HealthLinks | Health Sciences Libraries | How-To

PubMed: My NCBI

My NCBI is your personal space on the NLM computer system for saving searches, results, PubMed preferences, and for creating automatic email alerts. Click on the My NCBI link from the PubMed navigation sidebar, or at the top right of the PubMed window, to get started.

PubMed My NCBI Registration is required.

Note: To use My NCBI, you must have cookies enabled and allow pop-up windows from ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

Saving Your Search and Creating an Automatic Email Alert

  1. Sign into My NCBI.
  2. Run your search using any terms and limits needed for your topic.
  3. Click 'Save Search' next to the Clear Button.
  4. A pop-up window (see below) will appear that displays your PubMed search in the box labeled 'Enter a name for your search'.
  5. Edit the search name to something short, yet meaningful, e.g. HRT and menopause (100 character maximum).
  6. Click the 'Save' button.
  7. To sign up for automatic email updates of new search results, fill in the 'Save Search Settings' form. Options can be set for update frequency, zero results notification, email format, etc.
  8. Click 'Save.'
  9. Repeat the process for any additional searches, then click on 'Log Out.'

Notes:
You may store up to 100 searches per User Name.
Stored search strategies cannot be edited - you must delete the old search and create a new one. Update frequency may be edited.

Managing Stored Searches

  1. Sign in to My NCBI.
  2. Under 'My Saved Data' in the Table of Contents, click the Saved Searches 'Manage' link.
  3. The Last Searched column displays when the last update was generated either automatically or manually. Hover your mouse over the information to display the explicit date.
  4. Click the check box next to a search.
  5. Click the 'Show What's New' button at the bottom of the page.
  6. To display the new items, click the 'new items' link. This also updates the saved search with the current date and time.

Note: To run a saved search without update limits:

  1. Sign in to My NCBI.
  2. Under 'My Saved Data,' click the saved search you want to run. This will not modify the Last Searched date and time for the saved search.

Saving Results in Collections

To save search results:

  1. Sign in to My NCBI.
  2. Run a search and on the results page, select the citations you want to save using the check boxes. If you do not select any items, all results up to 5000 items will be sent to Collections.
  3. Under the 'Send to' drop-down menu, select 'Collections'
  4. On the 'Save Collection' window, you may create a new collection or append to an existing collection. Enter a collection name.

Saving Results in My Bibliography

'My Bibliography' is designed for authors to easily search and collect citations for their publications. 'Other Citations' is a feature designed for authors publishing in two distinct areas of research that allows them to create a second bibliography in My NCBI.

  1. Under My Saved Data click 'My Bibliography.'
  2. Click 'add items' if your bibliography is empty.
  3. Enter your last name and other optional search criteria to limit your search if your name is not a unique author name in PubMed and then click 'Go.'
  4. Review the list of citations and use the check boxes to select your papers, click 'Add to My Bibliography.'
  5. To add additional citations since the last time you updated your bibliography click the plus symbol on the My Bibliography Actions bar.
  6. Use the 'Other Citations' link under My Saved Data to create an additional bibliography using a saved search form.
  7. Click the 'View Results in PubMed' icon to display your bibliography in PubMed.

Filter Preferences

Filters group search results by areas of interest. Filter results with their respective counts for the current search display as tabs next to the default "All" and "Review" tabs for the total search retrieval. Click on the tab to display the citations grouped by that filter.
My NCBI default results tabs

Note:You can have up to five active filters using My NCBI

  1. Sign in to My NCBI.
  2. Click the tool icon tool graphic My NCBI Filter Tools icon to the right of the filter tabs to link to 'My Filters' and display your active filters and icon settings.
  3. Click in the boxes to select or deselect filters.
  4. To view additional options click:
    • 'Frequently Requested Filters' to display a selective list of popular filters
    • 'Browse Filters' to browse filters by category. Subject-related filters are under Properties.
    • 'Search for Filters' to search for filter names and descriptions.
  5. Your filter selections are in effect only when you are signed in to My NCBI.

Filter Preferences: Show UW Online Links

These filters add the UW results tab, and the purple UW links to PubMed in your MyNCBI view. Configuring MyNCBI to show UW Online/UW Holdings journal article icons requires following these steps only one time. The UW preferences should then remain and appear each time you log in.

  1. Log in to MyNCBI.
  2. Click on 'Search Filters' under Table of Contents on the left side menu.
  3. From the 'Filters page, click on PubMed (found under 'Choose a database').
  4. From the 'PubMed Filters' page, click on the 'Browse Filters' tab.
  5. Click on 'LinkOut' (under 'PubMed Subcategories').
  6. Click on the 'Libraries' subcategory.
  7. Scroll down the list of libraries to find 'University of Washington Health Sciences Library and UW Libraries (UW),' and click on the link.
  8. Check the boxes for 'add a result tab' and 'add a link icon' for UW libraries.
  9. Click on 'Preferences' under Table of Contents on the left side menu.
  10. Click on 'Outside Tool' under 'PubMed Preferences.'
  11. Scroll down and click the radio button to the left of 'University of Washington: Check for UW Holdings'.
  12. Click the Save button at the bottom of the list.

Revised April 2009

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