Indian MEDLARS Center's (IMC) Biomedical  Databases


 
 
 

 

 


 
 

 

 

ICMR-NIC Center for Biomedical Information was set up in 1986 to cater to the information needs of medical professionals, who had limited access to the existing resources. This Centre was set up primarily to provide information from National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) MEDLARS databases.  Information was provided from MEDLINE (MEDLARS Online) database available in CDROM format and from NLM host computer.

In 1990, the Center was designated as the 17th International MEDLARS Center or Indian MEDLARS Center (IMC).  Services range from biomedical information services, information support services, training programmes and much more. Details of IMC’s services are available from http://indmed.nic.in.  IMC has designed and developed three indigenous databases, viz. IndMED (bibliography from 75 peer reviewed Indian biomedical journals), medIND (full-text from select IndMED journals) and Union Catalogue of Biomedical Journals (holdings data of 188 Indian medical libraries)
 
 Biomedical Information Services:

IMC provides information services from  various resources available over the Internet. Primary resources include the MEDLARS databases hosted from the National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) website (http://www.nlm.nih.gov). One such NLM database is MEDLINE (MEDLARS Online), which is the world’s largest biomedical bibliographic database comprising of nearly 11 million references from 4500 biomedical journals from 70 countries. Links to the NLM and other important biomedical Internet resources are available from IMC website. IMC's site serves as a portal to over 100 biomedical resources as well as e-journals available over the NET.

IMC also has a collection of biomedical CDROM databases Information from these databases and other Internet resources can be obtained on request from IMC. Search requests can be sent to the Indian MEDLARS Center, through postal mail, email or from any NIC Regional, State/UT and District centers. The search request can also be submitted directly from IMC’s webpage. Results of search requests are mailed back to the user within 24-48 hours.

The IndMED database has bibliographic information from 76 peer reviewed Indian biomedical journals with  information covered from 1986 onwards. This database is accessible free of cost from IMC website to users in India as well as outside India. A new database is being developed by the Centre; this medIND database is an Online full-text database of the journals covered in IndMED and this would serve as a one-point resource of all Indian literature.

A database of the Serials holdings of major medical libraries in the country, entitled Union Catalogue of Biomedical Periodicals has been compiled by IMC and this serves as an important information tool for locating journals of interest in any library in India. The database of 180 libraries is regularly updated and can be accessed by users free of cost from http://uncat.nic.in

Copies of articles from journals covered in MEDLINE are obtained from NLM, USA on request.

Training and User Awareness Programmes:

For precise and efficient information retrieval and access, IMC imparts free training to the Doctors/Librarians and other staff of its users. Various courses offered by IMC are:

Biomedical Information Retrieval: A special workshop conducted to impart training in retrieving relevant information from the biomedical resources accessible through NIC and Internet.

Customized courses: These courses are organized at user’s site, on demand, especially tailored to suit the user's requirements.

User Awareness Programmes: Programmes are conducted at medical colleges/hospitals and NIC State/District Centers and are aimed at creating an awareness of the biomedical information services being provided by IMC. These programmes include a lecture on the services followed by a live online demonstration.