Talk:MEDLINE

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[edit] Inclusion of Journals

I think that the phrase claiming that only high-quality journals are indexed by medline should be changed. Have a look at these medline searches discussed on the bioinformatics-blog nodalpoint: [1] There are two japanese researchers who generated 50 articles with a kind of semi-automatic article-generation pipeline that is based on various automatic analyses. They published these articles in a journal that (seemingly) accepts everything sent in. This journal is indexed by pubmed. It might be an isolated example. Still, in my opinion, almost any journal can get included in pubmed and the fact of being included does not mean that the journal is worth any impact point. --Maximilianh 17:17, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Please note that the Medline entry contains the statement: "Additionally, MEDLINE influences researchers in their choice of journals in which to publish. Few researchers today would consider publishing in a journal not indexed by MEDLINE because then other researchers would not find (and cite) their work."

This is also accurate and illustrates the importance of Medline indexing to medical journals. I am currently investigating claims By Hoffer and others that Medline have excluded orthomolecular journals from indexing over a period spanning decades. I have been unable to obtain an explanation for the exclusion of these journals.

The two journals listed are well known examples. This is not special pleading but a statement of facts of general interest. Medline have been openly accused of censorship by leading physicians. I think this should be stated because of its potential importance and general interest.

I don't see how you can remove this content and claim NPOV. Without this text the page that describes Medline as being of central importance to the choice of journal by medical researchers but excludes the observation that it has no objective criteria for journal indexing and has been repeatedly accused of censorship. Without the text, the page most certainly has a POV.

By all means change the wording - but don't remove the content.

Dr Steve Hickey

The comments on criteria for medline indexing were removed. They are however both accurate and important. The fact that there are no published objective criteria to inclusion of journals in Medline is clearly of concern to medical professionals and people alike.

Since this is of concern to many members of the general public it should only be removed on the basis of inaccuracy. The statements are, however, to the best of my knowledge accurate and well referenced.

  • Please sign your comments on this page! Hugh2414 00:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
  • But the section as currently written is way too specific, and reads like a diatribe against NLM and Medline. Not exactly NPOV, even if it is accurate. It needs rewriting to make it more general and more balanced. Rather than special pleading on behalf of orthomolecular medicine, we should have a general, and balanced, review of Medline's selection criteria. I think the link to the JOM page should also be removed. May be accurate, but too specific! Hugh2414 00:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


Section on usage added. I have written a number of workshops on using PubMed for orthopaedics [2] I didn't think it was appropriate to link to those in the main article --Mylesclough 22:15, 1 October 2005 (UTC)


A link for JournalReview.org has been removed by user:Noisy. This site appears to be a good resource that I have enjoyed using. I have no affiliation with the site, but do use it and find it to be very helpful. I'm not sure if user Noisy even viewed the site. I thought I would post the link here so other Wikipedia users may evaluate the usefulness for possible inclusion in Wikipedia.

This from 24.185.216.101 (talk · contribs)
This link was added to numerous articles together with solicitations to visit the website. As such I characterised it as linkspam. It appears to be a review/index of other journals. As such, it may be a useful research resource for someone interested in medicine, but it does not have any content that would expand on any article from which it was linked. (Well ... maybe an article that listed medical journals, but then again the information would be better in the Wikipedia article itself.) Noisy | Talk 19:10, 5 November 2005 (UTC)


I too reviewed the link. I see why you thought it was linkspam, and it was not appropriate to add to numerous articles at the same time. However, I did not think that there was any solicitations to visit the website, and the link was placed in appropriate places (for the post part in external links). The web site appears to be a very useful resource especially for those interested in evidence based medicine and pubmed (two of the pages where the link was added) -- as it appears to work by facilitating communication between specialists on published works. I too reviewed the links that the website was placed, and though I see why on quick review it would appear as linkspam - I understand why the user placed it there. In my opinion, it appears to be a good resource that many would benefit from - and appropriate for either inclusion within an article, or within external link sections. I do not think that the text included was a solicitation - but rather a brief description of the function of the website. Further, I did register for the site, and registration was friendly, and free. There are no adds on the site, and it appears to be a genuine effort to better communication amongst doctors. As a physician interested in evidence based medicine, I look forward to participating in the site. I believe the link is one that will be of value to others in the community, and I will add it back both here and on Evidence Based Medicine ONLY. Noisy - if you believe it should be in the text of an article, feel free to move it where appropriate. I would give the site careful review before disregarding it's merit to our community and discarding it as "spam" or "advertisement". I think this is a keeper. EBMdoc
It is hard to say that a title has been discriminated against for over 35 years. The selection committee, LSTRC, changes membership on a regular basis. Over 35 years, this title would have been reviewed by at least 50 different members and all of them agreed that this title isn't index worthy. See http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/jsel.html for more on the selection process. (Yes, that URL should probably be added when the re-write of the inclussion section is done.) Shore7 12/20/05

[edit] Edits to inclusion section for NPOV

I edited the "Inclusion" section for NPOV, e.g. institutional bias, no objective criteria. The references to Pauling, etc. were not sourced, so I deleted these. Retained JOM claims of bias. —ERcheck @ 04:06, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MEDLINE should be capitalized

MEDLINE appears in all upper case letters in all official documents. I've edited the page to capitalize all instances. (Note the phrase MedlinePlus does not capitalize MEDLINE and I left that instance alone.) I'm unable to change the page's actual heading display to all upper case. How would this be done?

