Finding Medical

Information Online
Pubmed, Medline Plus, or Google
Scholar

Susan Payne, Virtual Services Librarian

susan.payne@jhu.edu

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
How Big is the Internet?

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
How Big is the Internet?

Estimated 1,650,000,000 users

(over a billion and a half) in
2010, up from 16 million in
1995

More than 1 in every 5 people

in the world use the Internet

Google has processed more

than 1 trillion unique URLs on
the web at once

Information from: Michelle McLean

http://librariesinteract.info/2008/07/26/si
ze-of-the-internet-2008/

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
Comparing Web Resources

• 99% of practicing US
physicians use the Internet,
and 95% use search engines to
identify medical information
• Understanding the search
features of each resource will
help you find information
efficiently
• When Google pointed users to
eMedicine, fewer steps were
required to reach an answer
compared to PubMed or journal
sites

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
Overview

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
Medline Plus

• Brings together
authoritative
information from the
NLM, NIH, and other
government agencies
• Includes information
about drugs, an
illustrated medical
encyclopedia,
interactive patient
tutorials and health
news
• Go local – discover local
services by state for
health-related issues

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
Medline Plus
Preformulated MEDLINE searches are included in
MEDLINEplus and give easy access to the medical research
literature. It also provides you with a database of full-text drug
information and an illustrated medical encyclopedia. Includes:
• Medical encyclopedia, dictionary.
• Prescription & non-prescription drugs.
• Over 800 diseases & conditions.
• Interactive tutorials.
• Health information in Spanish.
Daily
Topical
None
Finding authoritative health information from
the National Library of Medicine written for consumers and the
general public

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
Medline Plus: goLocal

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
PubMed

Provides
free access to the
Medline NLM
database of over
citations from
6000 journals.
Core clinical
journals in dental,
nursing,
biomedicine,
medicine, history
of medicine,
bioethics, space,
life sciences.

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
PubMed

• Search only for articles with links to full-text

• Search for types of articles, such as clinical studies,
reviews, clinical trials
• Limit studies by age or gender, as well as human or
animal
Growing number of citations contain a
link to free full-text of the article archived in PubMed
Central or link to other sites where the article may be
available for requesting electronically or purchasing.
Comprehensive searching of biomedical
literature
Ranks the most recent and relevant articles at
the top. Can be sorted by author, publication, date, or
journal.

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
PubMed

Links
to related
articles, links
to full-text,
links to free
full text
articles for a
subset of
open access
journals.

Daily

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
My NCBI

◦ Save Searches ◦ Set up filters

◦ Save Collections ◦ Send e-mail updates
◦ Save Bibliographies ◦ Run saved searches
© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of
The Johns Hopkins University
Creating & Sharing Collections

• From the search

results page, check
the box next to the
item number to save
• Then select
Collections from
the Send to pull-
down menu and
choose Add to
Collections.

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
Search Alerts

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
Google Scholar

• Search across
many disciplines
and sources: peer-
reviews papers,
theses, books,
abstracts, articles,
preprint
repositories and
more.
• Advanced Search
allows to limit by
subject area, date,
author, and
publication.

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
Google Scholar

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
Google Scholar vs PubMed

• Google Scholar covers most scientific fields

• PubMed has medicine and biomedical sciences as its primary focus

• Google has a “cited by” link next to each paper. Clicking on this link
shows the citation analysis
• Pubmed does not have citation analysis

• Google links to PubMed, OCLC First Search

• Pubmed covers Medline, old Medline, PubMed Central, and links to other
specialized NLM databases such as OMIM & GENSTAT.

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
Google Scholar vs PubMed

• Google Scholar updates monthly

• PubMed updates daily

• Google links to full-text articles, free full-text articles, links to related

articles, and links to libraries
• PubMed links to related articles, links to full-text (5426 journals), links to
free full text articles for 827 open access journals

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
 What would the best source be for…

Finding an interactive tutorial on breast cancer?

© 2009 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
 What would the best source be for…

Finding an encyclopedia article about levels of lead in

blood?

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
 What would the best source be for…

Finding out how many times an

article has been cited?

Why cite?
• To establish intellectual context
• To avoid plagiarizing
• To give credit where credit is due
• Provides evidence supporting your
point-of-view and lends credibility to
your work by showing you sought out
a variety of viewpoints
• Is standard practice for scholars and
students
• To lead us in further research

TIP: Use My Bibliography in PubMed to track

your own publications © 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of
The Johns Hopkins University
 What would the best source be for…

Finding a review article about

H1N1?

Information about asthma and

H1N1?

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University
What to use?

© 2010 The Sheridan Libraries of

The Johns Hopkins University