This is in response to Lisa Marasco's post on researching journal articles via PubMed and its limitations, as well as the post from Alla Gordina on help through Google Scholar, and Micaela Notarangelo's post on researching via PubMed as well.  

The references I shared a couple of weeks ago were happily obtained in full text by driving to the National Library of Medicine located at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD USA.  Although I now live in Florida (USA), I lived in northern Virginia (USA) from 2000 to 2012, and spent a portion of my life commuting into Washington, D.C. and the surrounding metropolitan area for both inpatient and outpatient lactation consulting.  The shortest daily commute was 3 hours round trip without rush hour traffic; with rush hour or other crazy traffic related to the worst of winter weather, I could be on the road 4 to 5 hours at worst.  As a native West Virginian (USA) from two tiny Appalachian towns, population <500, I used to wonder why on earth any human being would be willing to sit in traffic for so many hours in one's day, year after year (I wondered this BEFORE behaving in such a fashion myself). 

From 2008 to 2012, I spent as many off-hours as I could at the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health, and dropped by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. as well.  When a client requested an evening consult, this was ideal for me, as I could spend time at the Library of Medicine before it closed at 5pm, then head to the client's home for the lactation consult, followed by the long drive home.  Due to federal budget cuts, the Library of Medicine has day hours only, 8:30a - 5pm Monday through Friday, no evening hours anymore, and no weekend hours anymore - - not so easy for researchers who aren't employed by NIH. 

As Lisa Marasco mentioned, PubMed has its limits.  For example, from my home computer I can enter in an author's name, such as Carolyn Rovee-Collier, who is the founder of the field of infant long-term memory.  Rovee-Collier has published over 200 journal articles in the past 40+ years, yet PubMed only brings up 22 of her articles.  Why is this?  It's frustrating.  Yet at my next opportunity to go to the Library of Medicine, which boasts the greatest number of holdings in the world, I could presumably access every article she's ever published, in full text electronically or from the stacks, merely for the cost of gas in my car to get there and the cost of downloading to a printer or photocopying pages from journals brought down by the staff from the stacks (12 cents per page at my most recent visit there).  It's one thing to read a tiny journal abstract that pops up on one's computer screen, and it's quite another experience - - exhilarating - - to have the full text load right before your very eyes.  So many things can be accessed electronically from the Library of Medicine, but some older journal articles must be requested from the stacks.  I can still recall the experience of first reading the full paper article (versus electronic) on nipple confusion by Mary Ann Niefert, Ruth Lawrence, and Joy Seacat, then marching back to the copy room at the Library of Medicine with that 1995 issue from the Journal of Pediatrics that had come forth from the stacks.  During one of my early visits there, I recall asking a librarian how to access full text articles from home, and being advised, with her slight amusement at my inquiry, that only those employed by NIH have access from home.    

OK then.

Whilst still living in northern Virginia, I often holed up in little study rooms at various public libraries during my travels, where I had a distinctly better work ethic than working from home (my two children are adults, long out of the nest, so they weren't being neglected!).  Sometimes I could access full text journal articles through Loudoun County's Public Library, but often only the abstracts, which I would then tote with me on my next trip to the Library of Medicine in search of the full text articles.   When back in West Virginia, I've also visited my old college library (Davis & Elkins College in Elkins WV), as well as Alderson-Broaddus University's library in nearby Philippi WV (where non-students and non-staff have NO electronic access, and where they've done away with much of their print matter in favor of electronic), and West Virginia Wesleyan College's library, just 28 miles from my daughter's home.  When I am in West Virginia, I am most grateful for the tremendous library resources re: databases and search engines at West Virginia Wesleyan, so grateful that I asked my librarian-archivist friend there, Brett Miller, how it was that I could access so many full text articles.  He explained that a previous head librarian, before she took another job elsewhere, did everything she could with their available funding - - I think they had received a significant donation, and it was up to her to decide how to utilize it.  Sitting either at NIH's Library of Medicine or at WVWC's library is heaven.  At WVWC, I used either a search engine or a database titled "Discovery" - - the full-text access of journal articles in cognitive psychology and neuroscience is wonderful.  

I suggest utilizing the knowledge of librarians whenever full-text articles do not readily appear before your eyes.  

Contacting the author with a request for their full text article(s) is another lovely way to access full-text articles in pdf format (if the author is living and reachable).  Authors sometimes provide public access for their articles for free downloading on PubMed (check the upper right-hand corner of the computer screen), but that's only the case for a fraction of journal articles.  

Bottom line:  one must persevere, and with good humor.  

If anyone has further insights on this topic, please share.  

Warmest regards to all,

Debra Swank, RN BSN IBCLC
Ocala FL USA

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