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What is PubMed?

What exactly is PubMed?

PubMed is the free public interface to MEDLINE. It provides access to bibliographic information in MEDLINE as well as additional life science journals. PubMed also provides access to the intergrated molecular biology databases included in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Entrez retrieval system. PubMed is maintained and updated by the National Library of Medicine on a weekly basis.

What is the difference between MEDLINE and PubMed?

MEDLINE is the National Library of Medicine's premier bibliographic database covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and the preclinical sciences. MEDLINE contains citations from the 1950's to present. There are currently over 14 million records in the database. MEDLINE collects from an array of over 4,500 biomedical journals published in the United States and internationally.

In addition to MEDLINE, PubMed provides access to:
  • The out-of-scope citations (e.g., articles on plate tectonics or astrophysics) from certain MEDLINE journals, primarily general science and chemistry journals, for which the life sciences articles are indexed for MEDLINE. (i.e. Cell and Science)
  • Citations that precede the date that a journal was selected for MEDLINE indexing.
  • Some additional life science journals that submit full text to PubMedCentral and receive a qualitative review by NLM.
  • Citations not yet indexed with MeSH terms i.e. PREMEDLINE.


What is the difference between OVID MEDLINE and PubMed?


PubMed

OVID MEDLINE

Updated almost daily, Tues-Sat. Up to one month or more behind
Searches PREMEDLINE simultaneously Separate database for PreMedline
Includes additional Life Sciences journals No additional journals searched
Access to NCBI databases MEDLINE only

Back to Introduction to PubMed
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