Getting Help With PubMed

Many librarians turn first to PubMed when they begin a search for the evidence on a clinical question. So how do you learn to effectively use PubMed, brush up your skills, or keep up with the changing interface? Below are some resources to help you do just that:

For Beginners:

Quick Tours: Searching Pubmed - brief, animated tutorials on searching for an author, author and subject, simple subject, or journal.

PubMed Tutorial - Lengthy online tutorial covering basic searching, working with search results, features, MyNCBI, and other topics.

The Basics of MeSH - introduction to Medical Subject Headings

Quick Tours: PubMed's MeSH Database - building a search using MeSH, combining MeSH terms, and applying subheadings. Useful for learning to build a PubMed search using controlled vocabulary.

For More Experienced Users:

Clinical queries using research methodology filters

Special Queries

PubMed Subset Strategies

Search Field Descriptions and Tags

For Keeping Up With Changes:

The NLM Technical Bulletin provides information on changes to MeSH, MEDLINE, PubMed and other resources from the National Library Medicine. The bulletin is published online 6 times per year, and its archives are freely available from 1997-Present.

PubMed New and Noteworthy is an irregularly updated resources with updates on changes to PubMed features. You can read on the page or subscribe through your RSS reader.

General Information from NLM:

PubMed Fact Sheet

MEDLINE Fact Sheet

What's the Difference Between MEDLINE and PubMed?

Big thanks to the National Library of Medicine and NCBI for making these educational resources available!