NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information) has 60+ databases, including PubMed, MeSH, Bookshelf and others you may be familiar with. In this blog post, we are looking at My NCBI a free, personalized account for YOU to use in conjunction with all of NCBI.
My NCBI allows you to save searches, save collections of citations, manage filters, and save site preferences for major NCBI databases. For anyone with NIH funding, it is best to log into My NCBI by clicking on NIH Login and using your eRA Commons credentials. For those without an eRA Commons account, we recommend logging in with your Duke NetID.
There are two ways to save your searches for future use. The first option is to click on Create Alert under the search box after you have entered your terms and run the search. This allows you to choose "Yes" or "No" for email updates as well as the frequency, day, format, and how many results to send. Stay updated at your convenience! The second option is to find the appropriate search or record within your recent activity under My NCBI. To do so, click on My NCBI, select See All Recent Activity at the bottom of the Recent Activity box, check the search(es), and choose Save Search at the top of the list.
Collections, a personalized collection of resources within NCBI databases, are easy to create in My NCBI. Select the desired records from your Search results, click Send to: Collections and Add to Collections. You will then have the option to add your records to an existing collection, default collection, or create a new collection. To edit later, simply go to Manage Collections under your My NCBI boxes view. In the Filters box, you can customize and Manage Filters for all the different NCBI databases. You only have to set your preferences once!
For those interested in publishing, SciENcv and My Bibliography are useful tools for managing the NIH Public Access Policy. For further instructions on managing compliance, see our Compliance Guide.
Additional Resources
My NCBI YouTube Quick Tour
NIH Public Access Policy Compliance: My NCBI
My NCBI Help