This past month, National Library of Medicine has been involved in the MEDLINE year-end updates and changes. These include changing the Medical Subject Headings and Supplementary Concept Substance Names on existing MEDLINE citations to conform with the 2010 version of MeSH, adding new publication types, and other global changes.
MeSH terminology
This year 422 new MeSH headings were added–some of my personal favorite include Alien Hand Syndrome, Corpse Dismemberment, Economic Recession, Femininity/Masculinity, and Theory of Mind
For the complete list of MeSH terms, click here. Also, follow the links to the list of deleted and changed MeSH headings.
Publication
The two new Publication Types, Webcasts, and Research Support, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will be added to the “Type of Article” menu on the Advanced Search screen. Also, the heading, Young Adult, new to MeSH for 2009 indexing, will be added to the “Ages” menu on the Advanced Search screen as Young Adult: 19-24 years.
H1N1 Virus
Influenza A Virus, H1N1 Subtype for the causative agent of what is colloquially called “swine flu.” It has entry terms H1N1 Virus and Swine-Origin Influenza A H1N1 Virus. The disease coordinate for H1N1 in humans is Influenza, Human. There are no references to “swine flu” in MeSH due to its ambiguous meaning (analogous to “bird flu”). For more indexing details, see 2009 H1N1 Flu (“Swine Flu”) Terminology.
For more details about these updates, visit the NLM Technical Bulletin at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/current_issue.html
One last note, for those who have been displeased with the new PubMed interface will be interested to know that in early 2010 the Advanced Search feature of PubMed will be re-worked to improve search capabilities. More information will be provided at a later date.

