How PubMed Works: Automatic Term Mapping (ATM)

Class Experience Level
Beginner, Intermediate

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How PubMed Works: Automatic Term Mapping is an engaging and practical training session designed to enhance your understanding of PubMed's inner workings. This 90-minute interactive webinar provides an in-depth examination of Automatic Term Mapping (ATM), PubMed’s behind-the-scenes process for interpreting your search terms.

This session offers a mix of live demonstrations, hands-on exercises, and practical search tips from the National Library of Medicine. Key topics include the ATM keyword term translation process, leveraging the Subject, Journals, and Author Name tables, phrase searching, finding ‘your’ author, and strategies for refining searches when ATM doesn’t deliver expected results. 

This How PubMed Works: Automatic Term Mapping session addresses increasing health information access and use by highlighting features of the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed bibliographic database.  

Class Resources:
HPW: ATM Slides (PPT)
HPW: ATM Handout (Word)
Find this recording on the How PubMed Works Playlist on YouTube
Objectives:
  • Describe the contents of the 3 Translation Tables.
  • Explain the order of ATM
  • Analyze Search Details to verify term mapping.
  • Locate PubMed's list of indexed phrases
  • Describe 3 Ways to bypass ATM

By registering for this class, you are agreeing to the NNLM Code of Conduct

Class Details

Date(s): June 25, 2025
Time: 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM EDT
Platform: Zoom
CE Credits: 1.50
CE Categories: MLA
This is a National NNLM class.
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How PubMed Works

Class Contacts

Host/Instructor: Erica Lake
Technical Assistance: Rebecca Brown

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