“You expect me to make sure my citations are real?!” - some guy who just admitted we can’t trust his entire body of work

during a workshop on searching one of our participants discovered something funny - it seems #scopus automatically always highlights its own name in abstracts, did anyone else notice this before? is this new? #medlibs

NEW: Researchers from @oii.ox.ac.uk have found that AI chatbots trained to sound warm and empathetic are significantly more likely to make factual errors and agree with users’ false beliefs. Find out more ⬇️

shoutout to the #medlibs discord because someone managed to find the URL that gets you to the scopus advanced search page with syntax highlights: www.scopus.com/pages/search...

Normally I'm not a huge Scopus fan, but I just noticed they name their monthly release notes after bird species...fine Scopus, you got me... #medlibs

Update: I clicked away and now it's gone. Seems they are maybe in the middle of some kind of update... hope the color coding returns

Just got jumpscared by #Scopus, it seems they've added colour coding to their search bar now? #medlibs

why does scopus hate me i don't deserve this 💔

if any #medlibs want a true challenge, try and find stuff on how to create a dictionary booklet. no matter what terms you search, you will find millions of online dictionaries explaining the meaning of your search terms

Just found a sysrev with a nice table showing the number of results for the search per database... where some results are literally noted as "Syntax Error"... AND IT GOT PUBLISHED? Is it not common knowledge to fix a syntax error and search again? #medlibs

Always love a good infographic!

It's been 3 days since I discovered an error in a Scopus search alert and I have been trying to fix it every single day, multiple times a day, but Scopus keeps getting stuck on loading new results. I am slowly losing my mind over this, it's time for christmas break #medlibs

Anna Abalkina's advent calender is not only a great way to practice spotting red flags around articles and journals, but also a perfect tool to make you realise your own tunnel vision.. just spent 10 minutes analyzing today's text and fully missed the lack of results section😂 #medlibs

Searching for a very niche subject and finally found a paper that lists the exact information I'm looking for in a Table.... with zero reference or context. Not even a mediocre one, just none.

This feels the same as saying "Rainfall does not cause leather shoes to spawn on your doorstep" isn't an evidence-based claim because there has not been a paper actively proving rainfall doesn't make shoes appear

Crisis averted... I forgot that earlier today I was reading up on Mendeley and I logged in with my old uni account which is now linked to Elsevier.. so Embase switched to a new account linked to my personal email..oops

uh... just went to save one of the searches i'm working on in my Embase.com profile and... all my search folders are gone? trying my best not to panick but does anyone else have this issue? #medlibs #embase

Could it be... my saviour?? I have been dreaming of something like this since the day I was born

Someone wrote a Python script - in I assume his spare time - to detect false references. Very interesting, but it also makes me wonder why publishers haven't already tried this themselves? Seems a lot more efficient than manually screening references retractionwatch.com/2025/10/28/c...

Remember when I spotted this weird indexing mistake? I finally got a reply back from Elsevier... "The record is automatically indexed. Hence, the corrections cannot be processed." Uhm, ok?

Already getting excited by this line in the abstract: "[This review] was reported according to PRISMA-ScR".

Want to feel productive but don't feel like working? I always love filling out surveys like these in those moments 😉

"We searched with ChatGPT" #medlibs

Aha - I did some minor sleuthing and realised the listed PMID leads to a different paper that definitely fits these index terms a whole lot better pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19067478/

Just sent an e-mail to Embase Support Centre about a very strangely indexed paper... I'm used to funny 'mistakes', but this definitely gets the cake. Any other #medlibs ever seen something like this before?

After giving multiple talks on #predatoryjournals and practices, I got to answer my first e-mail today about the quality of a specific journal - what are some standard checks other #medlibs like to do when looking at a journal?

Any other #medlibs experiencing weird issues when trying to export results from #Scopus? it keeps saying it is exporting a RIS in the background, but the file never actually downloads

Yikes..

Reading an interesting paper with a proposal for how to report a search strategy, and i have wondered this before - how do other #medlibs archive and/or share strategies? doi.org/10.1002/cl2....

This is the first time I got this error message in #Scopus while translating a large search strategy... I feel like I deserve a ribbon now #medlibs

Sad to realise that what surprised me most about this article is not the existence of counterfeit citations or predatory practices, but how quickly some editors responded and retracted articles #medlibs

wow! cant believe how incredibly useful Google's AI overview function is! now i know the exact differences between #OpenAlex and #MatildaScience

Also made a confused sound at the introduction stating "Using a relevancy algorithm that is well-guarded by the owning company"... since when? doi.org/10.1111/jep....

Experiencing what is now the third new bug in #scopus this month... this time I am unable to export any results and sometimes the same search string suddenly gives 0 results. I have sent yet another message to their customer support - at least they are very quick in responding so far #medlibs

I think this might win the prize of being the funniest spammy e-mail I have received so far - who wants to join me?

My favorite way of doing #medlib work: being funny AND being critical!

Good news for #medlibs on #scopus! They have now fixed the issue of a rogue space being added to proximity operators - I checked and the combine query function seems to be working as it should now

Definitely adding this to my reading list as a medlib working for a semi-government institute for public health research... although I did notice that even though the title lists it as a scoping review, one of the author keywords is systematic review?

i logged into work and immediately my entire outlook crashes and freezes.. almost seems like the universe is trying to give me a day off work

Hey, #medlibs! People may have already seen this, but it looks like NCBI databases are undergoing an update July 26 which may last “12+ hours.” The notification sppeared in PubMed, so assuming that’ll be impacted too. ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2025/07/08/n...

A quick update on the #scopus issue: my colleague discovered it is due to a rogue space in the prox operator when using the combine query function. We have contacted customer service about this and they let their developers know. for now i'd stay away from this function to avoid mistakes! #medlibs

A non medlib post from me today... below you can see the visitor on my windowsill next to a picture of the crowned pigeon. Try and spot the differences! #birds

Oh, the irony. Perhaps the author should've read up on machine learning before writing this book and making one of the more common mistakes when using ChatGPT for science...

Anyone in the #medlibs community noticed something weird going on with #Scopus? The results are completely different and vague, but all I can find is one vague statement they are working on an update..

Still recovering from all the learning and socializing at #EAHIL2025 and now it is time to catch up on all the interesting talks from #ESMARconf I missed! Very grateful these are at least all available online

Raphaël Grolimund shows us a very cool video on how you can use Zotero for much more than just reference managing - in fact, you can use it during the entire process of a systematic review. Good news for the #medlibs not at #EAHIL2025, he shared a video of this at the end peertube.ch/w/qvgAhaVuGZ...

the 3-min presentations are a bit tricky to follow due to the challenging acoustics in the room, but we are starting off with a sponsor talk from third iron on retracted papers #EAHIL2025

My second day of #EAHIL2025 starts off with a really fun workshop on how to navigate predatory practices as a librarian. Already learned some new stuff!

Proof #medlibs are actually some of the bravest people out there... I can only hope I will learn to be as courageous as carrie some day

I do have to say I miss #Covidence at the sponsor stands at #EAHIL2025... I always brag about their great stickers for #medlibs!