I've just seen my first two bookings for the first week of 2026. The PhDs are keen!

I've never really taken inclusion in DOAJ as an indicator of quality, just openness. Though I haven't looked into their practices around what they do/don't include. MDPI journals are mixed, there are some respectable ones and some predatory ones

Yes that was my thinking. It would only really be an issue if you did something like XB (human rights) but realistically I'd always specify what I wanted e.g. XB ("human rights"), XB (human N3 rights), or XB (human AND rights). So no issue for me

Ha ha I had a bunch of those, the med students loved them as prizes when we did sessions with them in our library. I always felt a bit dirty with the branding though

Thanks Liz. I'll check these out this afternoon, better to be aware of the problems ahead of time

What kind of issues are you having? Our library is switching to the new UI super soon

This is very interesting. It would be worth contacting the NLM to ask

Yes and Ovid is the same as Embase. Not sure how common that knowledge is though!

Gotta agree. There should be a 'systematic searching' class in every LIS qualification

Thinking the same thing. There's almost a 'debunking industry' now which gets its clicks just from parroting mainstream views. If you're going to debunk you should do it with a good faith mindset that there 'may' actually be some truth to whatever it is you're talking about

I've considered doing this (freelancing) but a mental barrier is the potential cost of personal database subscriptions. Does anyone have thoughts/info on that? Is it expensive?

Yes or the feel of pressing the play button, the resistance, something solid happening....

Aha! I was looking for it not 15 minutes ago

Is it "I want to get the number of results down for my systematic review"? heh heh I should have included a trigger warning with that one