FAQ on USA and PubMed

PubMed is an openly accessible medical database maintained by the US National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).

The NCBI is part of the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is a US government agency for medical research. The NIH is in turn part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a department of the US federal government.

PubMed contains approximately 38 million references. Most of the content consists of the Medline database. Medline consists of articles from more than 5,200 journals that have been quality reviewed and approved by the NLM. Medline contains articles from 1946 onwards, and the articles are indexed using MeSH terms.

Another part of PubMed consists of references from the full-text archive PubMed Central (PMC). PMC contains, among other things, references to articles published by NIH-funded researchers. For more information about the differences between Medline and PubMed, see, for example, this article.

The University Library has a working group that monitors developments affecting PubMed. The University Library continuously monitors changes in both the content and accessibility of the PubMed database.

The University Library has data corresponding to the entire NIH/NLM medical database PubMed downloaded locally in the form of XML files. New data is retrieved continuously on a weekly basis from NLM. Data from 1995 onwards is available via KI's bibliometric system and is also updated there on a weekly basis. Data currently has limited searchability outside the University Library.

When data is updated in the bibliometric system, the University Library has two monitoring systems in place to identify changes in the data:

• Monitoring to see if data is being deleted to an unusually high extent. If so, the update of the bibliometric database is interrupted and the change is checked manually. (Approximately 200–500 publications are normally deleted per week as part of NLM's quality assurance work.)
• Changes to content indexed with MeSH terms specifically linked to the DEI area (diversity, equity, and inclusion), such as Climate Change, Abortifacient Agents and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome.

PubMed is regularly updated with new publications and the removal of outdated content. This has been part of the NLM's ongoing quality assurance work for a long time. The University Library has not noticed any changes to the current content of the database in terms of the occurrence of specific MeSH terms or search terms.

Ongoing changes that will eventually affect the content of PubMed are that the NIH has reviewed its funding of various research projects and its financial support for certain specific medical journals. Among other things, the NIH has withdrawn financial support for research projects in areas such as maternal care, global health and medical journals in the field of environment and climate. This will affect American research in areas where research funding and financial support have not been reallocated.

You can search for scientific publications in PubMed. Given the current global situation, it is important to be aware that PubMed is owned and managed by US authorities. Ongoing political developments in the US may eventually affect PubMed's content, but at present there have been no changes directly linked to the new US administration.

It is important to be aware of who owns and manages various scientific databases. At the University Library, we offer access to several different medical databases where you can search for scientific material. Information about other medical databases provided by the University Library.

Information about some of these databases available through the University Library.  

There is an initiative initiated by ZB MED, Germany's national medical library. They are working to secure access to medical research by developing an open, reliable and sustainable alternative to PubMed. They have secured current publication data in PubMed and are now working to secure future access to new research publications in the field of medicine. Read more about the ongoing work. ZB MED has also developed Pubservatory, a tool that monitors changes in PubMed. In Pubservatory, you can see how PubMed is updated on an ongoing basis.

Read more about their ongoing work.  

Embase

Embase is a large database of references in biomedicine, pharmacology and toxicology. It contains almost all of MEDLINE but not all of the other material currently available in PubMed. It contains virtually the entire MEDLINE database, but not all other material currently available in PubMed. According to information received by the University of Exeter from Elsevier, the publisher that runs Embase, they are working to keep the database updated with the latest content regardless of what happens at NIH. As a KI affiliate, you have access to Embase. Read more about how to search Embase.

Medline (Ovid)

Medline is also searchable via interfaces other than PubMed, such as Ovid. Ovid can also be searched via interfaces other than PubMed, such as Ovid. Ovid Medline is available in several versions with different content. As a KI affiliate, you have access to Ovid MEDLINE® (All), which is a version that contains all the material available in PubMed, i.e. both Medline and other content. Read more about how to search in Ovid Medline. 

Web of Science

Web of Science is a large interdisciplinary reference and citation database. It consists of ten different indexes. Exactly what is included depends on the type of subscription you have to the database. As a KI affiliate, you have access to Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts & Humanities Citation Index and Emerging Sources Citation Index. These indexes contain material from 1900 onwards. Web of Science is produced by Clarivate Analytics. Web of Science is a good alternative and complement to PubMed because it is a large, broad, quality-controlled database.
Read more about how to search in Web of Science. 

Europe PMC

The content of PubMed consists partly of data from NIH/NLM's full-text archive PubMed Central (PMC). In Europe, the content of PubMed and PMC is mirrored in the Europe PMC platform, which is operated and developed by the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI). The content of Europe PMC is largely based on the partnership with PMC, but also includes preprints, microPublications, patents, NHS clinical guidelines and Agricola records. Read more about the content of Europe PMC. Read more about content in the Europe PMC.