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Joan M. Shedivy
On June 26, 1997, Vice President Al Gore announced that the National Library of Medicine (NLM) will offer free access to its two Medline search engines called PubMed and Internet Grateful Med (IGM).
What is Medline?
The Medline database contains citations to journal literature covering
biomedicine, including research, clinical practice, administration, policy
issues, health care services, anatomy, organisms, diseases, chemicals and
drugs, techniques and equipment, psychiatry and psychology, biological
sciences and technology.
MeSH Vocabulary is the biomedical subject headings, subheadings, and
supplementary chemical terms used in indexing and searching MEDLINE as
well as many other NLM databases. Indexers always use the most specific
MeSH term(s) available to describe the subject content of an article. The
best way to search Medline is by using MeSH terms.
Access from the library home page:
(http://www.lib.auburn.edu)
* click on Indexes and Databases By Title
* click on the letter M
* click on Medline on the Web
* click on Internet Grateful Med or PubMed
Access the website directly at:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/databases/freemedl.html
Why use IGM or PubMed rather than Ovid's Medline Express?
I recommend using these databases as an alternative when we cannot access
Ovid Medline due to the maximum number of users (5) having been reached.
Although these Medline versions have improved since their release a
year ago, there are still problems at times with logging in, the system
being slow and downloading citations. In addition, the search engines
are inferior to Ovid's Medline.
Please note that IGM offers several other NLM databases such as AIDSLINE and HealthSTAR (see below). These are useful medicine-related databases which are not available through Ovid or any of the libraries' other vendors.
Free MEDLINE on the Web
A Comparison of Features
Internet Grateful Med
MEDLINE & PreMEDLINE
NLM's end-user software for those with limited
searching experience
Other database access:
AIDSLINE
AIDSDRUG
AIDSTRIALS
HealthSTAR (Health Services, Technology,
and Administration, Research)
DIRLINE (DIRectory of Information Services)
HISTLINE (HISTory of Medicine)
HSRPROJ (Research PROJects in Progress)
OLDMEDLINE (1964-65)
SDILINE (most recent month of MEDLINE)
PubMed
MEDLINE & PreMEDLINE
maintained by NCBI
(National Center for Biotechnology)
Other database access:
Entrez (Molecular Sequence Database System)
which presents an integrated view of:
DNA sequences
Protein sequences
Genome and chromosome mapping data
3-dimensional protein structures
Bibliographic citations
Full-Text Coverage:
100 journals from websites
Caution: users required to register, subscribe or
pay a fee for access to most of the titles
Searching Features:
* best for the less-experienced searcher
(i.e. health consumer, undergraduates)
Author, Title
Boolean (AND, OR)
Searchable MeSH headings and subheadings
Printing & Downloading
Pull-down Menus
Extras:
creating Journal Sets Searching Features:
* better for complex searches
Author, Title
Boolean (AND, OR, NOT)
Searchable MeSH headings and subheadings
Printing & Downloading
Truncation (*) and Phrase Searching (" ")
Extras:
Related Articles
Citation Matcher
* fill-in-the-blank form which can locate a specific
article, issue's content, or entire journal's content
Journal Browser
Journal Browser (PubMed)
PubMed's Journal Browser will find the full title of a biomedical
journal from its abbreviation. Ovid diplays the
full title of journals; however, many others display only the abbreviated
title. Most printed references in scientific
journal articles use the abbreviation as well.
If you would like to try the journal browser, here is a sample search: am j clin nutr
Access from the library home page:
(http://www.lib.auburn.edu)
* click on Indexes and Databases By Title
* click on the letter M
* click on About button next to Medline Express
* click on Find the full title of medical journals
Access the Journal Browser directly at:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/jbrowser.html
*This is an overview of an instruction session I conducted in June 1998. If you would like more information and/or a demonstration of PubMed/IGM please contact me at shedijm@lib.auburn.edu or 844-1746.