Overview
Known as Korea’s first “Medical School,” Seoul National University’s College of Medicine, established in 1946, is the nation’s top institution for biomedical education and research. The College of Medicine offers 36 medical science courses and as many as 20 research institutes.
In January 2013, on the advice of Librarian Hwang Young-Sook, the Seoul National University Medical Library began subscribing to MEDLINE Complete, EBSCO’s comprehensive full-text database of the most valuable medical journals. This cost-effective decision has helped the Medical Library to provide a more robust collection of information resources and better support end-users’ medical research activities.
MEDLINE Complete is far better than other vendors’ databases in terms of quality and quantity.
MEDLINE Complete is far better than other vendors’ databases in terms of quality and quantity.
Challenges
In 2012, shortly after she began her new post as Manager of Acquisitions, Hwang analyzed the Medical Library’s information resources. She discovered that the institution subscribed to several of the major publisher journals but fewer of the unique journals most frequently required by users. Hwang then evaluated several full-text database products, looking to see which journal titles were included in each.
Since the quality of journal titles contained in a database was more important to Hwang than the quantity, she sought a database that contained the titles that biomedical researchers wanted and needed most.
“Many institutions already subscribe to various packages of major publishers,” she explained. “The [more] valuable database is the one that includes many unique journals which are essential for medical research.”
Solutions
At the end of her evaluation, Hwang concluded that EBSCO’s MEDLINE Complete is the most cost-effective of full-text databases. It includes articles dating back to 1885 and provides easy access to full-text articles as soon as they’re published.
“MEDLINE Complete has the strength of comprehensive coverage as well as the latest content which is important in medical sciences,” Hwang said.
In addition to providing full text for hundreds of medical journals, MEDLINE Complete offers the same comprehensive, authoritative bibliographic information found in the MEDLINE index. In the event that full text is not available in MEDLINE Complete, students and faculty do not have to leave the database to find what they are seeking. They can simply click a link resolver to access the full text available through other online journals in the Library’s collection.
Benefits & Results
Since subscribing to MEDLINE Complete, the Seoul National University Medical Library has been able to support more requests from doctors and researchers than ever before.
“According to users’ feedback and statistics after one year of use, thanks to MEDLINE Complete, we have successfully provided our users with the highly valuable journals they need,” Hwang said.
The affordability of MEDLINE Complete makes it a wise investment for any biomedical research institution, including those with smaller budgets, Hwang said. She recommends librarians subscribe to the database.
“I want more librarians to know the benefit of MEDLINE Complete,” she said. “It will help them meet their researchers’ needs within budget.”