Janna C Lawrence

Searching for plant-based foods (PBFs) in PubMed is tricky because most of these are indexed in the Plants explosion, and not in the Food explosion. This has disadvantages for searching, but it also has the advantage that PBFs are classified by plant family, with related plants together. This is valuable because plant families have biochemical distinctiveness, which affects their nutrition. The hedge we use to combine with each plant family is described.

Objectives: Since its launching in 1966, the number of citations added in PubMed grows larger each year. In this poster, we will analyze the growth of literature on food-diet-nutrition (FDN) subjects and compare the publication trend of citations for FDN subjects to that of citations for all other subjects.

Methods: We have found that the rate of growth in citations added for most subjects is fairly similar. One exception is FDN subjects. Until around 1990, the growth of citations for FDN was slower than for other subjects. However, since 1990, that rate has become notably faster. We will illustrate the steady growth in citations for general FDN terms since 1990, and we will also look at specific terms that have sparked particular research interest for shorter segments of time. For example, in the early years of increased research in interest in FDN subjects, "dietary fiber" was an especially common topic of research.

Objectives: With the surging popularity of plant-based foods, our diet is quickly moving beyond the limited "Where's the Beef?" habits of many Americans. Unlike the standard meat-based diet, which includes just a few kinds of meat, plant-based foods come from a wide variety of plants. In thisposter we'll examine how PubMed’s MeSH tree structure facilitates searching this rich variety.

Methods: Searching for plant-based foods (PBFs) in PubMed is tricky because most of these are indexed in the Plants explosion, and not in the Food explosion. However, combining a Food-Diet-Nutrition hedge that we have developed with the Plants explosion makes it much easier. Although having most PBFs in the Plants explosion has disadvantages, it also has an advantage - PBFs are classified in the Plants explosion by plant family, putting taxonomically related plants together. Being able to search by family in PubMed is valuable because plant families have biochemical distinctiveness, which affects their nutrition. In this poster, we’ll describe how we have been able to use our Food-Diet-Nutrition hedge to find which plant families have the most articles. We will discuss these families, and show examples of specific foods that they contain.

Nuts as a healthy food is a very popular research topic - Two of the top eight articles in an Altmetric.com survey of the top 100 research articles in 2013 were on nuts in the diet. With the importance of nuts, then, it’s important that articles on the subject be able to be searched efficiently in PubMed. We will offer tips on how to do this.

Like many plant-based foods, searching for nuts in PubMed is tricky. “Nuts” is a MeSH term in PubMed, but it’s not an explosion, so it often does not work to retrieve articles on specific kinds of nuts. So, for example, most articles with specific kinds of nuts in the title (walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, etc) are not indexed with the MeSH term “nuts.” Another problem is that nuts (and other plant-based foods) are often only indexed by their botanical name and with no nutrition-related indexing. In our poster, we will look at search examples for different kinds of nuts and discuss strategies for maximizing retrieval.

With increased interest in the importance of diet in preventing and treating chronic diseases, plant-based foods (PBFs) have gotten much attention in recent years. Realizing that PBFs are a more important part of the diet in many non-US countries, we will analyze the country of authors for articles in PubMed on PBFs.

To determine whether some countries have more emphasis on PBF research than others, we will use a hedge that we have developed to search in PubMed for PBFs. We will combine this with a search for the country of the authors. In addition to searching for PBFs in general, we will also search for specific types of PBFs and combine this with the country of the authors. In addition to searching for PBFs in general, we will also search for specific types of PBFs and combine this with the country of the authors.

Plant-based foods are foods of the future. With millennials being called "the foodie generation," and foodie guru Michael Pollan saying "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants," it’s clear that plant-based foods will have surging popularity in the near future. In this poster we'll examine how well PubMed works for finding research articles on plant-based foods. The indexing of Food-Diet-Nutrition subjects in MeSH is complicated and inconsistent. Relevant terms tend to be scattered in different parts of the "tree structure," making it hard to know what categories to include in searching. This is especially a problem for plant-based foods: a large proportion of these are not in the Food explosion, but are only in Plants, and not in Food. These, of course, will not be retrieved by searching for “Food.” Adding to the complexity is that the three main categories of plant-based foods in MeSH - fruit, vegetables and spices - are treated differently in MeSH. We'll examine these groups carefully, to determine patterns of how different plant-based foods are treated.

Earlier this year, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences seized an opportunity for dramatic facility improvement that would necessitate closure of the building for the summer. Our library, while not as busy during the summer as during the academic year, is active year round. The Colleges of Dentistry and Medicine only break for a few weeks in the summer and those students need access to computers and resources. Although there are fewer users coming into the library, it is the time when many faculty do research, when medical students study for the USMLE, and when some programs conduct comprehensive exams requiring access to the collection.

In the midst of the chaos, we found opportunity: a chance to prove we were more than just a building. During our closure, we attempted to maintain as many of our services as possible. To do so, we embedded librarians in health sciences colleges, we established satellite reference desks, and we worked with the Sciences branch library to give students a place to study during the evening hours. We planned for an increase in ILL and we developed a strategy for circulating our print collection to patrons upon request. These activities allowed us to maintain our services as well as remaining visible to our patrons, while reinforcing to both staff and users that the library is not bound by our building.