  • Disagree with this unsigned comment. Just because the NLM is in the habit of using capital letters, that doesn't mean that Wikipedia must follow suit. Marks and Spencer also generally uses capital letters on its shop signs - but that doesn't mean we must all always write it as MARKS & SPENCER. (Actually, I don't know about Marks and Spencer, but that doesn't affect the principle.) Medline should remain Medline. Hugh2414 09:37, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, I did look here first, where it shows MEDLINE with the trademark symbol attached, which I took to be definitive. If it is a registered trademark, then I believe the convention is to use it as registered. I'll just see if I can find any policy on this. User:Noisy | Talk 09:50, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I've just noticed - the tab on my browser for the link has it capitalized, together with the trademark symbol as well. User:Noisy | Talk 09:53, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I would say that a trademark is a symbol, which may incorporate the name of the product and present it in a particular way (typeface, size, colour, etc). The name of the product remains Medline, even if the trademark presentation of it is more like MEDLINE. OK - I admit I haven't consulted Wikipedia rules on this one... Hugh2414 09:56, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
The best I've found so far is Wikipedia:Naming conventions (acronyms). I don't know that it's strictly an acronym, but there is a companion site called TOXLINE which indicates that TOXLINE is a contracted form of 'Toxicology Literature Online'. Should we consult a wider audience? User:Noisy | Talk 10:15, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Is Medline/MEDLINE an acronym? Not quite, I'd say. It actually stands for MEDLARS online - so I can see that MEDline would make sense, but not really MEDLINE... However, that is the way the NLM presents it, and I don't really mind. If the consensus is in favour of MEDLINE, I withdraw my objection. What I did rather object to was that it was changed with no discussion - and by a real fluke, this happened at precisely the moment I was writing the beginning of this discussion! Where is that wider audience? Does nobody else care? Probably not! Hugh2414 23:10, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] PubMed

Medline is the data base and Pubmed is the search engine, Entrez is the comprehensive search engine. As is is now, the list of internet search engines lists PubMed, but this redirects to MEDLINE. I do not want to make an edit before having some more opinions how to handle this. Andreas 03:05, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I think PubMed should have its own entry. I have created a stub to get it going... Hugh2414 10:18, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


It is even more confusing than that. MEDLINE is a database, PubMed is another database which contains all of MEDLINE and other content. In addition, OldMEDLINE, MEDLINE citations from prior to 1966, are being added to MEDLINE and consequently to PubMed. The largest current difference between PubMed and MEDLINE currently is the addition of Epub Ahead of Print articles to PubMed. MEDLINE only lists citations after they have been published in a final form in a "permanent" location (i.e. part of an issue). PubMed lists citations supplied by the publishers ahead of their permanent publication. Entrez is a search engine used to search PubMed, but it can also be used to search other NCBI databases.

Yes, PubMed should have it's own entry. Unfortunately, it will read very similar to MEDLINE's entry since most users can't distinguish one from the other. Shore7

Fooey, and I came here specifically to see if Wikipedia had some good brief notes on the distinctions between PubMed and MEDLINE. Well, I will work on that stub -- but in the meantime, I'm going to Rfd the redirect from "Pubmed" (with that capitalization) to "MEDLINE" -- clearly, given the existence of a PubMed page, the redirect shouldn't exist anymore. Deborah-jl Talk 17:58, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pubmednci

I thought I was going to have a laughing fit when 68.233.156.249 (talk · contribs) inserted material referring to PubMedNci[3]. He is suggesting that PubMed does not index "Orthomolecular medicine" and "Medical veritas" because of a conflict of interest. This is wrong, of course. It does not index them because the NCBI has no duty to index pseudoscience. JFW | T@lk 12:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] colostrum

[edit] MeshPubMed & GoPubMed

Unless theres room for major expansion these stub articles would probbaly be better off as part of this main article. Artw 01:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The MEDLINE database is licensed to various companies and organizations who provide added value and re-sell the content. MeshPubMed and GoPubMed appear to be two of these products (which simply happen to be free currently). I don't believe they belong in the MEDLINE article any more than OVID Medline ( see http://www.ovid.com/site/catalog/DataBase/901.jsp?top=2&mid=3&bottom=7&subsection=10 ) should be included. Shore7 20:43, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Do meshpubmed and gopubmed actually work? I can get nothing out of them! Even if/when they do work, I am a bit doubtful about them. Are they notable enough? Whatever - they certainly do not belong as part of the MEDLINE article. Maybe they should become a footnote in PubMed. Gnusmas 23:31, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the Medline article is about the database itself. PubMed is a search engine, not a database, but the two are continually being confused, just as the various Chemical abstracts files and SciFinder are frequently confused. Based on their pages, meshpubmed and gopubmed are front ends on PubMed, not on Medline. they would go in the pubmed article, not here. I cant get them to work either, 6 months later. I'm going to ask them directly about this--there is nothing wrong with having articles on beta or experimental services, but there should be at least something working. Probably, yes, they should be merged into PubMed. Ovid as a search engine/search aggregator, and SilverPlatter also, just have stub articles, that need to be much expanded, especially if they do continue as separate products. The Medline article can mention all the front ends to it, including Ovid--and for that matter the PubMed article can also mention the alternatives. DGG 05:03, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

correction they do work, but it takes some playing around to find a part that accepts a search. they are of demo status. I think there's enough to write an article--but they are companion products from the same company, so it will take some thought about the best name--or if there should be a separate article. i want to do a little more OR (smile).DGG 05:08, 11 June 2007 (UTC)