MEDLINE

Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System (MEDLARS) on Line, or MEDLINE, is a bibliographic database that contains citations to medical literature. It is based on the United States National Library of Medicine's Index Medicus, an index for medical journals, and it gives access to authoritative, published medical articles.

MEDLINE is the most comprehensive database for health and medicine and includes citations from more than 4,300 journals from around the world. The complete database covers literature from 1966 to the present. More than 80 percent of the 9 million referenced articles are in English, and 75 percent of the articles have abstracts or short summaries.

MEDLINE is used primarily by medical and scientific professionals as a primary source for seeking information pertaining to disease, illness, and biomedical research. MEDLINE has been diversified and developed in various forms to be searchable for free over the World Wide Web in databases such as PubMED and Medline plus. This database is also available through public and academic libraries where professional librarians are willing to assist individuals in learning how to retrieve relevant information from this service.

Larry S. Ellis

(see also: Data Sources and Collection Methods; Information Systems; Information Technology )

Bibliography

Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, United States National Library of Medicine. NLM's Databases & Electronic Information Sources. Bethesda, MD: United States National Library of Medicine. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/databases/databases.html.

Hutchinson, R. N., David (1998). Medline for Health Professionals: How to Search PubMed on the Internet. Sacramento: New Wind Publishing.

Katcher, B. S. (1999). Medline: A Guide to Effective Searching. San Francisco: The Ashbury Press.