Psychoanalysts, like other physicians and scholars, are confronted with such masses of information that finding publications pertinent to our clinical and research interests can be a major task. Our difficulties are exacerbated by the wide range of our interests. Analytic concerns extend into other fields of medicine, psychology, social sciences, the humanities, popular culture, the physical sciences and technology. Unfortunately, the facilities available to most of us for scholarly research are limited. Constraints of time and distance often make the use of university libraries difficult. There is no easy solution to the problem, but computer aided searches can be of major assistance in locating information on virtually any subject. The searches are extremely fast and generally far more thorough than the informal reviews we ordinarily do using printed indexes or tables of contents.
The process of online searching is easy, but the language and methods may seem unfamiliar at first. A database is both data (including facts, text or bibliographic references) and the software used to rapidly locate the data. It may be stored on a disk in the computer you are using or it may be located on a larger computer which is reached by telephone from a home computer. Hundreds of databases on virtually any subject are made available to individual users through large database vendors. Until recently, users were required to complete considerable training to search effectively. Currently most vendors provide “user-friendly” interfaces that take only a short time to learn. Since the vendors carry many but not all available databases, you should choose the vendor which offers databases in the subjects you are most likely to search.
Most databases are bibliographic databases which include a complete citation and often an abstract of the publication. The user instructs the computer to search for certain information in the reference. For instance, you might search for all articles by a certain author, or all articles published in a given year containing a particular term in their title or abstract. The latter example demonstrates the capacity to narrow a search by requiring the computer to find two or more elements in the same record. This capability is especially useful when searching for a few good articles.
Here is an example of how one search proceeded. One of us (RMGL) decided to review the literature on “primary repression.” He turned on his computer and typed in the name of the software provided by the database vendor and pressed a single button which instructed the computer to dial the vendor. By choosing short words from a menu on his computer screen he first selected the medical and psychological bibliographic database and then chose a database containing medical articles of the past 21 years. Help screens and database descriptions were available at a keystroke if needed. He responded to the computer prompt by typing in “primary repression.” The computer replied, “8 articles found,” after a wait of only 15 seconds. He instructed the machine to list these references by typing “d” for “display.” The computer asked him to specify the format he wanted (citation, abstract, etc.), then printed a list of papers, six of them with abstracts. To be thorough he then switched to a database of psychology literature for a similar period of time and found three additional papers—all in French. The entire process took three and a half minutes and did not require a step out of his study! The cost was approximately $1.50.
When the database contains the entire text of articles or books the computer functions like a sophisticated index, locating and printing out sections of the text containing the search terms. If you wanted to find material on psychoanalysis of adolescents you could ask the computer to search for instances where the words “psychoanalysis” and “adolescent” appear in the same sentence.
A surprisingly useful type of database lets you find articles that cite a particular article or author. For example, if you wanted to look for remarks about Holzman's paper on the relationship between science and clinical practice in psychoanalysis you could search for articles which included that paper in their list of references.
Several databases also provide copies of the articles located—usually at a minimum price of $6.00 per article.
Online database services are available with varying levels of “user friendliness.” The cost of using a system seems to vary inversely with its ease of use. The occasional user may find the easy but expensive systems like Iquest on CompuServe sufficient. If you plan to search the databases often, you should explore more flexible and less expensive services such as BRS's Colleague, or PaperChase (for National Library of Medicine's Medline database). Both of these provide “gateway services”, that is, they act as interpreters allowing you to search the databases with little training or experience as demonstrated in our example. The more experienced searcher may wish to acquire “front-end software” such as Pro-Search, Sci-Mate or Grateful-Med which also act as interpreters but provide more efficient and powerful searching capabilities.
