Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal

The National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature announces a milestone in the international dissemination of bioethics information. In September 1998, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) added BIOETHICSLINE to the databases that are available at no charge through Internet Grateful Med (IGM). Although BIOETHICSLINE has been available through medical libraries since the 1970s, and subsequently through online subscription services and CD products, free access via the Internet makes BIOETHICSLINE an easy-to-use resource available to everyone around the world.

As one of NLM’s databases, BIOETHICSLINE’s path to the Internet was blazed by MEDLINE (Index Medicus online), which became available at no charge in June 1997. By the first quarter of 1998, Internet access accounted for 90 percent of all MEDLINE searches performed at NLM, and the 7.6 million searches recorded for March 1998 surpassed the 7.4 million MEDLINE searches conducted during the whole of 1996. Searching by the general public (30%) is comparable to that done by researchers (36%) and health care professionals (34%) (NLM Newsline 53 (1): 1–2, January–March 1998).

Like MEDLINE, BIOETHICSLINE is a database that professionals as well as the general public can use effectively. BIOETHICSLINE’s special indexing language based on the philosophical, medical, legal, scientific, and popular writing that comprises “bioethics literature” enables any searcher to generate a comprehensive bibliography on topics of interest. Another useful feature of BIOETHICSLINE is the ability to limit retrieval by subject captions. For example, a search on cloning can be restricted to analytical treatises or to general discussions from popular literature. The IGM search screen is designed to facilitate the use of these special features. A new Georgetown University server dedicated to bioethics (http://bioethics.georgetown.edu) links to BIOETHICSLINE on IGM and to search instructions developed by the BIOETHICSLINE staff. Users can call 1-800-MED-ETHX (1-800-633-3849) if they have questions about searching BIOETHICSLINE on the Web, or if they would like to receive a free copy of the BIOETHICSLINE search instructions by mail.

As the first database devoted to bioethics, BIOETHICSLINE has tracked the development of a field experiencing exponential growth, and authors such as Kenneth Schaffner refer readers to BIOETHICSLINE to keep pace with new [End Page 467] issues as they arise (Schaffner, Kenneth F. Research Methodology: I. Conceptual Issues. In Encyclopedia of Bioethics, revised edition, ed. Warren T. Reich, pp. 2270–78. New York: Simon and Schuster Macmillan, 1995). BIOETHICSLINE is an invaluable addition to the World Wide Web, where most databases are indexed primarily by “knowbots” (i.e., “knowledge robots,” computer programs designed to automatically search the Internet rather than by humans with the expertise and discretion to identify the topics discussed). BIOETHICSLINE’s Web presence supports bioethics researchers by making it easier for them to search the database itself and by providing information to help them evaluate other information on bioethical issues that they obtain while surfing the Net.