QUOSA Browser Plus (QBPlus): A Browser Plug-in That Indicates Which Articles are in PDF and Helps Download Them
QBPlus is a Plug-in tool for Internet Explorer or Firefox browsers for PC. To get started, just paste UM’s unique QBPlus link (http://qbplus.com/umiami/) into your browser and follow the prompts to install it. After your one-time registration (use your UM email address to register), you can use QBPlus by simply going to the same QBPlus link.
When using QBPlus, you will see a QBPlus toolbar in the browser which provides buttons for easy downloading of PDF articles from your searches in PubMed MEDLINE or the OvidSP databases and many other tools. A unique feature of QBPlus are PDF icons displayed next to PubMed and Ovid search results to indicate which articles are available as full text PDFs. To download them to a Windows folder, just click in the checkboxes, then click on the red Sigma “Save to” button. You can designate any windows folder as the destination for your articles, and specify a file naming convention. Here is a screenshot to illustrate:
UM has a license to several QUOSA products, including QBPlus and QUOSA Information Manager. Some of the key differences between these products are:
QUOSA Information Manager (desktop version) – available for Mac and PC:
This is a software downloaded and installed on your computer. QUOSA Information Manager offers a wide range of tools to help manage your article collections, including easy downloading of one or many PDFs simultaneously, full-text searching in your PDF collections, de-duping of articles within folders, cross-referencing of articles between folders, alerts for automating searching, exporting citations to RefWorks with links to full text, etc.
If you are on a computer that does not allow software installation, then you might consider QBPlus. If you would like to be able to quickly scan your PubMed or OvidSP results to see which ones are available in PDF before saving them, you might consider QBPlus.
QBPlus (lite browser version) – available for PC only:
QBPlus is a browser plug-in and thus is easier to install. It is a quick way to download articles into your regular Windows folders and has a unique feature: it displays PDF icons next to your OvidSP or PubMed citations, so you can see at a glance which articles are in PDF. However, it is a lighter version of QUOSA Information Manager and therefore does not offer de-duping, highlighting, searching within the PDF articles, etc. At this time, QBPlus can be used for PubMed and Ovid searches, but not yet in databases such as SCOPUS, Google Scholar, NCBI, NIH RePORTER, or the US PTO databases (which can be used through QUOSA Information Manager). If using QBPlus from home, log into the Secure Gateway/VPN or Citrix before clicking on the QBPlus link, or you may be asked to login to the Louis Calder Memorial Library EZproxy system (with your name and barcode) when you start QBPlus. When searching PubMed, we recommend that you also log into your PubMed My NCBI account.
You can export your QBPlus PDFs to your QUOSA Information Manager (desktop version) via the More mode option (Tools > Export …). Both QUOSA Information Manager and QBPlus can work with your QUOSA Virtual Library account.
A short introduction to QUOSA Browser Plus (QBPlus) can be found here: http://www.quosa.com/sites/default/files/QB_Plus_intro_8_02/QB_Plus_intro_8_02.html
We offer classes in QUOSA Information Manager and other databases; please register at: https://www.library.miami.edu/calder/training.html