Analysts who use online search services should be forewarned of certain problems. First, the scope of most databases is limited to journal articles from 1967 to date (only the Jourlit database available on floppy disks lists the classic psychoanalytic papers). Chapters in edited volumes are also frequently not included. Next, the retrieval of articles is dependent upon the quality of the title and abstract. Pertinent papers that do not include author prepared abstracts are sometimes missed because key terms did not appear in their titles or because the abstracts were written by workers unfamiliar with psychoanalytic concepts. Finally, the computer has its own limitations. Infrequently the searcher will be flooded with references only to learn that the computer did not distinguish between “repression” as used in psychoanalysis and “repression” as used in molecular biology.
A few of the most useful database vendors and gateway services are:
IQUEST—an expensive but extremely easy to use way to access databases using CompuServe, a national computer service which provides a large variety of services.
CompuServe Information Service
5000 Arlington Centre Blvd.
Columbus, OH 43220
(800) 848-8199
BRS/SAUNDERS COLLEAGUE—an easy to use gateway database service that includes not only the major medical and psychological databases, but also full text of many important medical journals and textbooks.
BRS/Saunders Colleague
1200 Route 7
Latham, NY 12110
(800) 345-4277
PAPERCHASE—an easy to use gateway service used to search the National Library of Medicine's Medline database via CompuServe.
PaperChase
Beth Israel Hospital
330 Brookline Avenue
Boston, MA 02215
(617) 735-22532
DIALOG KNOWLEDGE INDEX—a section of Dialog Information Services, Inc., which is available evenings and weekends. Provides low cost access to a selected group of databases including medicine and psychology.
Dialog Information Services, Inc.
3460 Hillview Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94304
(800) 227-5510
Useful front-end software includes:
PRO-SEARCH—a software package which provides a menu interpretation used to search BRS, Dialog and National Library of Medicine databases.
Personal Bibliographic Software
P.O. Box 4250
Ann Arbor, MI 48106
(313) 996-1580
SCI-MATE—an integrated software package which provides searching software like Pro-Search as well as a database management system and editor.
Institute for Scientific Information
3501 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
(800) 523-4092
GRATEFUL-MED—an inexpensive software package which gives easy access to Medline and Catline databases at the National Library of Medicine.
MEDLARS Management Section
National Library of Medicine
Bethesda, MD 20894
(301) 496-6193
Useful databases which include psychoanalytic literature:
PSYCINFO—covers 1,300 journals, technical reports, and dissertations in psychology and related disciplines. Produced by the American Psychological Association.
MEDLINE—covers over 3,000 international journals in biomedicine and related disciplines. Produced by the National Library of Medicine.
MENTAL HEALTH ABSTRACTS—includes 1200 journals as well as books, monographs, technical reports, conference proceedings and symposia in mental health fields. Produced by the National Clearing house for Mental Information and IFI/PlenumData Co.
SOCIAL SCISEARCH—a multidisciplinary database which indexes every significant item from 1,500 social science journals and selected articles from an additional 3,000. Allows you to determine who currently is citing an older paper. Also a good source for book reviews. Produced by the Institute for Scientific Information.
THE CHICAGO PSYCHOANALYTIC INDEX ONLINE—an online version of the Chicago Institute's index of analytic literature arranged by key words, authors, and titles from 1920 to date. This database will include chapters in edited volumes and book reviews. (The database is announced but not yet available. It is likely to first be available on compact disks readable by computers.)
Finally, there are occasions when you may prefer or need to have a search prepared by a trained searcher. Consider getting professional assistance when you have not found the information you need on your own or when you wish to assure that you have found the majority of the literature. Professional searchers can usually search databases more efficiently, providing more articles with less online charges. Two search services you can turn to are:
MENNINGER PROFESSIONAL INFORMATION SERVICES—a comprehensive search service, specializing in psychoanalytic and psychiatric literature, which provides both database searching and manual searching of printed sources and photocopies of relevant literature.
Menninger Professional Information Services
P.O. Box 829
Topeka, KS 66601
(913) 273-7500
AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION LIBRARY— provides computer database search services for their membership.
American Psychiatric Association
1400 K Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005
(202) 682-6057