The mini MEDLINE SYSTEM: a library-based end-user search system.

The mini MEDLINE SYSTEM, a user-friendly search system developed in 1981 at the Georgetown University Medical Center, has been operational since 1982. The system is designed to meet the immediate educational and clinical information needs of students, residents, and faculty. This article focuses on system planning and design, database creation through "downloading," hardware adaptation, and system use. The database is a subset of the NLM's MEDLINE file; it includes over 180,000 citations to articles indexed in over 160 journals from 1982 to the present. With only a few keystrokes in a two-step process it allows users to conduct bibliographic searches. The system is being replicated at eight other medical libraries.