MEDLINE is recognised as the premier index of biomedical literature, and includes allied health.

The search tips below are for MEDLINE on the Ovid platform. Ovid provides access to a number of health, medical, and psychology databases. If you want to search other Ovid databases at the same time, please see Searching in more than one Ovid database at right.

MEDLINE has its own system of subject headings (thesaurus) - MeSH Terms - and includes the Map term to subject heading feature, which means you can check for and search by the official MeSH subject heading.

Much of the content in MEDLINE is also available, free, in PubMed. One advantage of using PubMed is that you don't need a subscription, so you will have access after you complete your studies.

If you are interested in the difference between MEDLINE and PubMed, the NLM has a fact-sheet.

See also the next page in this guide, on PubMed.

Emcare is a nursing and allied health database that is also available in the Ovid platform. It includes mainly evidence-based clinical content.

It has its own system of subject headings (thesaurus), and includes the Map term to subject heading feature, which means you can check for and search by the official Emcare subject heading. Note that, in Emcare Advanced Search, the default is to have this feature turned ON.

You can search across MEDLINE and Emcare together - see the box on Searching in more than one database in Ovid.

Here are some tips on searching in OVID interface. The default is to the Advanced Search screen. There is only one line of search, so for more complex searches you will need to use Nesting (see Database Help > Search techniques), or run your searches individually and then combine them.

• There are other Search Modes available. With Basic Search, you can simply type in exactly what you are searching for, and the results will be sorted by Relevance.

• The default is to a phrase search so typing in speech therapy will search for that as a phrase.

• There are many limiters available. Some of these you can apply at the time of your search, others - Additional Limits - can only be applied to a search you have already run.

• You can do a Proximity Search: the proximity operator is ADJn, where n is the number of words you specify. e.g. "speech therapy" ADJ5 australia*.

• MEDLINE is primarily an index, but does have some links to full-text. For results where there is no full-text link, click on the Find it - CSU link to search for the full article in other CSU Library databases.

• Searches are recorded in the Search History panel which is above the Search panel. If you can't see all of your previous searches, click on the Expand button to the right of the Search history panel.

• If you wish to permanently save searches, search alerts, or manage research, you need a personal account in Ovid.