Featured Resource: PubMed
Posted on Thu, Jun 23, 2011
Today, we look at PubMed, which compiles citations for biomedical literature. PubMed is run by the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the U.S. National Library of Medicine. It contains citations for over 20 million biomedical articles, coming from a variety of sources, such as life science journals and online books.
Customizable Searches
One of the largest sources for PubMed’s citations is MEDLINE. MEDLINE is a bibliographic database that compiles the top articles from over 5,000 journals written in 39 different languages. Thousands of new references are added every week. MEDLINE indexes its records using National Library of Medicine’s Medical Subject Headings, or MeSH. This is a controlled vocabulary thesaurus, designed specifically for the biotechnological sources in PubMed.
MEDLINE allows researchers to expand their searches by finding keywords similar to the search terms entered. There are also multiple hierarchies involved with the descriptors, meaning that the search terms could be as broad as “Anatomy” or as narrow as the names of specific amino acids. In either case, the search engine returns results both with the search terms and with related similes. Most of the publications covered in MEDLINE are scholarly journals. However, there are also some newspapers, magazines, and newsletters included. This makes MEDLINE a leading source for finding non-patent literature in the biotech field.
Tutorials and Quick Tours
PubMed’s strongest feature might be its user-friendly features. Although many of its citations are specific and technical, the site does a fantastic job of teaching new users how to search and navigate the resource. It features many tutorials and animated videos for using PubMed. The videos are short and specific. Again, PubMed shows how it can be helpful for a wide range of researchers. PubMed offers videos as simple as searching “PubMed by Author,” but also has multiple tutorials for using custom filters and for getting the most out of the aforementioned MEDLINE resource. In addition to the brief animated videos, PubMed also offers longer webcasts for more in- depth research tools. Finally, there are a number of downloadable manuals and resources for additional training in using the search engine.
Overall, PubMed is a great resource for every researcher. It is extremely user-friendly, while also being customizable enough to satisfy the needs of the most experienced researcher. Using PubMed is free; however some of the articles it cites are abstract only. On PubMed’s FAQ page, researchers can find more information about what to do if the full article is not available online.
Remember, for additional search tools, visit Article One’s Resources & Tools page.
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