NRCBL: National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature

Library and Information Services, Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University

page dividing bar similar to a horizontal rule

FAQs About the ETHXWeb and GenETHX Databases

ETHXWeb and GenETHX are bibliographic databases prepared by the Library and Information Services group of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University. ETHXWeb is derived from the work of the National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature (NRCBL), supported by the Extramural Programs Office of the National Library of Medicine. GenETHX is a project of the National Information Resource on Ethics & Human Genetics (NIREHG), funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute. Following are some answers to frequently asked questions about these two databases.

What do the databases consist of?: Citations direct researchers to journal and newspaper articles, books, book chapters, government reports, court decisions, bills, laws, and audiovisual materials.

Approximately how many records are in each database?: ETHXWeb: 300,500
GenETHX: 42,700

Is there a fee or password required for searching?: At the present time there is no fee associated with use.

How are the databases related?: GenETHX is a subset of ETHXWeb and every item in that database has something to do with genetics. This is important to the searcher: because the data has been preselected, searches do not have to include variations of the term “genetics.”

What is the time period covered?: Most journal article records are from 1988 to the present, but approximately 17 per cent are prior to 1988. Books and audiovisuals acquired since 1975 are now in the databases.

How often are the databases updated?: The databases are updated on the 1st and 15th of each month; at that time each database is sorted in descending order by publication date, so researchers automatically retrieve the most recently published items first.

What languages are represented?: Although most materials are in English, citations to materials in 28 other languages, particularly German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, and Swedish are present.

What information is included in the citation?: Typically a citation for a journal article consists of: author (usually one or more personal names, last name first, or the name of a group or organization), title, source (journal title, volume, issue, pagination, date; and for books, films, reports and other similar documents the data include: author, title, place of publication, publisher, date, pagination and other information.

Where can I find the materials?: A majority of the items cited are in the National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature (NRCBL). The LO (location) field indicates how to find an item in the library. Items listed as "citation only" are not in the NRCBL collection. Older materials may be in storage, so NRCBL visitors may want to call in advance to ensure that materials will be available. For those who cannot use NRCBL on site, links to websites offering full-text are provided when known. Searches can be designed to retrieve only materials available on the Web by checking the box next to: “Search only content available online.”

What if I need something that is not on the Web?: The NRCBL offers tips for finding things elsewhere as well as a Document Delivery Service; see: http://bioethics.georgetown.edu/databases/docdelivery.htm.

What if I want to ask questions, get assistance with search strategy, or make comments about the databases?: We encourage you to click on the “Please send us your comments” link located at the bottom of each search screen. A reference staff member will respond via email. You may also call 888-BIO-ETHX (U.S. and Canada) from 9 to 5 Eastern Time, Monday through Friday.

Is there a print version of this information?: A subset of ETHXWeb is selected for the annual Bibliography of Bioethics; Volume 35 will be published in the fall of 2009. Citations to a variety of monographs (as well as audiovisual materials) are published in New Titles in Bioethics, which appears quarterly and as an annual cumulation and is online at http://bioethics.georgetown.edu/publications/newtitles/.

Who funds the collection of this information?: The NRCBL is supported by a contract from the National Library of Medicine, and is a member of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. A grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute funds the National Information Resource on Ethics & Human Genetics. Subject areas beyond bioethics or genetics and ethics benefit from other private and public sources, such as the Anderson Family of Ohio, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Max M. and Marjorie B. Kampelman, and other individuals. Library services were initiated by a generous gift from the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation.

How are these databases different from NLM’s MEDLINE/PubMed and LOCATORplus databases?: Depending upon the topic of research and the searcher’s need for comprehensiveness, a searcher may find it preferable to search one or another or even all of the databases (see the sections of this guide pertaining to MEDLINE/PubMed or LOCATORplus for more details about searching mechanics). Both of these very large NLM databases offer ways to create a bioethics subset for searching purposes. (At present, the MEDLINE/PubMed bioethics subset [journal articles] contains over 228,000 records; and LOCATORplus [for books and chapters in books], over 29,000.) These databases are oriented toward medical publications, but bioethics materials are available.

