MEDLINE : PubMed

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MEDLINE PubMed Ovid compared

• Juliet Ralph
• Radcliffe Science Library
• www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/rsl

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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.

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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.

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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

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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 dont have your keyword in the
  title.

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Different routes to Medline

• The free one
• PubMed www.pubmed.gov

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And those we subscribe to

• 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/

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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.
   

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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.

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Isnt Medline all I need?

• Although its 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.

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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

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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 toolsgtMap term
• Search history
• Limits
• Find citation
• Personal Account for saved searches alerts

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• Links to full text OvidSP
• In our subscription databases youll see the
  linking tool
• This gives access to all the e-journals Oxford is
  entitled to
• Even when youre off campus
• Remote access is possible with an Athens account
• Self-register at www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/athens/

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• 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

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• Links to Oxford full text PubMed
• What about Abstract only or No Abstract?
• Full text (especially latest issues) isnt 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

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Whats 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

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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

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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

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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).

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And search multiple databases on OvidSP

• Simultaneously
• You can Deduplicate results (using Search
  History)
• OR
• Do a search in one database then re-run it in
  another
• Click on Change database
• Select new database
• Open and re-execute

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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_at_hcl.ox.ac.uk
• Radcliffe Science Library enquiries.rsl_at_ouls.ox.ac
  .uk
• juliet.ralph_at_ouls.ox.ac.uk

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Over to you

• Getting started with OvidSP
• Try the tutorial at
• www.informs.intute.ac.uk/informs_perl/jump.pl?270-
  4011