Metadata: NLM Adds New MeSH Headings For Zika Virus
From the National Library of Medicine (NLM Technical Bulletin):
On January 27, 2016, two new MeSH headings were added to the 2016 MeSH Browser in response to increased reports in the literature about the Zika virus outbreak and its tentative association with microcephaly and Guillain-Barre Syndrome in pregnant women:
The terms also appeared in the MeSH export file available to licensees on January 27, 2016.
Indexing for the new headings began January 28, 2016.
In addition, NLM Indexing staff will review citations previously indexed on this topic to determine if the new headings should be applied to the citations.
Here is a suggested interim PubMed search strategy to retrieve citations on Zika until the review of previously indexed citations is completed:
- Zika [tiab]
Using the [tiab] search tag finds citations that have already been indexed with MeSH or are still in process. The tag restricts retrieval to the article title, abstract, or author keyword fields and prevents false drops from other fields such as author name.
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About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.