Colgate University Libraries News and Events

PubMed has a redesigned interface.

According to a NLM Technical Bulletin, the PubMed “interface was simplified to make it easier to use while promoting scientific discovery.”  The interface was made live on the 27th of October.  Major changes are detailed in the bulletin.

Locally, the change means that the CU ArticleLinker icon is now located at the top right of a full citation display, next to were other “full text” access icons are displayed.  It is noted here that many full text access icons lead to “pay-gate” dead ends; publisher pages that ask for payment before permitting access to the full text of an article.  CU community members are encouraged to use the CU ArticleLinker icon to check for access to full text articles instead of other full text linking icons.

While on the topic, one might ask “what’s the difference between PubMed and Medline?”  In short, there are more resources available via PubMed.  A National Library of Medicine Fact Sheet explains:

“In addition to MEDLINE citations, PubMed also contains:

    * In-process citations which provide a record for an article before it is indexed with MeSH and added to MEDLINE or converted to out-of-scope status.
    * Citations that precede the date that a journal was selected for MEDLINE indexing (when supplied electronically by the publisher).
    * Some OLDMEDLINE citations that have not yet been updated with current vocabulary and converted to MEDLINE status.
    * Citations to articles that are out-of-scope (e.g., covering plate tectonics or astrophysics) from certain MEDLINE journals, primarily general science and general chemistry journals, for which the life sciences articles are indexed with MeSH for MEDLINE.
    * Some life science journals that submit full text to PubMedCentral® and may not yet have been recommended for inclusion in MEDLINE although they have undergone a review by NLM, and some physics journals that were part of a prototype PubMed in the early to mid-1990's.
    * Citations to author manuscripts of articles published by NIH-funded researchers."

In many instances of information discovery the ability to search a larger pool of resources can be beneficial, making PubMed a preferred database relative to Medline.