Medical Literature Analysis System

1. MEDLARS/MEDLINE

2. MEDLARS (Medical Literature Analysis & Retrieval System) computerized Information storage & retrieval
system to furnish bibliographic access to NLM’s large biomedical collection by NLM, Maryland (USA).
The work on MEDLARS began in 1960 after several major revisions, It came into operation in 1964.
It became operational with the 1st computer produced issue of ‘Index Medicus’, a comprehensive
subject- author index, to the articles from the world’s biomedical journals.
MEDLARS

3. Activities of MEDLARS
Preparing of citations for the publication of Index Medicus.
Maintenance of several computer- readable databases including MEDLINE.
Operation of online network.
Provides SDILINE.

4. Subject Covered
Medicine
Dentistry
Nursing
Pharmacology
Toxicology
Cancer
Veterinary medicine
Allied health professions, etc.

5. Products and Services
AVLINE (Audio-Visual Online)
CANCERLIT (Cancer Literature)
CATLINE (Catalogue Online)
CHEMLINE (Chemical Dictionary Online)
TOXLINE (Toxicology information Online)
SDILINE (Selective Dissemination of Information Online)

6. Products and Services
SERLINE (Serials Online)
POPLINE (Population Information Online)
RTECS (Registry of Toxic effects of Chemical Substances Online)
HISTLINE (History of Medicine Online)
MEDLINE (MEDLARS Online)

7. MEDLINE
MEDLINE is a literature database of life sciences and biomedical information introduced in 1971.
Medline Plus is a free web service produced & maintained by NLM.
Provides consumer health information for patients, families, & health care providers.
It includes medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine & health care.
It can be searchable via PubMed & NLM’s National Center for Biotechnology Information’s Entrez
system.
Brings together information from the US. NLM, The National Institutes of Health (NIH), other US.
govt. agencies & health related organizations.

8. Indexing
MEDLINE uses Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) for information retrieval.
Engines designed to search MEDLINE (such as PubMed & Entrez) generally use a Boolean
expression combining MeSH terms, words in abstract and title of the article, author names,
date of publication, etc.
More than 6,000 of the world's leading biomedical journals are indexed in MEDLINE.