What is Medline?
Medline is a database of references to journal articles, dating back to 1966. It indexes over 4,600 international journals in the fields of clinical medicine and biomedical research. It also covers dentistry, nursing, chemistry, pharmacology, biology, physical sciences, nutrition, health care delivery, psychiatry, psychology, environmental health, social science and education. A database is a searchable collection of records. It contains over 13 million references, so it is important to be able to search effectively.
What is Ovid?
Ovid is the interface we use at King's to search the database. It enables you to create searches, see the results and save them. You may encounter different interfaces in the future, but most of the principles we explain in this tutorial will apply to them as well.
What is Athens?
Athens is an authentication system. You can use your Athens username and password to access not just Medline, but a range of databases and electronic journals. If you don't have an Athens account, ask at any ISS help desk. Athens itself is not a database or information resource.
