Last update:
26-Oct-2010

The purpose of this investigation was to study the effectiveness of the mechanisms for knowledge management and intervention services in terms of production, distribution, management and dissemination of scientific information for social exploitation. The specific aim of this paper is the research, analysis and evaluation of digital information services in the biomedical sciences, and particularly in physical anthropology, according to the methods of search and retrieval of information currently available on the web. Detailed presentation and evaluation is made of the features that characterize the structure and the organizational tools indexing biomedical information, the methodological approaches applied, and the tools used to recover information from information systems and bibliographical databases. Investigation is made of valid information systems and the role is explored of documentation practice (practice information) based on the bibliographical evidence of medical science (evidence-based medicine) in the better and more efficient exploitation of the significant opportunities offered by the new technologies, which permit the research of clinical information systems through effective information retrieval on the Internet. A search was made in 20 of the 37 databases available from the German Institute of Medical Documentation and Information (DIMDI), as well as 7 bases of Medline (ME05, ME00, ME95, ME90, ME83, ME66, ME60), to explore all records contained in these collections with reference to the sciences of medicine and physical anthropology in the individual cognitive modules.

Key words: Biomedical information, Cochrane library, Evidence-based librarianship, Evidence-based practice, German Institute of Medical Documentation and Information (DIMDI), Information retrieval systems, Medical databases, PubMed.