SPIRS, WinSPIRS, and OVID: a comparison of three MEDLINE-on-CD-ROM interfaces.

Three MEDLINE-on-CD-ROM interfaces are compared: SPIRS (version 3.11) and WinSPIRS (version 1.0) from SilverPlatter and OVID (version 3.0, DOS and Windows interfaces) from CD Plus Technologies. Though the database is the same, there are substantial differences among the interfaces in the way these data are presented and can be searched. These different approaches are discussed, and a detailed comparative table is included. It is obvious that all three interfaces are quite good yet none of them is perfect; each has desirable and unfortunate features. Together, they offer an enormous range of possibilities. Users would benefit if most of the better features (e.g., easy menu, free-text retrieval, pre-exploded thesaurus terms) were implemented in future versions of these interfaces and if system operators were given greater latitude to determine the system defaults appropriate to their specific situations and customers.