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Lister Hill Letter
Newsletter of the Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences at UAB

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July/August 1998

Note: This is the article as it appeared in the July/August 1998 issue of Lister Hill Letter. An updated, expanded version of this chart is available at:
http://www.uab.edu/lister/ovidpubmed.htm

Ovid vs. PubMed

"The National Library of Medicine announces Medline is now available free on the Internet." When this announcement was first made last summer, many wondered about the viability of expensive Medline search interfaces such as those produced by Ovid and Silverplatter. This article will compare basic search features of Ovid Medline (which Lister Hill Library supports) with those of PubMed, the National Center for Biotechnology Information/National Library of Medicine interface for Medline. (For more details about PubMed and the differences/similarities between it and other Medline interfaces, see "Medline shakes up content providers: what it means for you," Medicine on the Net 3(9): 8-15, Sept. 1997.)

Basic Search - Subject:

Ovid - maps to MeSH headings
PubMed - maps to MeSH headings

Basic Search - Author:

Ovid - search by "Author" button (truncation allowed)
PubMed - search by last name followed by first initial (truncation automatically applied)

Basic Search - Journal Title:

Ovid - search by "Journal" button
PubMed - search by full title, abbreviation or use the "Journal Browser" option

Although clearly PubMed offers the same basic search functionality as Ovid, it is somewhat cumbersome in its advanced search capabilities. Users accustomed to Ovid's ease in combining search terms, field searching, or attaching qualifiers (subheadings such as diagnosis, etiology, surgery, etc.) and limits (language, date of publication, age ranges, etc.) will find PubMed's Advanced Search mode confusing.

Other differences include:

Database Coverage:

Ovid - Medline, AIDSLINE, CancerLit, HealthStar, Current Contents, CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature), and MDX (a consumer health literature index).

PubMed - Medline and PreMedline (basic indexing of newest citations without MeSH headings assigned), with links to NCBI molecular sequence databases.

Local Holdings Noted?

Ovid - Yes
PubMed - No

Run Search in Another Database?

Ovid - Yes
PubMed - No

Other handy PubMed features include: a "Citation Matcher" that allows the user to input parts of a citation and retrieve the full citation; a "Clinical Queries" feature which has evidence-based search filters to emphasize particular types of studies; and a "Related Articles" link on most references allowing for quick retrieval of similar articles from a highly relevant citation. PubMed's PreMedline also allows access to parts of some journals that are not comprehensively indexed by Medline, such as Science, and allows access to citations sooner than Ovid's Medline (although Ovid's Current Contents can be used for more current citations as well).

Obviously, each interface has unique features the other does not. With that in mind, Lister Hill Library will continue its subscription to Ovid for the time being while staying informed about PubMed as it develops. If you have any questions about either interface, please contact the Information Desk at 934-2230, or Online. We also offer classes on both PubMed and Ovid Medline!

	PubMed	OVID
Basic Search--Subject	Maps to MeSH Heading	Maps to MeSH Heading
Basic Search--Author	Search by last name followed by first initial (truncation is automatically applied. Symbol = * )	Search by "Author" button (truncation allowed. Symbol = $ or : )
Basic Search - Journal Title	Search by full title, abbreviation or use the "Journal Browser" option	Search by "Journal" button
Advanced Search - Combining terms	Cumbersome and Confusing to most	Use Combine button.. Use of sets simplifies combining more than 2 terms
Advanced Search - Field searching	Cumbersome and Confusing to most
Advanced Search - Applying qualifiers	Cumbersome and Confusing to most
Advanced Search - Applying limits	Cumbersome and Confusing to most
Database Coverage	MEDLINE, PREMEDLINE (rapid, basic indexing of the newest citations without MeSH headings)	MEDLINE, AIDSLINE, CancerLit, CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Lit), Current Contents, HAPI (Health and Psychosocial Instruments), HealthSTAR, MDX (consumer health), Biomedical Collections (full text)
Currency	PREMEDLINE updated daily MEDLINE updated weekly	Most databases updated monthly. Current Contents has weekly updates.
Local Holdings Information	NO	YES
Searching for a "Known" Citation	Citation Matcher -- easy to fill-out form	More powerful, but more cumbersome field searching method
Clinical Queries Filter	Yes	No
Related Articles Link	Yes	No
Full Text	Links to about 250 publisher web sites. However, most have no full-text freely available without an individual subscription.	Links to OVID Biomedical Collections databases (45 full-text journals). Presence of full-text frequently time-delayed from the cover date on journal however.

Please note that this is a newsletter.
The information and links in individual articles are current as of the date of publication, but they are not kept up-to-date thereafter.

Please send comments about this page to: Pat Higginbottom at

Lister Hill LetterNewsletter of the Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences at UAB

July/August 1998

Ovid vs. PubMed

Lister Hill Letter
Newsletter of the Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences at UAB