In a workshop on 'Literature Searching' for a group of DNB students I briefly explained the 'Filters' feature in PubMed. I gave an example of using this feature to locate 'free full text' articles. In this context a student remarked "Anyway 90% of articles in PubMed are not free, so this feature will not be of much use". I sigh again, thinking - "PubMed's role DOES NOT include providing free articles". And several students / health professionals do not know this. PubMed has been available free since 1997. That is nearly 20 years now. And yet, many health professionals (and…

In Jan 2016, I attended the event – KRM (Knowledge Resources Management) – organized by the Tata Memorial Centre’s Digital Library, with the Health Science Library Association of India.  There were interesting talks on these issues by librarians, users and lawyers. I shared my experiences with the participating librarians, telling them what they could apply in their libraries (apart from the declarations that they take while providing copies):Providing copies to users for academic / research purposes:Explain to users why you ask them to sign a declaration when they ask for copies. Tell them that once they have signed, they cannot make…

WHAT:  MECOR 2016- Methods in Epidemiology, Clinical & Operational Research - an event that takes place in India (MECOR India) every alternate year. The workshop is organized by a group of Physicians from the American Thoracic Society, USA, in collaboration with the Public Health Institute (USA), and in India, with the Indian Chest Society and the National Center for Disease Control. MECOR offers the program at three levels. Participants have to qualify for each level before going to the next one. The faculty includes three Indians - who have been participants in earlier MECOR programs. I have been a special lecturer in four out of…