Medline

Instructional Guides

Medline on FirstSearch

MEDLINE, updated monthly, is produced by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and covers all areas of medicine, including dentistry, nursing and veterinary medicine. Dating back to 1951, it contains article references from more than 4,300 primarily biomedical journals (approximately 75% in English). Most records from 1975 to the present include abstracts. MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) is the thesaurus of established terms used to index this database. You can limit your search to the Division: AIM (Abridged Index Medicus) which is about 120 English-language journals fairly accessible. (see Searching hints) CSULB Library owns over half of these journals.

Searching hints (for Advanced Search, the default search option)

4Enter into the boxes the words or phrases you are searching for (up to 3).

Plus sign + will search for any plural formed with either s or es.
Asterisk * after a minimum of the first three letters of a word will search for it and its variations. Truncation is set to read up to 50 index entries (error message could appear).
Pound sign # represents one character. Question mark ?, alone or with a number, represents from 0 to 9 additional characters. Wildcards do not work at the beginning.

4Fields other than keyword (i.e., author, title, source) can be selected to search from the pull down menu.
4Use Boolean operators: and, or, not to combine terms.
4There are several ways to limit what you are looking for:

Year(s)
Division (No Limit or AIM Abridged Index Medicus)
Language (English or Non-English)
Record Type (No Limit, Communication, Dentistry, Foreign, Nursing, Population, IM Index Medicus)
Full-text (is NOT available to CSULB users)

4Rank by: The default option is No ranking. This means that records retrieved in a search are numbered and listed in the order they were added to the database. The most recently added record appears first. Or you can organize your results list by selecting the Relevance or Date option from the pull down menu. The 1000 top-ranked records will be displayed.
4When you are ready to search for your topic, click the search button.

Once you have submitted your search, you will come to a screen that lists the results of your search in order of what was selected for Rank by. This is the List of Records screen that tells you how many records were found for your search and lists the full bibliographic information. You also have a chance to sort, expand, limit, email, print your results or click on a checkbox to mark a record to be emailed or printed in Marked Records. You may also see a small blue/gold icon My library owns which only means that the CSULB Library might own it. You always need to check COAST, the Library's online catalog, to make sure and to get the call number & exact location in the Library.

To see an individual record, just click on the hyperlinked title. This will take you to the Detailed Record screen where you can see all the information on the item, including the title, author, source information, etc. From this screen, you may be able to find the article electronically through in another database or in print (COAST) through SFX . There is a time limit when you leave MEDLINE. To go back to MEDLINE click on the "Return" button in the upper right hand corner of your screen next to where the countdown clock is. When in the "Detailed Record" view, you can either print this item, email it or save it to a disk.

Printing, Emailing Results/Records, Saving to Disk

To print, click on the print button. This will then format the record(s) to get rid of frames and make the information print-ready. From there, click on "File" from the top menu bar and then "Print." Follow the prompts from there to print your record.
To email, click on the email button. This will bring you to a screen that asks you a few questions and where you enter an email address. There is also space for you to enter a note. It is recommended that you send the message as plain text. When you have finished entering your information, hit the send button to email the record(s).
To save to a disk, click on File and then Save As. It is recommended that you save as plain text.

Exiting out of the Database, click on Exit.

Related publications/databases

The print indexes, Index Medicus, Index to Dental Literature and International Nursing Index (See COAST for Cumulated Index Medicus, Index Medicus, & International Nursing Index) are produced from MEDLINE.

MedlinePlus contains pages of selected links to Web resources with authoritative health information. MedlinePlus has extensive information from the National Institutes of Health and other trusted sources on over 650 diseases and conditions. There are also lists of hospitals and physicians, a medical encyclopedia and a medical dictionary, health information in Spanish, extensive information on prescription and nonprescription drugs, health information from the media, and links to thousands of clinical trials.

PubMed at http://www.csulb.edu/library/eref/health.html or http://www.pubmed.gov is a Web-based search system, produced by NLM's National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), which allows users to access a superset of NLM's MEDLINE database containing MEDLINE, PREMEDLINE and articles from selectively indexed journals that normally would not be selected for MEDLINE indexing; it provides links to some full-text journal articles via publishers' Web pages. Publisher access to articles varies by publisher--some provide access free, others charge for the article or require a subscription.

How to Cite
You need to check with your professor on the preferred style to use to cite articles. You may use the Library's Style Manuals & Citation Methods web page or the American Psychological Association (APA's) guidelines for citing electronic resources web page.

This page was created by Eileen Wakiji , Nursing & Allied Health Librarian
University Library, California State University, Long Beach