No Comments on A Review of ClinMicroNow 40
Melanie Radik, MLIS
Natural Sciences Librarian
Science and Engineering Library
University Libraries
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Introduction
ClinMicroNow is an online reference work of information on pathogenic and clinically relevant microbes. It covers in-depth descriptions by type and species; current microbiology procedures and protocols in detection, treatment, and safety; and case studies from initial presentation through diagnosis and treatment with contextual information. It was created to meet the needs of clinical microbiologists as well as students, researchers, and laboratory professionals.
At the time of this writing, ClinMicroNow consists of the Manual of Clinical Microbiology, 13th Edition (MCM), the Clinical Microbiology Procedures Handbook, 5th Edition (CMPH), and Cases in Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, 4th Edition (Cases). For several decades, previous editions of each have been published as individual works by the American Society for Microbiology Press (ASM Press). ClinMicroNow is published in a collaboration between ASM Press and Wiley. It launched in August 2020, and was originally offered on the ASM Press online platform as a database. It migrated to the Wiley Online Library platform in 2025 and became an electronic reference work. While individual subscriptions had been available through the ASM Press platform, only institutional subscriptions are currently available through the Wiley Online Library. Users at subscribing institutions can create individual accounts to keep a favorites list and save searches.
Content
Each of the three titles comprising the content of ClinMicroNow contributes detailed information on microbial human pathogens with slightly different perspectives and goals. The MCM and CMPH are written by experts, for experts, and use highly technical language to describe the organisms; their pathogenic mechanisms; diagnostic methods; laboratory protocols, testing, and quality control; safety practices; writing the report; and sometimes treatment. Cases, as a student textbook, uses more approachable language but still packs in the correct terminology as necessary information for aspiring students. Cases are presented as “unknowns” and represent actual case presentations of patients the authors have encountered.1 Cases includes specific tools to assist students in solving the cases, including a table of normal values, glossary of medical terms, and figures illustrating microscopic organism morphology, laboratory tests, and clinical symptoms.1
ClinMicroNow combines these works to increase the speed and ease with which users can access the depth of information found across these works on a single topic. Individual entries map to the chapters in the component titles. They can be viewed as HTML on the Wiley Online Library platform or opened in PDF format.
Attributions to authors and editors of ClinMicroNow map directly to authors and editors of the three component titles: no overall editor is credited for combining them.2 All titles are written by teams of experienced researchers and practitioners in the relevant disciplines, such as university professors or directors of hospitals and laboratories in pathology, virology, medical microbiology, molecular epidemiology, and more. Individual chapters are written by one or more authors. Notably, of the 52 people listed on the “About/Editors & Contributors” page, only six have an international affiliation.
Features/Functionality
The ClinMicroNow homepage features a brief description of the resource, lists the Most Recent and Most Cited Articles (book chapters), a navigation menu, and a keyword search bar. The concise navigation menu offers “Home,” “About,” and “Table of Contents.” The “About” section lists Sample Content, Editors, and a Disclaimer.
Figure 1: ClinMicroNow About page. Credit: Wiley/American Society for Microbiology Press
The table of contents is designed in nesting accordion boxes to drill down through section headings and subheadings, and link to full text only at the chapter level. Each chapter offers the options to go directly to the Abstract, Full text, PDF, or References. Users who are very familiar with these works may find it fastest to bookmark the “Table of Contents” page and navigate using the familiar layout.
Figure 2: ClinMicroNow Table of Contents structure. Credit: Wiley/American Society for Microbiology Press
On the full text chapter pages, ClinMicroNow provides several link-out options to follow up with references. Some chapters in the CMPH also offer citations for supplemental reading suggestions, which are also linked out. Links can include the publisher site, major databases such as PubMed and Web of Science, Google Scholar, and an institution’s citation resolver.
Figure 3: ClinMicroNow example of linked full text options for References and Supplemental Reading. Credit: Wiley/American Society for Microbiology Press
Full text pages include a sidebar menu with shortcuts to “Figures,” “References,” “Related,” and “Information.”
Figure 4: ClinMicroNow sidebar menu in full text pages. Credit: Wiley/American Society for Microbiology Press
The Information menu lists the copyright, keywords, and publication date associated with the chapter. The Related menu offers algorithmically-selected chapters and articles of similar subject matter drawn from all content on Wiley Online Library – whether an institution subscribes to it or not. The References menu is straightforward. Clicking on images in the Figures menu launches the figure viewer, which offers a zoom function and the figure caption in a sidebar. The Zoom function is of limited usefulness as the resolution quality of many photographic figures is poor.
Figure 5: Graininess seen in ClinMicroNow photographic figure at one-third zoom with figure caption slider. Credit: Wiley/American Society for Microbiology Press
Chapters in Cases do not seem to include figure captions, which may cause confusion. Figures are described in the text but this information is not captured in the figure viewer. There are also a handful of figures where the online image seems washed out or overexposed when compared to the print image, though it was not a pervasive problem.
