readder, etc. This does not happen, only the publisher's icon displays.
If you have it saved as a MyNCBI search with the filters to include LinkOut you still don't get the icons displaying in the feed reader. It is only when you click on the citation link are you brought to PubMed and can see the LinkOut icon.
Not a terrible problem...IF (big if) your users:
1. want to set up a MyNCBI search
2. They know how to set their filters to include the LinkOut icons
3. They know to ignore the publisher's icon on the feed reader and click on the citation link.
Those are a lot of steps that your average one stop shopping user is not going to know or want to deal with.
Think fast food service. They want to go to drive up window order their meal and get it at the next window. They don't want to pull off to side while the fries are cooking, they don't want to be confused by the breakfast menu still up, and they certainly want it fast.
Our users want to go in to PubMed do a search and get out with the full text of the article. They don't want any extra steps added to the process.
I think PubMed should recognize IPs. We only have one ;-). Others may need to supply a range. That'd be more work for them than having the world's browsers do the work for them.
I also dislike this new positioning of our link icons at the bottom of the abstract. Phooey!
Ahh, I use Sage & I don't even see the publisher icons. Just related articles. So I assumed you were talking about seeing LinkOut when you go to the PubMed display, not the feed display.
I agree that it's a lot to ask users to set up a My NCBI acct (not a search, just an acct) & do the local customization so that they can see Link Out.
If NCBI recognized IPs, that'd be a vast improvement. I'm not holding my breath.
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