DESCRIPTION

MEDLINE® provides authoritative information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and much more. Created by the National Library of Medicine, MEDLINE uses MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) indexing to search abstracts from over 4,600 current biomedical journals. Included are citations from Index Medicus, International Nursing Index, Index to Dental Literature, PREMEDLINE®, AIDSLINE, BIOETHICSLINE, and HealthSTAR. Through the Ebsco interface, MEDLINE is now a "full text database" with links to articles full-text in other Ebsco products. 

Records in the Medline database are broken up into fields and are labeled including Title, Source (complete citation information including publication title, volume and issue number and date), Author, MeSH terms, and Abstract. To see the full record for an item, click on its title from your Results List. 

1. To begin your search, type the keyword or phrase that best describes your topic. You will automatically search the Default Fields. 
   • NOTE: To search for an exact phrase, enter your phrase in quotation marks:
         For example: "cardiac arrest" 
2. If your topic encompasses more than one concept, break it into keywords and then connect using Boolean Operators. Try the following: 
   • To focus a search, enter the terms connecting them with the word AND:
         For example: cancer and colon
   • To broaden a search, connect similar concepts or words with the word OR:
         For example: (cardiac arrest or myocardial infarction or heart attack) and (obesity or weight)

Limiting Your Search

• To search only words in the Title field of an article, select TI Title from the drop-down menu, then enter your search terms in the text box; 
• To search only names in the Author field of an article, select AU Author from the drop-down menu, then enter the last name of the author in the text box; 
• To limit your search to a particular publication, type the publication name in the Journal box.
• To limit your search to a certain date range, enter the appropriate month and year in the Date of Publication boxes.
• Apply other limits based on age, gender, language, publication type, etc. as is seen on the search screen. 

When you are done building your search, click on the Search button. 

SUBJECTS (Using MeSH Subject Headings) 

• Performing a MeSH search will help you to determine the official vocabulary used in the Medline database. 
• Click on the MeSH button at the top of the screen.
• In the box labeled "Browse for" enter in the term or phrase you would like to search for. 
• Below the "Browse for" box, click in the circle next to "Relevancy Ranked" 
• Click on the Browse button. 
• If your search term or phrase is a MeSH term, you will see your term as a link in the alphabetical list of terms. Click on the term to see more information, a definition of the term, related terms, narrower terms, etc. 
• If your search term or phrase is not a MeSH term, the database will provide a list of related terms. Browse through the list of terms to find the appropriate term. 
• Click on the link for the each term to see more information, a definition of the term, related terms, etc. 

VIEWING

• After running a search, the default display shows you a list of brief citations. 
• If the item is available in Linked Full Text, a link will be available and you can view the entire item online. 
• If the item is not available online, click on the Check LinkSource link to search the Pace Library Catalog for that publication. Clicking this link will open a separate Browser window. If the Catalog indicates that Pace does have a subscription to the publication, be sure to look closely to see if the date and issue you need is available. 
• Click on the title of an item to see the Full Record display, as is seen here: 

1. When viewing the brief citation list, mark a record by clicking on the Add link/folder. 
2. When viewing the full record for an item, mark that record by clicking on the Add to Folder link.
3. To see just your marked records, click on the Folder has items link.
4. To clear your marked records, view the items in the Folder, then click on the Remove All link. You can remove individual items from the folder by clicking on the individual Remove links. 

1. When viewing the Full Text of item you want to print, click on the Print button located at the top of the article. 
2. NOTE: When viewing PDF Full Text, use the Adobe Acrobat printer button, and be sure to note complete citation information as sometimes it does not appear on the print out.
3. You can also Print all items in a Folder. When viewing the Folder List, click on the Print link located at the top of the list and follow the on-screen prompts. NOTE: The option to empty the Folder is automatically selected when you choose to Print items in the Folder. 

1. When viewing the Full Text of an item you want to email, click the Email link at the top of the article. 
2. Complete the form on the next screen, being sure to include your complete email address - for example, jdoe@domain.com. Click the Send button. NOTE: If the full-text of the item you want is NOT available for viewing, it is also NOT available for emailing. You will only receive what is available when viewing the item online from the database. 
3. You can also Email all items in a Folder. When viewing the Folder List, click on the Email link located at the top of the list and follow the on-screen prompts. NOTE: The option to empty the Folder is automatically selected when you choose to EMail items in the Folder. 

DOWNLOADING (Saving to Disk)

• When viewing the Full Text of item you want to Save, click on the Save button located at the top of the article. (When viewing PDF Full Text, use the Adobe Acrobat save button.)
• Follow the on-screen prompts to Save the item.
• You can also Save all items in a Folder. When viewing the Folder List, click on the Save to Disk link located at the top of the list and follow the on-screen prompts. NOTE: The option to empty the Folder is automatically selected when you choose to Save items in the Folder. 

RELATED DATABASES

See related Nursing/Medicine Databases.  Remember that some general databases are very strong on this subject as well.  Research Library is one such database.

Begin searching Medline.

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Created by Pace University Library
Revised 09/04
Sarah Burns Feyl
sburnsfeyl@pace.edu