[Libs-Or] LigerCat - A fun way to search PubMed

[hleman at samhealth.org]

Hi, all.  I saw the item below today on the ALA science and technology discussion list. I think it is really worth reading.


Hope Leman, MLIS
Research Information Technologist
Center for Health Research and Quality
Samaritan Health Services
815 NW 9th Street Suite 203A
Corvallis, OR 97330
(541) 768-5712


LigerCat (http://ligercat.ubio.org) is a web application that allows a researcher to search for articles in PubMed and then explore the resulting set via the key words (MeSH descriptors) associated with the result set.

 LigerCat facilitates the use of plain language queries or molecular sequences to search the PubMed database for articles. Using keywords it is also possible to search the National Library of Medicine’s Journals database to find relevant journal titles and then explore the keywords in articles published in those journals.

The search results are displayed as an occurrence-weighted tag cloud, with the terms associated more articles presented in a larger font size.

LigerCat also serves a Publication Data Histogram. In the Articles Search a Publication History graph is displayed in addition to the MeSH tag cloud. This is an interactive graph. Mousing over the graph will highlight years and display the number of articles from that year that your search retrieved. Clicking on the bar for that year performs the search in PubMed and takes you to that result page. In the Genes Search, the graph will not take you to PubMed but you still can see how many articles related to the query sequence were published in each year. It is also possible for users to copy a code snippet for users to display a particular MeSH cloud on their own web page.

Please try out LigerCat. We are always happy to get feedback and suggestions for improvement.



Thanks


--
Holly Miller, PhD MLIS
Director, MBLWHOI Library
Associate Director, Center for Library and Informatics
Marine Biological Laboratory
7 MBL Street
Woods Hole, MA 02543 USA
voice: 508-289-7632
email: hmiller at mbl.edu

Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is
for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential
and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or
distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please
contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original
message.