2. One Database - Many Interfaces
Although the underlying
Medline database is the same, the search engine and interface differs between suppliers.
There are two free versions (PubMed and Internet Grateful Med) at the NLM, and other
prominent commercial suppliers are Silver Platter, WinSPIRS and Ovid (available from BMA,
free to members). A list of other sources of Medline on the Internet can be found at the Medical Matrix or Dr. Felix sites. Most Medline
search interfaces offer the opportunity to use Boolean logic, and to specify field
searches. Different interfaces have useful features, and one of the skills of using
Medline is knowing which search interface will produce the type of results you want.
The best interfaces
allow you to locate references by building and combining searches. You should be able to
search by MeSH, author, journal, language, and text words from fields such as titles,
text, or abstracts. In addition, they should provide a decent MeSH browser, and control of
the format of the output.
When searching Medline
remember: -
- An effective search strategy is required. As in most types of searching you are trying
to perform the most sensitive search (contains every article of relevance) consistent with
being relatively specific (excluding the majority of articles which are not relevant)
- Many journals are not indexed by Medline, so in a comprehensive search you should
consider a search of other biomedical databases, such as EMBASE.
- Be specific in your search terms - you need to drill down the MeSH classification to the
most detailed level which still includes your topic. To compensate for human indexing
errors, a systematic search should also include text words as well as MeSH terms and
title/abstract key words.
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