Developed in direct consultation with researchers, UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) aims to become the information resource of choice for the UK biomedical and health research community.
Helping researchers access and exploit over 1.7 million full-text, peer reviewed biomedical research articles and over 19 million other life science research papers, form January 12 the British Library will showcase a whole range of new search and data mining tools designed to unlock the scientific knowledge held by UK PubMed Central.
Launched by Professor Dame Sally C Davies, Director General, Research and Development at the Department of Health, the Open Beta version of UKPMC will enable researchers to search and link information from literature and drill down into underlying datasets in new and innovative ways.
Richard Boulderstone, the British Library’s Director of eStrategy, said: “With over 1.7 million full-text, free-to-access biomedical research articles and an ever increasing archive of additional research content, such as PhD theses and clinical guidelines, UK PubMed Central is fast becoming the information resource of choice for the UK’s biomedical and health research community.
Developed by the British Library through open consultation with a wide range of researchers, the new data mining tools will allow users to really interrogate the collection; informing research, reducing duplication of work, and inspiring new scientific discovery.”
Supported by the UK’s eight principal funders of biomedical and health research, who fund over 90% of the country’s research publications in the field, UKPMC offers users a comprehensive and sustainable repository for UK funded free-to-access life sciences research.
Developed in collaboration with the founders of PubMed Central in the US, the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), the consolidation of published research outputs into globally accessible resources such as UKPMC is not only vital for widening access to knowledge and improving the efficiency of desk research, but it will also vastly improve the ability of funding organisations to assess the impact of their research, and help to better inform scientific strategy and policy making.
The showcase event will provide the chance to try out some of the new features that have been developed by the British Library and the consortium of programme partners including European Bioinformatics Institute, Mimas at the University of Manchester and the National Centre for Text Mining.
There will also be the opportunity to hear from some of the key funders behind the programme, including Professor Doug Kell, Chief Executive of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, and Sir Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust, on the value and importance of UKPMC for the research community.
The easy-to-use, intuitive interface developed by the British Library for the latest Beta version will enable researchers to:
• Conduct a full-text search of 1.7 million articles
• Access abstracts for over 19 million articles
• Exploit the scientific literature with innovative features which enrich abstracts and full-text articles by linking scientific terms to other sources of quality assured and useful information
• Search content not included in traditional journal literature – including clinical guidelines as well as other hard to find material such as PhD theses
Professor Dame Sally Davies, Director General Research and Development Department of Health, said: “I am delighted that UK PubMed Central is ready to launch new features on its website. This technology will make it possible to discover and use hidden ‘gems’ of information buried in the documents within UK PubMed Central.
UK Pubmed web site is https://ukpmc.ac.uk/