Library Assist: Answers

PubMed is a free search tool from the National Library of Medicine / National Center for Biotechnology Information, and is an official website of the United States Government. At the time of writing, PubMed lists more than 36 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals and online books.

It is important to note that PubMed holds citations rather than hosting full text access to resources. In this context, a "citation" is simply a record of a specific item that will include basic bibliographic information and possibly an abstract. PubMed does not store any full text items within its own pages but instead relies on linking out to other websites - usually those of the publisher involved - that do hold copies of the whole source. Some items may be freely available, especially when published under an 'Open Access' agreement, but others will require payment for access and fall outside of our subscriptions so you won't be able to use your university login credentials to obtain them.

Given that the Library provides access to 'MEDLINE with full text' via our Ebsco subscriptions, it can be more efficient to search MEDLINE first and gain access to any full text items held there before you try searching PubMed.

Can I limit the search results on PubMed to just the freely accessible items?

Yes - once you have done a search, use the "Free full text" filter on the sidebar menu to narrow results to resources that are freely available online. The filtered results will usually be items that are available in PubMed Central (a collection of archived Journals, pre-prints and author manuscripts) or items that have been published under an 'open access' model and are available on publishers sites.

How do I access the full text of a freely accessible item?

• Click on the title of the item that you want to read - this will open the information about that item.
• Look for the section headed 'Full Text Links' and choose any that say "Free" or "open access" - other options are highly likely to ask for a login. In the example below, the Taylor & Francis full text is behind a publisher paywall and outside of our subscriptions but the 'Free full text' from PMC will open. 
• Bear in mind that open access and freely available items may be author's manuscripts or accepted proofs rather than the final published version of any articles; if you use one of these versions in your work and follow Harvard referencing style there is a specific way to reference them which makes clear the type of item you have accessed (see linked FAQ at the end of this answer).

Is there a way to check if the Library has access to the full text in another database?

Yes of course! If a PubMed citation doesn't immediately link to any full text, or you'd like to check if the final published version is available, try searching for the article title on LibrarySearch - the Library catalogue - to see if we have access via our database subscriptions. 

1. Copy and paste the article title into the LibrarySearch catalogue. If it finds a match you will see an 'available online' and/or 'download pdf' link, OR
2. If the article has a DOI or PMID number, simply paste that in and it will check for access
3. Alternatively, you could install the LibKey Nomad browser extension which will automatically check for access (more information on this in our linked FAQ - https://wlv.libanswers.com/faq/270062)

Using the same example article as above, any of the following pasted into the search should locate our link to the published full text:

• Childhood stress and midlife depression in women: the influence of diet quality - this is the article title
• 10.1080/1028415X.2021.2005994 - this is the DOI
• 34844523 - this is the PMID

Why can't I login to PubMed itself?

PubMed's search options are totally free and publicly available for anyone in the world to use. They therefore do not need to offer a Library or institutional login option. If you see a prompt to login at any point, you will not be able to use your University credentials. If you wish, you can create a personal account by signing up using one of the 3rd party logins listed on their page, but please note that this account is simply so you can save searches and citations of items to come back to later. It cannot give you access to the full text items that require a paid subscription.