THE HOM-INFORM DATABASE – HELP AND INFORMATION

 

1.       Introduction
The Hom-Inform database is a searchable database of references to journal articles and books on homeopathy - subject terms have been assigned to these references and some contain abstracts.   The database was developed in 1988 by the Academic Departments of homeopathic Medicine of Glasgow homeopathic Hospital under the supervision of Dr David Reilly and Mary Gooch.  For the first time a resource was available which brought together the homeopathic literature in an easily searchable format similar to what had already been available for the biomedical literature in the form of MEDLINE.  Over the years the size and format of the database has evolved and it now contains nearly 24,000 indexed references to books and journal articles relating to homeopathy.  The Academic Departments are now proud to present a new version of the database freely available for the first time on the internet.

2.       Contents of the Hom-Inform Database
The database contains indexed references to two types of material:

a)   Books in the British Homeopathic Library up to the present

Books in the Faculty of Homeopathy Library in London (up to 1993)

b)      Journal articles which appear in journals relating to homeopathy and complementary medicine held by the British Homeopathic Library and some additional articles held by the British Library only which have been sourced from the AMED/CATS database.


The British Homeopathic Library book catalogue can be accessed in the database search screen by choosing “Book” from the Document Type field box and choosing “British Homeopathic Library” from the Location field box.

 

The following list represents runs of journals held by the British Homeopathic Library and which have been indexed on the Hom-Inform database. (This list does not cover every journal reference on the database, as there are also individual references to articles appearing in journals not held by the British Homeopathic Library.)  Journal titles appear in the database in an abbreviated form which can be seen by browsing the word wheel in the Source field box.  Journal titles can only be searched using these abbreviated forms.

 

Advent of homeopathy1991, 1994
Allgemeine Homöopathische Zeitung1985-
Alternative and Complementary Therapies1995-
Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine1995-
American homeopath1994-
Archiv für Homoöpathie1992-1997
Berlin Journal of Research in homeopathy1990-1991
Biological Therapy1989-1997
Biomedical Therapy1997-
British homeopathic Journal1911-
Cahiers de Biotherapie1987-
CCRH Quarterly Bulletin1988-
Classical homeopathy Quarterly1988-
Communications of the British homeopathy Research Group1984-
Complementary Medical Research1987-1992
Complementary Therapies in Medicine1993-
Complementary Therapies in Nursing and Midwifery1995-
European Journal of Classical homeopathy1996
Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies1996-
Forschende Komplementarmedizin1994-
German Journal of homeopathy1989-1990
Hahnemannian Gleanings1974-1984
Hahnemannian homeopathic Sandesh1984-
Hahnemannian1984-1990
Health and homeopathy1991-
Health through homeopathy1943-1947
Homéopathie Européenne1993-
Homéopathie Fran?aise1983-1992
Homeopathy Today (US)1991-
Homeotherapy1974-1984
HomInt R & D Newsletter1990-
homeopath1981-
homeopathic Heritage1987-
homeopathy International1987-
homeopathic Links1991-
homeopathic World1908-1935
homeopathy1932-1942,1951-
homeopathy Today (UK)1987-1991
Indian Journal of homeopathic Medicine1984-
International Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine     1988-
International Journal of Veterinary homeopathy1986-1989
Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine1995-
Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy1965-
Journal of the LMHI1987-1994
Journal of the OMHI1988-1990
Midlands homeopathy Research Group Newsletter1979-1984
New England Journal of homeopathy1993-
Positive Health1996-
Resonance1994-1999
Revue Belge d’Homéopathie1989-
Simile1991-
Simillimum1994-
Zeitschrift für Klassische Homöopathie1986-

 

3.       Indexing Method
Almost all the journal article references and a selected number of book references which appear in the database have been indexed.  This means that the content of the original source material has been examined closely and relevant keyterms have been allocated to give an idea of what the article or book is about.  Hom-Inform has followed the indexing method used by the British Library Health Care Information Service for its AMED/CATS (Allied and Alternative Medicine/Current Awareness Topics Service) database.  AMED/CATS has based its indexing on MeSH, the Medical Subject Headings of the US National Library Of Medicine (used to index citations in the Medline database) but has simplified the MeSH thesaurus by taking only the main headings and the keyterms that it uses frequently and using these for AMED/CATS.  However the AMED/CATS thesaurus lacks specialised terms specific to homeopathy, e.g. “aggravation” or “doctrine of signatures” ,and for this reason a new thesaurus of terms specific to homeopathy has been developed by the Documentation Sub-Committee of the European Committee for homeopathy.  The Hom-Inform database therefore has been indexed using a combination of keyterms taken from the AMED/CATS thesaurus, the MeSH thesaurus and the ECH Homeopathic Thesaurus.

4.       Some Search Hints
The All Terms field
The purpose of using a controlled set of key terms in the indexing process is to allow material on a given concept to be retrieved always under one term thus eliminating the uncertainty which synonyms pose, e.g. “cancer” and “tumour” are synonyms for “neoplasms”, but all citations relating to these concepts in the Hom-Inform database can be retrieved by entering “neoplasms” in the All Terms field rather than the synonyms.  It is important to be aware of the appropriate keyterm for a concept in order to maximise retrieval on this concept.  Browsing the Word Wheel in All Terms allows you to see  which keyterms have been allocated and will give you an idea of the best search terms to use.  However the following table offers a few hints as to what terms should be used to search for items on certain topics.  The left-hand column relates to a topic or concept which people commonly search for, and the right-hand column lists the controlled standard indexing and search terms which should be applied to search for a citation on that topic or concept.

 

                 CONCEPT

      STANDARD SEARCH TERM

homeopathy

homeopathy

cancer

neoplasms

allergies

hypersensitivity

childbirth

pregnancy OR labor

cardiac disease

heart dis

stroke

cerebrovascular disorders

AIDS

acquired immunodeficiency syndrome

dentistry

tooth dis OR mouth dis

oestrogen

estrogen

oedema

edema

children

child OR infant

 

The All Fields field

Using the All Fields field box is perhaps the easiest way to do a search of the database if not the most sophisticated.  It allows you to do searches unrestricted to a specific field – any search criteria (e.g., author; title; keyword; year) can be entered in this box and the program will undertake what is called a “free text” search, i.e. it searches for the search criteria throughout every field in the database.  Terms or words can be combined in this field:  / is used to carry out an OR search, e.g. asthma/ecezma searches for all records which contain either the words “asthma” or “eczema”; & is used to carry out an AND search, e.g. asthma&eczema searches for all records which contain both the words “asthma” and “eczema”. 

 

AND, OR NOT droplists

Use the above to conduct more complex searches when you want to combine one or more separate fields.  See the program specific help for more details on how to use these.

 

Searching for clinical trials

Hom-Inform endeavours to keep up-to-date with new research in homeopathy and realises that many users of the database are especially interested in finding out about clinical trials of homeopathy.  Clinical trials on humans and with a control group have been very carefully indexed and the best way to retrieve them is to enter “controlled clinical trial” into the All Fields box.  To find other clinical trials enter “clinical trials”.

5.       Document Delivery Service
British Homeopathic Library also operates a document delivery service.  Articles can be ordered by e-mailing your request to British Homeopathic Library from the search results page.