HUM-MOLGEN archive: PubMed: MEDLINE Retrieval on the World Wide Web

NOTE: As of June 26, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) is providing free WWW access to its MEDLINE database (see http://www.nlm.nih.gov for further information). Below is the text of the NLM Fact Sheet announcing the PubMed WWW retrieval system (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed). PubMed MEDLINE Retrieval on the World Wide Web PubMed is a World Wide Web retrieval service developed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM). PubMed provides access, free of charge, to MEDLINE, a database of nearly 9 million bibliographic citations and abstracts in the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, health care systems, and preclinical sciences. PubMed also contains links to full text versions of articles at participating publishers' Web sites. PubMed also provides access and links to the integrated molecular biology databases maintained by the NCBI. These databases contain DNA and protein sequences, genome mapping data, and 3-D protein structures. Additional NLM bibliographic databases, such as AIDSLINE, will be added to PubMed. MEDLINE MEDLINE is the NLM's premier bibliographic database, containing citations and author abstracts from over 3800 biomedical journals published in the United States and in 70 foreign countries. Coverage extends back to 1966 and new material is incorporated weekly. All citations in MEDLINE are assigned subject headings from the MeSH vocabulary to assist users in their searches. Searching PubMed PubMed is an easy-to-use search tool for finding journal articles of interest in the health and medical sciences. A basic search screen allows users to search by entering a few key words or phrases. A set of article titles is retrieved and their associated abstracts can be selected for viewing. A unique feature of PubMed is the ability to find all related articles to a given article instantly. Related articles are pre-computed based on textual similarity. Advanced search modes offer the ability to perform more complex searches by specifying data fields and by using Boolean logic to combine multiple search terms. A special clinical query page provides customized searches for studies based on etiology, diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment of a particular disease. Search results can be viewed in various formats, including formats suitable for downloading into bibliographic reference manager software. For journals participating in the PubMed project and which have Web sites, there are links to the full-text of retrieved articles. Note that these links are made to the Web sites of participating publishers and may require users to register before being able to view the full-text. Currently there are 24 full-text journals participating. The URL for PubMed is: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed Publisher Participation Publishers with WWW sites that provided access to the full-text of their journals are invited to participate in PubMed if their journals are already indexed in MEDLINE. Participating publishers supply NLM with formatted citations and abstracts prior to or at the time of publication. In turn NLM creates the PubMed links to the articles at the publishers' sites. NLM also provides citation matching in order to link the citations in the reference section of an article directly back to citations in MEDLINE. Further Information Contact the National Center for Biotechnology Information at (301) 496-2475 or by email at 'info@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov'. The mailing address is: National Center for Biotechnology Information National Library of Medicine Bldg. 38A, Room 8N-803 8600 Rockville Pike Bethesda, MD 20894