PUBMED
HEALTH & MEDICINE SOURCES
Rev 3/09
PubMed, a service of the National Library of Medicine, includes over 18 million citations
for biomedical articles back to 1948. These citations are from MEDLINE and additional
life science journals. PubMed includes links to many sites providing full text articles and
other related resources.
Search across databases: (Default)
1. Enter your search term or phrase in the text box in the pale blue header bar.
2. Click Go. OR…
3. Select a Full Text option – best choices are PubMed Central and Books.
PubMed Central (PMC) – Full Text Articles:
PubMed Central (PMC) is the U.S. National Library of Medicine's digital archive of life
sciences journal literature. Access to the full text of articles in PMC is free, except where
a journal requires a subscription for access to recent articles.
1. Select PubMed Central from the light green box.
2. Enter search terms in the Search for: box in the grey header. Click Go.
Preview/Index searching is also available in PMC – follow directions below.
PMC (Full Text) Results:
 Full text results in PMC are available in various formats, including:
 Abstract – presents a summary of the article and its findings
 Full Text – complete text of article in easy-to-print format
 PDF – exact image of article as it appeared in print journal
 Sort results by date or by journal title by making selection from the “Sort” dropdown menu, then click Display.
 Other display options are available as well; use the drop-down menus.
Preview/Index Search (Advanced Search):
1. Select the Preview/Index text from the gray header bar, just below text entry
box.
2. Your most recent searches (if any) will be displayed, and can be combined to focus
or expand your search.
3. Additional search terms may be added in the text box at the bottom of the screen.
4. Use the “and” or “not” buttons to limit the search; use “or” to expand the search.
5. Select Preview to see how many search results will be retrieved; select Go to
execute your search.
Other features:
 Save items from results list for later use by clicking the check box next to each
article desired. To see your selected results, select “Clipboard” from the “Send to”
drop-down list, then click Send to. Access selected articles at any time by choosing
“Clipboard” in the gray header bar.
 Download articles to your computer by selecting “File” from the “Send to” drop-down
list. Use the Clipboard tab to access your saved articles at any time.
 Other resources are available through PubMed, and may be accessed by clicking the
resource name in the black header bar or in the green and blue boxes on the
opening screen. They include:

Nucleotide: The Entrez Nucleotides database is a collection of sequences from
several sources, including GenBank, RefSeq, and PDB. The number of bases
grows at an exponential rate.
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Protein: The protein entries in the Entrez search and retrieval system have been
compiled from a variety of sources, including SwissProt, PIR, PRF, PDB, and
translations from annotated coding regions in GenBank and RefSeq.
Genome: The whole genomes of over 1000 viruses and over 100 microbes can
be found in Entrez Genome. The genomes represent both completely sequenced
organisms and those for which sequencing is in progress. All three main domains
of life - bacteria, archaea, and eukaryota - are represented, as well as many
viruses and organelles.
Structure: The Molecular Modeling Database (MMDB) contains 3D
macromolecular structures, including proteins and polynucleotides. MMDB
contains over 22,000 structures and is linked to the rest of the NCBI databases.
Included is access to Cn3D, NCBI's 3D structure viewer. As a helper application
for your Web browser, it allows you to interactively view 3D structures,
sequences, and sequence alignments.
Taxonomy: The NCBI taxonomy database contains the names of all organisms
that are represented in the genetic databases with at least one nucleotide or
protein sequence. You may browse the taxonomic structure or retrieve sequence
data for a particular group of organisms.
Books: The Bookshelf is a growing collection of biomedical books that can be
searched directly. Full text results of your search are displayed for each book.
Currently, over 100 books have been selected for inclusion in this project.
This list represents only a portion of the resources available through Entrez.
Print:
1. Citations, abstracts, full-text: use the print command or icon compatible with your
system.
2. PDF: click the printer icon in the Adobe Acrobat window.
For assistance please contact a Reference Librarian 214/333-5221 or 1/800/483-7048
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