MEDLINE is the world's most comprehensive database of life sciences and biomedical information. It covers, among others, fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine and the health care system. The database contains nearly 11 million records from over 7,300 different publications (mainly medical journals) from 1965 to today and new citations are added weekly. It is desiged to have global coverage but most records are from English-language sources or have abstracts in English. Medline uses Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) for information retrieval.
Compiled by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) it is published on the Web by Community of Science.
MEDLINE stands out as the single most important resource for biomedical researchers from all over the world. Along with The Cochrane Library, MEDLINE has made emergence of evidence-based medicine possible.
See also: Index Medicus, Index to Dental Literature, International Nursing Index.