MEDLINE :
PubMed & Ovid compared
Juliet Ralph
Radcliffe Science Library
www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/rsl
What is MEDLINE?
MEDLINE is the bibliographic database
produced by the National Library of
Medicine (USA) covering:
Medicine
Nursing
Dentistry
Veterinary medicine
Allied health
Pre-clinical sciences.
What is MEDLINE?
It contains over 17 million references to journal
articles, including reviews and clinical trials
Gathered from 4,600 biomedical journals
published in the United States and in 70 other
countries
Dating back to 1950, with daily updates
Electronic version of Index Medicus, Index to
Dental Literature, and the International Nursing
Index.
Index Medicus
Started in 1879 by Dr John Shaw Billings,
Librarian at the Office of the Surgeon
General, United States Army
A monthly classified index of the current
medical literature of the world
The first of its kind
Printed volumes 1879-1950 are at the
Radcliffe Science Library
Subject Headings
Records are indexed with Medical Subject
Headings (MeSH) :
a huge list of standard terms (over
22,000) for indexing journal articles and
books in the life sciences.
Each article is tagged with 10-15 headings
or subheadings.
“Major” headings are marked with an
asterisk.
This allows you to retrieve articles on a
subject even if they don’t have your
keyword in the title.
Different routes to Medline
The free one
PubMed: www.pubmed.gov
And those we subscribe to
1. Ovid
new OvidSP interface from 1st Feb. 2008
2. SCOPUS
includes Medline & Embase
3. CSA illumina: 1997 onwards
can be searched simultaneously with
TOXLINE (toxicology).
All on Oxlip www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/oxlip/
A note about coverage
PubMed provides access to Medline - PLUS very
recent articles not yet indexed:
On arrival they are initially tagged [PubMed - as
supplied by publisher].
Most progress to "in-process" status and later to
"indexed for MEDLINE".
Publishers also send details for articles that
appear on the Web before the journal issue's
release. They are tagged [Epub ahead of print].
The Ovid platform
Access to Medline – PLUS these other biomedical
databases:
AMED – complementary medicine
British Nursing Index
Cinahl – nursing
Embase – medicine & pharmacology
Global Health – public health & tropical medicine
HMIC – Health Management Information
Consortium
PsycInfo – psychology
ALL MOVING TO OvidSP ON 1ST FEBRUARY
2008.
Isn’t Medline all I need?
Although it’s pretty comprehensive
for clinical enquiries it has a strong
US bias.
EMBASE (electronic version of
Excerpta Medica) has better
coverage of European journals and
also includes more references to
drugs and therapeutics.
In Ovid & PubMed you can
Search using free text keywords or MeSH
headings
View your search history
Combine searches
Limit results by language, date, age groups, etc.
Can also limit to Clinical Queries.
Search for a specific reference or check a
faulty/incomplete reference
“View similar” articles
Save searches
Set up email alerts for new articles
Different buttons, similar function
In PubMed:
MeSH Database
History
Limits
Single Citation
Matcher
MyNCBI to save
searches & set up
e-mail alerts
OvidSP equivalent:
Search tools>Map
term
Search history
Limits
Find citation
Personal Account
for saved searches
& alerts
Links to full text : OvidSP
•In our subscription databases you’ll see the
linking tool
•This gives access to all the e-journals Oxford is
entitled to
•…Even when you’re “off campus”
•Remote access is possible with an Athens
account
•Self-register at www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/athens/
Links to free full text:
PubMed
•Many articles are freely available and indicated
in the results list by icons such as
•Free full text
•Free in PubMed Central
Links to Oxford full text: PubMed
•What about “Abstract only”
Abstract?
or No
•Full text (especially latest issues) isn’t always
freely available
•But if Oxford subscribes to the journal AND you
are within the Oxford network you get access.
•Go into the record and look for links such as
What’s new on OvidSP?
Basic Search mode :
“Natural Language” Searching
Search Aids, eg Narrow or Broaden search, add
Related Terms
Links to related authors or journals
Results are ranked by relevance (not date)
Adopts the widely used Truncation symbol *
Eg disease* retrieves diseases, diseased etc
Natural Language searching
Ask a question or describe a topic in ordinary
English
What are the current criteria for use of
prophylactic defibrillators in MI?
Ovid produces validated terms: criteria
prophylactic defibrillators heart attack
Expands to include word variations, strong
synonyms, acronyms, alternative spellings
Do not “force phrasing” with quotation marks,
brackets or hyphens
Be as concise as possible
Use nouns more than verbs
Why use PubMed?
Freely available on the web
URL easy to remember
Quick and easy to search
For very recent articles
Clinical Queries
– Search by Clinical Study Category
– Find Systematic Reviews
– Medical Genetics Searches
Why use OvidSP?
For a new topic or a more “guided” search
Use the MeSH headings from one relevant article
to go to others (hyperlinks included in “Complete
Reference”)
“Find citing articles” (in other Ovid journals)
Direct export to RefWorks and other reference
management packages
Links to e-journals plus library catalogues (for
print holdings, if not available electronically).
And search multiple databases on
OvidSP
Simultaneously
– You can Deduplicate results (using
Search History)
OR
Do a search in one database then rerun it in another
– Click on Change database
– Select new database
– Open and re-execute
Here to help
Contact your Subject Librarian
Listed at
www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/libraries/librarians
Online enquiry service “Ask an Oxford Librarian”
www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/bodley/ask
Health Care Libraries enquiries@hcl.ox.ac.uk
Radcliffe Science Library
enquiries.rsl@ouls.ox.ac.uk
juliet.ralph@ouls.ox.ac.uk
Over to you
Getting started with OvidSP
Try the tutorial at
www.informs.intute.a
c.uk/informs_perl/ju
mp.pl?270-4011