PRODUCT REVIEW / ÉVALUATION DE PRODUIT

Yale MeSH Analyzer: A Personal Reflection

I am a creature of habit. There is no other
explanation as to why I have not tried the Yale MeSH
Analyzer sooner. At the MLA and CHLA joint
conference in May 2016 I attended a session about the
analyzer. While I was intrigued, when I went back to
my library I didn't use it, and instead continued to
operate as I always had. When the opportunity to
review the analyzer presented itself I felt like I had
been given a second chance. I knew that writing this
review would finally give me the motivation to try the
analyzer. And I am glad I did, because I am impressed
with it.

The analyzer was created by two Yale University
librarians, Lei Wang and Holly Grossetta Nardini. It
automates a time consuming manual process of
creating grids of medical subject headings (MeSH)
from articles relevant to a search.

I decided to try the Analyzer on a search I was
struggling with. The topic, how hospitals can protect
healthcare workers from the psychological stresses of
their job, was very broad and I was trying to determine
the appropriate search concepts. Specifically, I
wondered if the MeSH term “job satisfaction” was too
general to include. I took the PubMed Identifiers
(PMIDs) from three relevant articles, and inputted
them into the text box of the analyzer. Instantly a chart
with all of their MeSH terms appeared. The terms
were listed alphabetically, with each letter in a new
row. This configuration allowed me to quickly
determine that each of the articles was indexed with
job satisfaction, and indeed it was the only common
MeSH term they shared. It was settled; “job
satisfaction” should be included in the search.

Over the course of the next few weeks I continued
to experiment with the MeSH Analyzer. Even though
it is extremely intuitive and easy to use I explored the
Help section, which has both video and text support. I
found the text provided me with everything I needed;
however, the video might be useful if you are
completely new to the analyzer and want more
extensive information on how it can be used. It was in
the help section that I discovered how to drag the

"Analyze MeSH" button to my browser's favourites' toolbar. Now when I am in the PubMed results page I can check the articles I want, click on the "Analyze MeSH" button, and the selected articles are transported into the Analyzers MeSH grid. It is amazing that such effortless action can produce something so useful.

For me the strength of the analyzer is having the
visual comparison of MeSH terms on one page. This
ability to quickly scan and compare terms disappears if
you try to add too many articles, extending the page
past the normal screen view and necessitating
scrolling. Some people may be comfortable scrolling
several pages, however personally I found that I did
not want to compare more than 8 articles, and enjoyed
using the Analyzer most when there were no more
than 4 articles.

Since writing this review I have incorporated the
MeSH Analyzer into my daily work. Sometimes I use
it at the beginning of a search to assist in initially
identifying search terms, and sometimes I use it near
the end to confirm that I have exhausted all possible
MeSH terms. Occasionally I have also used the
Analyzer for training purposes, showing patrons how a
term they did not think should be in their strategy is
used to index several of their relevant articles. Thank
you Yale University, and Lei and Holly, for producing
such a useful, and free, tool.

Statement of Competing Interests

No competing interests declared.

Daphne Horn

Information Specialist
Mount Sinai Hospital
Toronto ON
Email: daphne.horn@sinaihealthsystem.ca