Using PubMed@LLU

The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) provides the My NCBI tool which, once signed in, retains user information and preferences to provide customized services in PubMed and other databases. The following handout provides information on how to create an account, how save your searches, create alerts, how to create bibliographies and collections and search with your custom NCBI Filters.

NCBI Handout

1 Register for a My NCBI Account If you are working on a computer where you are the sole user check the boxes beside  "Keep me signed in" & "Remember my username".

2. Sign in to your My NCBI Account

3. In the "Table of Contents" box on the left select "Preferences"

4. Under "PubMed Preferences" clink on the "Outside tool" link.

5. Click on the "L" and locate "Loma Linda University Libraries" and select it.

6.  Click on "Save"

7.  On the top bar click on PubMed to return to searching PubMed. 

Search results can be saved in My NCBI using the Collections feature. There is no limit to the number of collections you may store in My NCBI. In addition, collections can be made public to share with others.

To save results to a new collection:

1. Sign into My NCBI. Run a search in PubMed.
2. Use the check boxes to select items from your search results or Clipboard. To save all results (up to a maximum of 1,000), do not tick any check boxes.
3. Use the Send to button and choose Collections.
4. Selected items will be added to a Collection.
   • If no items were selected, a drop-down menu of options will display where you may add selected items, all results on the page, or all results (up to a maximum limit of 1,000 citations) to a Collection.
   • An individual item can also be added to a Collection from its abstract page.
5. Choose Create a new collection.
6. Name your collection using a short, meaningful title. The name must be less than 100 characters. Identical names for different Collections are allowed and may cause confusion.
7. Click Add to finish.

As you continue to build collections, you may want to add new items to an existing collection. To add search results to an existing collection:

1. Follow steps 1 - 4 above. Add to an existing collection will be the default selection.
2. Use the pull-down menu to choose a collection.
3. Click Add to finish.

For more information on viewing, sorting, editing, merging, sharing, and deleting collections, see Collections in My NCBI Help.

Email Alert:

Click "Create alert" under the search bar to create an automatic email update for searches. You must sign in to My NCBI to use this feature.

RSS  Feed:

Click on Create RSS under the search box at the top of the page to create an RSS feed for your search.

1. The RSS feed name will default to the search terms. You can edit the RSS feed name as needed.
2. Use the pull-down menu to select the number of items displayed (up to 100).
3. Click the Create RSS button.
4. The RSS Feed Link will appear; click on Copy to copy the link.
5. Use this link with your feed reader or other application.