Update on InfoRetriever software

The authors thank David Howse for his thorough and favorable review of InfoRetriever in the January 2002 issue of Journal of the Medical Library Association and hope that others will also take the opportunity to review our software. He mentioned a few deficiencies, though, and we feel that it is important to note that they have all been addressed in version 4.0 of the software (released October 1, 2001). In particular, Griffith's 5 Minute Clinical Consult has been fully integrated with InfoRetriever, including more than 500 photos viewable on the PocketPC. Searches are also now twice as fast as before due to use of the SQL Server CE database engine, and the search interface is greatly improved. Users now enter any word or words, are given a list of relevant keywords, and can then choose the most appropriate. This hybrid of free-text- and keyword-based searching offers flexible but highly accurate searches. In his review, Howse noted the absence of the Journal of Family Practice POEMs. The POEMs are all available on the desktop and Web versions of our reference, but we chose to exclude them from the PocketPC because almost all of the articles are already included in a more compact, personal digital assistant–friendly format as “Medical InfoPOEMs.” Finally, the software is updated every four months on a January, May, September schedule, and users can download updates from our site (http://www.infopoems.com).