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Abstract: Searchers often avoid EMBASE due to its high cost compared to MEDLINE. However, this paper demonstrates that when searching for a variety of pharmaceutical information, retrieval from EMBASE is superior to that from MEDLINE. Duplicates were detected, but more unique citations were found in EMBASE than in MEDLINE. An EMBASE searcher has the powerful ability to use specific drug identifiers as well as brand and manufacturer names. The EMBASE record contains additional information about the drug in question that may be utilised for further searching in EMBASE Although EMBASE's display costs are high when compared to MEDLINE, title displays are free and searching alone is not expensive. Use of DIALOG Web was found to keep the overall costs to a minimum. Employment of these cost savings measures will help the searcher to decide whether the additional drug information gained from the EMBASE record outweighs the elevated cost of its display.
1. INTRODUCTION
EMBASE, the online equivalent to Excerpts Medica, is one of the world's leading resources for searching the world's literature of biomedicine. What sets EMBASE apart from MEDLINE, the National Library of Medicine's biomedical bibliographic database, is its extensive coverage of the pharmaceutical literature. The relatively low cost of conducting literature searches with MEDLINE and its widespread availability, however, cause MEDLINE to be the source most searchers turn to for locating biomedical information. Nonetheless, the unique pharmaceutical coverage provided by EMBASE warrants its use when information about pharmaceuticals is sought. The superior ability of EMBASE to locate bibliographic information about adverse drug reactions was demonstrated by Biarez et al. (1991). In fact, it is generally agreed that two or more bibliographic databases should be searched in order to achieve a comprehensive online search for biomedical information (Kleijen & Knipschild 1992; Pao 1993; Ramos-Remus et al. 1995; Snow 1991).
Both to facilitate the decision-making process about which databases to choose and to expedite the search procedure, this paper illustrates the exceptional utility of EMBASE in a literature search for pharmaceutical information. Highlighted are the unique searching capabilities of EMBASE, as well as the advantages of a search conducted with EMBASE. The searches were performed using Knight-Ridder Information Service's DIALOG using traditional DIALOG command language. Additionally, advantages to searching EMBASE and MEDLINE with Knight-Ridder's...