back to contentsDevelopment of a CD-ROM Server for Searching
the Medical Literature
Ichiro Suzuki and Takashi Saku*
First Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, School of Dentistry, Niigata University
* Department of Oral Pathology, School of Dentistry, Niigata University
Abstract:
The MEDLINE database is widely accepted as the premier source for bibliographic coverage of biomedical literature．Until late 1980s, the MEDLINE had been working on the on-line database system which required high skill and was relatively expensive. Recently, the database has been provided as a CD-ROM media and enable GUI (graphical user interface) base retrieval on the personal computer.
In 1994, the campus network system called "NINES" was constructed in our university．Every office and laboratory were connected to the LAN and the internet. Under this network infrastructure, a CD-ROM server for searching SilverPlatter's MEDLINE database was developed.
The system consisted of the network operating system (NetWare 3.11J) and the high performance SCSI driver (SCSI EXPRESS) running on the old-fashioned PC/AT compatible desktop (i486DX/33, 12 MB RAMs and 120 MB HDD) and 12 CD-ROM drives. Client personal computers including Windows workstation, DOS workstation and Macintosh can access the database simultaneously and rapidly via the LAN.
Since 1995, our campus library has been supported by a new OVID system that is a client-server database system and has a web browser user interface. Thus, our CD-ROM server is running without MEDLINE CD-ROMs. The CD-ROM server can also be applicable to medical dictionaries and self-made CD-R media for educational and research use.