MyNCBI Searches allow you to store PubMed search strategies for either later manual update or automatic email notification. This makes it easy to perform standardized searches to find the most recent information in your core areas of research and instruction, and to get the results of such searches on a regular basis, straight to your email inbox.

You can also store the PubMed citations and abstracts of articles of interest in a MyNCBI Collections folder. This is an easy way of holding onto relevant citations for an unlimited time, particularly if you are not going to be suing them for published research.

MyNCBI will also let you customize the way results are presented to you by applying standard filters to your articles. This will allow you to only see the articles in English, that are clinical trials, or that focus on the etiology of a disease.

Contents:

• Getting Started with MyNCBI
• Saving Searches in PubMed
• Saving Article Collections in PubMed
• Filtering Searches in PubMed

NOTE: You can use MyNCBI with most of the databases produced by the National Center for Biotechnology Information and the National Library of Medicine. If you would like specific help with databases such as GenBank, RefSeq, or OMIM, please let us know via the AskALibrarian service.

Getting Started with MyNCBI

Anyone in the world can register for MyNCBI for free. Simply click the Register link in the MyNCBI box at the top right of the PubMed screen.

You will be asked for a user name and password, the answer to a security question (in the event you forget your password), and your email address. In order to use the automatic emailing option in MyNCBI you MUST register your email.

Keep in mind:

• We cannot access your user name and password for you if you forget them. Please write down this information!
• Registration information such as User Name and Password are case sensitive.

Log In
You must login to access the features of MyNCBI. This login will remain active for 12 hours, or you may choose to have the computer automatically log you in at your computer. If you've already registered, click Sign In to get to the login screen.

If you've forgotten your password, click I Forgot My Password. In the Password Forgotten box, enter your user name and click on Lookup. Enter either your mother's maiden name or your pet's name on the next screen. Once this has been verified, MyNCBI will assign you a new password.

Signing Out
Click Sign Out from the MyNCBI box at the top of the PubMed screen.

Additional Administrative Options
To get into the MyNCBI system options, select MyNCBI from the PubMed Services section of the blue navigation bar at the left of your PubMed screen. You should now be in the general MyNCBI system.

You can change your email address and links display format by selecting User Preferences from the MyNCBI Resources section of the blue navigation bar. Change Password and Sign Out, also in that section, are self-explanatory.

Saving Searches
Run or Preview your search using as many terms and limits as are necessary for your topic.

Click the Save Search link next to the search box and buttons. If your last search is not displayed, your system may not be set to accept cookies.

A box will pop up with a number of options. You may edit the name of your search (the default is the keywords used). Note that the default is to NOT send you email; change the radio button to Yes if you do wish to have MyNCBI automatically email you results. If you check Yes, you will be given multiple options for when and how often you will receive email.

Click OK to save the search in your MyNCBI area.

Note:

Links to related articles cannot be stored. Dates and date ranges are not recommended for stored searches. Stored searches are numbered and listed in descending order according to the date and time they were originally stored. The maximum number of stored searches is 100 per user name. Stored searches cannot be edited.

Review a Saved Search
To see your saved search(es), click MyNCBI under PubMed Services in the blue navigation bar on the left side of the PubMed screen. If you are already signed in, the titles and last update information about your searches should be showing.

To review information about a saved search, click on the link under Details that shows how often the search is scheduled to be performed ("No Schedule" is for manual searches). Click the hyperlinked search name to run the search without update limits. This will not change the latest date and time for the search. Stored information includes the search name, date and time last updated, database searched, search terms, and field limits, when applicable.

Update Results of a Saved Search: Check for new items since your last update.

1. Select the search(es) you want to update by clicking the check box(es) next to the search name.
2. Click What's New for Selected. The Cubby displays the list of searches you selected along with an additional column indicating the number of new items retrieved since the last time you checked. If there are no new items, the Cubby displays 0 new.
3. Click # new items to link to the new items. Clicking on this link displays the new items and updates the stored search in the Cubby with the new date and time. If you do not click # new, the search date and time are not updated.

Delete a Saved Search
Select the stored search(es) you want to delete by clicking the check box next to the Cubby search name. Click Delete Selected. You can select and delete multiple searches at a time.

MyNCBI will also help you save collections of article citations/abstracts. Lab groups, journal clubs, and researchers often choose to save sets of related articles in PubMed for easy reference in the future. You may have up to 100 individual collections, and at this time colletions are retained permanently.

Before you start saving searches, please register for and sign into a MyNCBI account.

Saving Articles
To save a collection of articles in your MyNCBI space, first identify the articles that you wish to keep by placing them on the Clipboard. Instructions on how to do this are in the PubMed 10 Tips guide. To transfer articles from the Clipboard to a MyNCBI Collection, go to the Clipboard and select MyNCBI Collections from the Send To pull-down menu.

 Review A Saved Collection

A box will pop up with a number of options. You can choose to create a new collection with these articles or to append them to an existing collection. You can choose a name for your collection (the default is the number of articles). When you are happy with your settings, click OK to save your articles in a collection.

To see your saved search(es), click MyNCBI under PubMed Services in the blue navigation bar on the left side of the PubMed screen. Click the Collections tab to see your saved collections.

• Click the hyperlinked collection title to see the articles in PubMed.
• Click the hyperlinked number of articles under Details to see the list of articles in MyNCBI. If you'd like to delete articles from your collection, you can do it here.
• The Last Modified date indicates when you last added/deleted articles in the collection.
• To delete a collection, click the box next to the collection name and click Delete Selected.
• To merge two or more collections together, click the boxes of the collections to be merged and then Merge Selected Collections.

Filters will show up as tabs below the Display bar in the PubMed search screen. They are arranged in alphabetical order by filter name. You may have five active filters at once - note that each filter is independent of all, and at present there is no way to combine filters. Simply click on a tab to see only the articles "allowed" under that filter.

To select filters, click the MyNCBI link under PubMed Services in the blue navigation bar to the left of the PubMed search screen. You will see your saved searches as a default. Change to the filters by clicking Filters under My NCBI Resources in the blue navigation bar. You now need to select the appropriate database - in this case, click PubMed to set filters for literature searches.

You may choose from the quick list of most popular searches, or you can browse or search for additional filters. Choose a filter by checking the box next to the filter name.

Filters include the following categories:

• LinkOut: Articles with links (most likely full-text access) via outside organizations, including UNC-CH.
• Links: Articles with links to NCBI databases, including GenBank, dbSNP, and OMIM.
• Properties: Articles with specified characteristics, including language, age/gender of subject, human/animal studies, subset, publication date/type, and clinical or health services research queries.

Once you have set your five (or fewer) filters, you may search PubMed by simply entering keywords into the search box at the top of the screen, or by clicking PubMed in the black bar above the search box.