Specific classification of elibrary resources says more about users' preferences.
BACKGROUND
Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) are a hierarchical taxonomy of over 42,000 descriptors designed to classify scientific literature; it is hierarchical with generic high order headings and specific low order headings. Over 1,000 resources in the Primary Care Electronic Library (PCEL - www.pcel.info) were classified with MeSH.


METHODS
Each of the entries or resources in the primary care digital library was assigned up to five MeSH terms. We compared whether the most generic or specific MeSH term ascribed to each resource best predicted user preferences.


RESULTS
over the four month period analysed statistically significant differences were found for resources according to specific key MeSH terms they were classified by. This result was not repeated for generic key MeSH terms.


CONCLUSIONS
Analysis of the use of specific MeSH terms reveals user preferences that would have otherwise remained obscured. These preferences are not found if more generic MeSH terms are analysed.
Robinson
Judas
J
St. George's, University of London, Cranmer Terrace, London, SW17 0RE. jsrobins@sgul.ac.uk
de Lusignan
Simon
S
Kostkova
Patty
P
Madge
Bruce
B
Southgate
Lesley
L
D003258:Consumer Behavior; D004739:England; D006282:Health Personnel; D006801:Humans; D008490:Medical Informatics; D046650:Medical Subject Headings / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011320:Primary Health Care