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 A large medical lecture at the Diamond Centre, UBC Introduction to MEDLINE
Interfaces
Medline is a database searchable for free at PubMed http://pubmed.gov, and available via OvidSP (which requires a subscription). The new OvidSP interface was introduced in late 2010. A PubMed search provides links to Medline citations of authors, titles, journal titles and abstracts. Searching is free and no registration is required. PubMed may be searched via the NLM Gateway, a web interface that searches multiple NLM retrieval systems. Some citations link to free full text in PubMed Central® or other free sites. MedlinePlus provides consumer-oriented health information. Health consumers are encouraged to discuss their search results with health librarians and their health care providers.
Tutorial
Coverage
See 2010 numbers here
- Medline is created by the U.S. National Library of Medicine;
- OldMedline goes back to ~1947; index medicus goes back to 1879 (see IndexCat - home page)
- it is the premier bibliographic database in biomedicine containing ~19.9 million (PubMed 17.9 million (Medline) + 2 = 20 million) citations
- all[sb] to determine # of references in PubMed (as of July 2010, there were 19,949,089 citations in PubMed)
- indexes journals in 30 languages; 40 languages for older items; some citations created by international partners and collaborating organizations;
- ~5400 journals indexed from 1966-present; life sciences with a concentration in biomedicine
- 19,422,000 citations - 670,000 new entries per year
- Medline is core of PubMed®, part of the Entrez system of databases at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)
- Medline is searchable via the NLM Gateway
- ~1,500-3,500 articles are added daily from Tuesday to Saturday
- over 550,000 were added in 2007; 670,000 new entries in 2008; in 2009?
- updates are suspended in December to enable NLM to transition to next iteration of the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
Broad subject coverage
- covers international biomedical, life and basic research sciences
- behavioural and chemical sciences; bioengineering in health; public health, health policy development and related research as well as biophysics and chemistry; increased indexing in life sciences from 2000.
- covers research vital to biomedical practitioners, researchers and educators, including biology, environmental science, marine biology, plant and animal science
- most publications are scholarly or peer-reviewed; some newspapers, magazines and newsletters considered useful are indexed
- citations added from 1995-2005: 48% are for cited articles published in the U.S., 88% are published in English, and 76% are for English abstracts written by authors of the articles
Searchability
Standard citation in Medline
- Look at the indexing of this article:
- What are the major and minor descriptors?
- Note the record is from Medline but also included in the Cochrane Library - why is that?
- Can you find articles that are similar to this one? how?
- Notice the citation format?
- What does search strategy refer to in the abstract?
Record #1
Vitamin C for preventing and treating the common cold. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2004 Oct 18;(4):CD000980. Douglas RM, Hemila H, D'Souza R, Chalker EB, Treacy B.
BACKGROUND: The role of oral vitamin C (ascorbic acid) in the prevention and treatment of the common cold has been a subject of controversy for at least sixty years. Public interest in the topic continues to be high and vitamin C continues to be widely sold and used as a preventive and therapeutic agent for this common ailment. OBJECTIVES: To discover whether oral vitamin C in doses of 200 mg or more daily, reduces the incidence, duration or severity of the common cold when used either as continuous prophylaxis or after the onset of cold symptoms. SEARCH STRATEGY: This updated review added to earlier searches, a full search of the following electronic databases: the Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (The Cochrane Library Issue 2, 2004); MEDLINE (January 1966 to June 2004); and EMBASE (1990 to June 2004).
Publication Types:
MeSH Terms:
- Administration, Oral
- Ascorbic Acid/administration & dosage
- Ascorbic Acid/therapeutic use*
- Common Cold/drug therapy*
- Common Cold/prevention & control*
- Humans
- Respiratory Tract Infections/drug therapy
- Respiratory Tract Infections/prevention & control
Substances:
PMID: 15495002 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Expert search filters
- any users with personal accounts will see Expert searches created by some librarians after they click View Saved
- they can be run and applied to searches; most expert searches are methodology filters, but we have one to narrow to Canadian publications, i.e. about Canada, published in a Canadian journal or written by someone affiliated with a Canadian institution
- about copying saved searches from one Personal Account to another; it can be done at Ovid’s end; or you can re-key or copy/paste search into a new personal account.
- Ovid needs the capability – as EBSCO has – to allow someone to run saved searches and log off Personal Account without the search being lost so it can be saved under a different Personal Account. If others think this is valuable, they should let their Ovid know either via their rep or at conferences where Ovid exhibits.
See also
References
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