Online Medline plus Fan Search V Offsearch: A Comparison of Literature Retrieval Methods

Abstract

Medline is a computerized indexing and abstracting service for biomedical literature and is one of the most commonly used methods of literature retrieval. An alternative manual technique is fan searching. Fan searching involves scanning bibliographies of relevant articles from online Medline searches of the most current literature. We compared the amount of relevant literature retrieval between these two methods. We conducted 14 searches, which were randomly selected from typical drug information questions answered in our center. Overall only 20% of the references from computerized offsearches were identified by manual fan searching. In only one instance did fan searching identify greater than 50% of the same citations listed in the offsearch. We conclude that fan searching is not a comprehensive method of literature retrieval.

Keywords

Fan search Offsearch Medline Drug information Literature retrieval methods

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