After BIOETHICSLINE: Online Searching of the Bioethics Literature, December 2001

Abstract

From 1979 through December 2000, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics produced BIOETHICSLINE for the National Library of Medicine (NLM) as one of NLMs speciality MEDLARS databases designed to augment MEDLINE (the online version of Index Medicus). NLM is in the process of integrating these small specialty MEDLARS databases into two large databases: PubMed, a bibliographic database of journal citations linked in some cases to full-text materials (articles, books, and fact sheets) and/or to genetic sequence information; and LOCATORplus, an online catalog of books and similar types of publications. As of October 2001, BIOETHICSLINE monographic records were loaded into the monographic database LOCATORplus (http:// locatorplus.gov), and new records for these publication types are added to LOCATORplus on an ongoing basis. In addition, NLM has begun the transfer of BIOETHICSLINE journal records to PubMed (http:// pubmed.gov). These records now constitute part of a “Bioethics Subset” of MEDLINE, to which new records will be added on an ongoing basis. A future enhancement to the new retrieval system is the Gateway (http:// gateway.nlm.nih.gov), which is designed to offer cross-searching of several databases simultaneously.