Introduction to MEDLINE and to the bibliographic searches (I). Bases on medical bibliography and searches. MEDLINE in Internet. PubMed and family

This is a two parts introductory course tackling with the thematic field of medical bibliographic searches based in PubMed MEDLINE. ? In this first article we present MEDLINE, PubMed and their related databases. We also introduce the reader to basic concepts of bibliographic searches. ? The second article will be a concise user guide to PubMed. Contents and purposes of this first release: We try to present in this work a general approach to the subject of the medical bibliography databases. The basic essentials to outline and design search strategies before build them are presented. It?s the main objective of this first article to help readers to understand MEDLINE, and, principally, the PubMed's scope and contents. We try to clarify concepts on it, and present also, the related debases, web interfaces and retrieval systems in the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). We also overview and comment on distributors of MEDLINE and MEDLINE?s way of access out of the NLM. We briefly compare particularities, advantages or weakness for each one. Beside those basic objectives, we also deal here with the tools available to carry on searches for particulars and specific purposes. In this way the practical utility of some options like the methodological filters (?Clinical Queries? and ?Systematic Review? in PubMed), are commented here. Services and tools of PubMed, others than those `quality filters` will be approached in the second article.