OMG Tuna has been playing with RSS feeds in OvidSP and Google Reader and she has found it to be weird. I have begun to play around with them as well and since I primarily use Bloglines as my reader, I thought I would see if my thoughts were different. Personally, I didn't find it to be weird in Bloglines.

Here are the technical details you might need to know:

• Used Bloglines as the feed reader
• Used Internet Explorer 6 (Explorer 7 has RSS capabilities but it is not on library machines and in my old library it was prohibited to install it.)
• I was on campus using IP validation.
• I did not try doing this off site (but I will later).
• For TOC RSS feeds, I only tried LWW titles.
• I will try ROC RSS feeds on non LWW titles using the link resolver another day.

As always, if somebody has a better way to do this or if I am missing something, please let me know.


I did several different types of searches and journal TOC's as RSS feeds in OvidSP.


Table of Contents RSS Feed for LWW titles:

The easiest way to set up a journal's TOC feed is to use the Journals at Ovid Full Text database. From their you must click on the Journals link which is located right beneath the Wolters Kluwer image (top left of page). Once you click on that link you are met with the A-Z listing of journals. Unfortunately I could not find a search box on that page where you could type in a journal to display that journal, so you must browse through all of the journals find the one you want. (Definitely would like a search box, scrolling through all the J's and "Journal of's" to get to the correct journal was a little annoying). Once you find the journal you want, right click on the RSS link and copy shortcut. Then open up your Bloglines account and "Add" the feed by pasting the link into the box.

Within Bloglines the table of contents for the journals is displayed nicely (to me). The feed name on the left hand side defaults to the name of the journal, volume, month, and year. The articles are listed in the main screen. Titles are linked and go back to the article in the Ovid Journal database. Abstracts are listed below the title. Unfortunately the author and the complete citation are not displayed. I think that information is important, you should see the author, page numbers and complete citation. However, I am not sure if this is an Ovid thing or a Bloglines thing. As I mentioned, clicking on the title of the article brings me to the full text (HTML) article within Ovid Journal database.

If you do not have the Ovid Journals database "turned on" under your list of databases, you can still get the table of contents, but this requires you do a search and save that as an RSS feed. (Similar as to how you can get the TOC from PubMed)

Searches Saved as RSS Feeds:

I created a very basic search in OvidSP's Basic search using the natural language searching. I used a very broad term such as cancer, so that I could get immediate results.

Once you have created the perfect search that you want to save as an RSS feed. You must click on Search History then click on the RSS button. A nice little box pops up that says "Create RSS." You should name the search something you will understand, if you don't it will use some sort of long number which will mean absolutely nothing to you a month later (especially if you have multiple searches saved). The Comment allows you to further name the search or list the person it is for. Click Save. The RSS feed is saved and you right click on the RSS feed to copy it and "Add" it to your Bloglines account.

Search results are displayed in the main Bloglines box. Unfortunately only the title and the abstract is displayed. This is a big bummer. We really should be able to see the complete citation, including the PMID number. Clicking on the title you go to the full text (HTML) of the article if it is a title you have full text in Ovid. If you use a link resolver and that title is not available through Ovid you will go to the abstract and you will see the link resolver button. Clicking on the link resolver button will give you the full text (if you have a subscription) or your ILL form (if you don't have a subscription).

Summary:

• I like the idea of creating RSS feeds for the table of contents of journals and for searches.
• I think Ovid needs to add a search for journal box while you are searching for a journal in the Journals database.
• The citation MUST be included in the results. It is particularly important for regular searches saved as RSS feeds.
• I am not sure if there is a limit on the citations sent to Bloglines.

I liked using the RSS feeds on OvidSP. As I mentioned earlier, I did very generic simple searches from the library. I did not try doing any difficult things or accessing it from home. Because I think many people tend to check their Bloglines accounts when they are at home, this is the next thing I will try. Since I have Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox at home, I will report about my experiences with those as well. I also plan to see how or if I can use Ovid Journals table of contents RSS feed to provide the TOCs to non-LWW journals and getting the full text through the link resolver button.