A. Where are the differences?: The subject scope is somewhat different. For example, although environmental health is well-covered by MEDLINE/PubMed/LOCATORplus, environmental ethics is not a topic that the NRC routinely adds to the NLM databases. Other similar topics are philosophical and religious ethics, professional ethics in general, and reference materials that support bioethics research.

Furthermore, NLM indexes most of its journals (selected and reviewed annually by a national committee) from cover-to-cover, whereas the NRCBL/NIREHG classification is selective with each issue and includes reprints from journals not in its collection; such journals may publish about bioethics only occasionally.

Understandably, the NRCBL/NIREHG journal collection is discipline-oriented and includes many newsletters and other organizational publications important to the field, offering both an archive of the history and development of bioethics and a timely view of current happenings in the field.

B. What database features are different?

MEDLINE/PubMed is indexed using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), a clinically-oriented, comprehensive, controlled vocabulary (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?db=mesh). ETHXWeb is simply classified by a short list of 22 categories and their subdivisions (http://bioethics.georgetown.edu/databases/classscheme/index.htm). It is a basic system that functions as an online public access catalog for locating vertical file and journal materials. It is also employed to designate the subject content of books and audiovisuals; this makes it possible to search all document types in NRCBL in one database. Over the years the staff have adopted conventions for combining numbers to reflect new topics (such as genetic testing kits, represented by 9.7 and 15.1) or technical concepts (such as ICSI, classified with 14.4). This practice has kept the classification scheme relatively small. Please see Section V. for details on classification practices.

If you are researching a very specific concept that is represented by a MeSH term, you should use MEDLINE/PubMed and LOCATORplus. Examples of such concepts are: retrospective moral judgment or autoexperimentation or medical futility. These terms do not match topics on the classification scheme, and may not appear in the title of a work and, since an abstract may not be present, you could miss them in ETHXWeb.

It is the case that the best subject searches are most often those carried out using the indexing or classification scheme of the system, thereby taking advantage of the intellectual work done by the information professionals who have perused the material. Therefore, searchers may find it useful to begin in one or the other database to identify a particularly relevant item, and then search in the counterpart database to see how it is indexed or classified there.

MEDLINE/PubMed offers broad coverage of clinical and scientific journals in many languages (see List of Serials Indexed for Online Users at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/serials/lsiou.html), whereas ETHXWeb reflects the holdings of an interdisciplinary collection with some foreign language periodicals (see Periodical Holdings at http://bioethics.georgetown.edu/nrc/serialslist.pdf).

Publishers whose journals are indexed in MEDLINE/PubMed can submit citation and abstract data electronically, thereby providing more rapid access to the information. Although indexing may not be have been completed, these citations are accessible by textword searching.

MEDLINE/PubMed offers abstracts for many citations and links to full-text through LinkOut, a feature that provides users with links from PubMed to a wide variety of webaccessible online resources. ETHXWeb, on the other hand, serving a dispersed audience, offers links from citations to full-text, which is generally available free or accessible for a fee by individuals not necessarily affiliated with a subscribing library. In addition, NRCBL hosts some full-text materials in its growing digital library.

For author searches (whether personal or corporate), ETHXWeb has a longer history than MEDLINE/PubMed of including the first names of authors, when available in the citation. In addition, corporate authors appear in the “AUTHOR” field in ETHXWeb. LOCATORplus includes both personal and corporate authors as well as personal and corporate subjects, as appropriate.

ETHXWeb includes diverse publication types, such as book reviews, press releases, unpublished documents, position statements, and news items, whereas those are generally excluded from MEDLINE/PubMed. The reference staff of NRCBL uses ETHXWeb to find information about people, events, meetings, or anything else that might help to answer users’ questions.