Uptodate has recently released several new features including a mobile app that is still only available to individual subscribers. Well now the institutional subscribers have a wonderful new feature:
One of the best new features is the connection with libraries LinkOut accounts. LinkOut is a product of the National Library of Medicine and provides links from PubMed and other Entrez databases to publishers or vendors full text that is available in your library. Of course your medical librarian, hopefully you have one, sets these links up and maintains them.
The new feature in UpToDate allow libraries to add a customized PubMed Linkout button. Here is a screen shot of how our button looks:
The customized button will lead you too PubMed and display your library’s icon if your library has the item in print or online. The link can either be to your library’s holding id (parameter or NameAbbr) in LinkOut or your shared MyNCBI username.
I choose the link to MyNCBI shared account so I could monitor the access to PubMed from UpToDate. I am curious to see how many actually review the references in UpToDate.
While I think this feature is long overdue, I am just glad it is finally available. It will certainly help libraries promote their services within UpToDate and is really great for the smaller libraries who do not have Athens or a link resolver.
So if your hospital has UpToDate and even if the library doesn’t manage the account (I’ve seen this at several locations) call your account representative to connect your LinkOut to UpToDate. Why not? It is a free way to promote your library!
On a side note, it would have been excellent PR in library land if UpToDate had announced this new feature in celebration of libraries and librarians as we work together to provide quality health information. After all, they did release the new feature in October (Medical Librarian’s Month), but they missed out on this excellent PR chance.
