This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Peter C. Amadio, MD
Mayo Clinic and Mayo Foundation Rochester, Minn

JAMA. 1986;255(16):2160.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

I am writing in response to the article and editorial on full-text medical literature data bases in the Nov 15, 1985, issue.¹ There is no question that computerized data retrieval systems greatly increase the accessibility of medical data to the practitioner. However, a disturbing tendency toward fragmentation of the provision of such data may decrease the utility of electronic medical data retrieval. I am referring to the increasing number of information networks available.

Not long ago, the only computerized data base available was that provided by the National Library of Medicine (MEDLARS). To my knowledge, this is still by far the most comprehensive single data base, containing nearly 4 million citations. It provides abstracts of some of the more recent articles but otherwise only gives a bibliographic citation. Other data bases have begun to include either more elaborate abstracts or full text, but from a limited . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?