Academic databases bring together quality, peer reviewed literature into a subject-specific collection. Searching in a subject-specific database will return more focused results than you will find through a general Library Search.
PubMed is an interface used to search Medline, as well as additional biomedical content. EBSCO Medline is an interface for searching only Medline content.
PubMed is more user-friendly and allows you to search through more content than EBSCO Medline. However, EBSCO Medline allows you to perform a more focused search. You will get slightly different results by searching in each database.
In PubMed, in addition to Medline articles, you will have access to PubMedCentral papers, which are full text articles deposited to promote open access, and articles that are “in process” that is, prior to being indexed with MeSH terms, and articles submitted by publishers, “ahead of print.” This is why if you search for the same term in Medline and in PubMed, you may obtain as many as ten thousand more articles in PubMed.
Before you give up on searching EBSCO Medline, here is why you may want to use it for certain searches.
All Medline articles have been indexed with assigned MeSH terms. If you have a specific search you are doing you will get the closest, most specific match to your terms by searching in Medline. This is why it is good to perform your search in more than one database.
PMC is a full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine. The PMC archive contains more than 10 million full-text article records of biomedical and life science research, spanning the late 1700s to present.
PubMed Central is an open science platform that enables access to a worldwide collection of life science publications and preprints from trusted sources around the globe.
MEDLINE with Full Text provides authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and much more. It also provides full text for 1,650 journals.
Visit the MEDLINE help pages for complete support.
Watch the video below to learn more about this platform.
While some databases are actual collections of online content, others are indexes of articles or other materials. Databases such as Scopus and Web of Science contain citations to the material. Index/citation databases help you discover and identify useful articles for your topic.
Introduction to using Scopus for your literature search webinar
Getting started with Science Direct FAQ
Learn how to use the search results page to explore content broadly and narrow parameters during a search session. (7 Minutes)
A quick guide to search operators and using subject, title, and item type searches to find the content you are looking for. (8 Minutes)
Another great way to find databases that will help with your study and research in Psychology is to use our A-Z list of databases and e-resources. From here, filter to "Psychology" to view subject-specific suggestions.