Figure 6: ClinMicroNow photographic figure from Cases at original size showing washed out effect and no figure caption slider. Credit: Wiley/American Society for Microbiology Press
The keyword search bar at the top of all pages is part of the Wiley Online Library platform. While it will default to searching only this reference work when searched from any of the CinMicroNow content pages, the Results page defaults to searching the entirety of an institution’s Wiley Online Library subscriptions, though users can select “This Reference Work” from the drop-down. Both an “Advanced Search” and “Citation Search” appear to be available, however the “Citation Search” is not applicable to ClinMicroNow as it is not a journal. “Advanced Search” can be useful, as the search terms can be constrained to Title, Author, Keywords, Abstract, Author Affiliation, and Funding Agency, and a date range may be set. Keyword searching is strictly matching without any hidden thesaurus or natural language processing. For example, searches for COVID-19 and Sars-CoV-2 returned overlapping but distinct sets of results.
The Results page labels results as Articles, which maps to the chapter level of the works in ClinMicroNow. Chapter titles, authors, source title, and publication date are provided. However, the source title for all articles is ClinMicroNow; articles can’t be searched by the three component titles. The component title can be seen on a chapter’s full text page. Results default to a relevance ranking and can be resorted by date.
Figure 7: ClinMicroNow source metadata. Left: results page. Right: full text page. Credit: Wiley/American Society for Microbiology Press
Filters for results include Publication Type, Publication Date, Subjects, Published In, and Author. These are not terribly helpful, as most results have identical filter info. Of the 360 individual articles/chapters, all are reference works; 351 from the past two years and nine from 2016; all match Life Sciences – Microbiology & Virology and Medical Science – Infectious Disease and Microbiology – Microbiology for subjects; and were published in major reference works. Only the Authors filter offers much in the way of uniquely filtering the results of a search. Applied Filters would be a more relevant search tool if it were tailored to this reference work.
Figure 8: ClinMicroNow results page Applied Filters menu. Credit: Wiley/American Society for Microbiology Press
ClinMicroNow promotional materials tout keyword searching as its main strength, capable of finding all relevant content on a topic. It is a comprehensive, full-text search, including results from not only the main text of the chapters but also the contents of tables and figure legends as well as reference citations. Therein lies a drawback, as keyword matching may return results which are not relevant and only mention desired terms once or out of context. This is particularly vexing when the topic is widely referred to as an example case or model organism. For example, a search for COVID-19 sterilization returns several relevant results, evidence of useful relevance ranking algorithms, but also returns a chapter entitled “Mycobacterium: General Characteristics, Laboratory Processing, Staining, Isolation, and Detection Procedures” within the first 10 results. This is a common issue with reference works, which is what makes an index so powerful. Both the MCM and Cases are published with subject indexes, which are not present in ClinMicroNow. Future versions would do well to include these, as a linked index would enhance comprehensive discoverability of a topic.
Wiley Online Library has a Training & Support section, linked in the footer of any ClinMicroNow or search results page. There is a ClinMicroNow Training Hub of materials. At the time of this writing, it consists entirely of promotional flyers and pamphlets about ClinMicroNow, with one step-by-step write up of how to access it if your institution already subscribes. The broader Wiley Online Library Training Hub includes short videos for browsing and conducting searches in online reference works. Not all features of other reference works are available in ClinMicroNow, such as alphabetical topic browsing. If users have technical or access issues, they are directed to reach out to their institutional administrator.
Business Model
ClinMicroNow is available as an annual subscription to institutional subscribers only. It is hosted on the Wiley Online Library platform. As a subscription resource, when new content is available it is added automatically. Wiley advertises this as “Dynamic Updates” and claims “Clinical microbiology content is continuously updated as science advances and clinical practice changes – no need to wait for new editions.”4 In practice, content is updated when new editions of the MCM, CPMH, and Cases are published. At the time of writing, Cases content is from the 2016 publication and thus includes no content on such vital topics as COVID-19. Subscribers should keep an eye out for the 5th Edition of Cases, scheduled to be released in August 2025.
Usage data is available through COUNTER TR_B2 and TR_B3 reports. These can be accessed through the Wiley Online Library Administrative Dashboard.
Breakthrough
ClinMicroNow’s value lies in its portability, accessibility, and searchability. Rather than lugging around the combined 10 volumes of these three reference works, users can access over 6,000 printed pages worth of information with a handheld device. The content is available 24/7, ideal for rotations, remote learning opportunities, and vision-impaired users. The search feature covers not only chapter text but will match against reference citations and the content of tables and figure descriptions.
This review has mentioned some concerns, in that the platform has not been optimized for the content and there are indications that the image quality of some figures is poor. These elements notwithstanding, ClinMicroNow is a useful resource for any academic or medical library that supports medical students, medical or microbial researchers in infectious diseases, and pathogenic microbial laboratory managers and staff.
4. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Clinmicronow. Wiley. https://www.wiley.com/en-us/shop/clinmicronow.
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