PubMed is a database of citations that links to full-text options when available. It is maintained and curated by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and is one of the largest databases of biomedical research, containing articles written on topics including:
| Biomedicine | Health Fields | Life Sciences |
| Public Health | Health Policy |
Behavioral Sciences |
PubMed alone does not contain full-text articles but provides links to the full-text, most of which are either open access or are provided to you through Fogler Library. Anything we don't have access to we can typically get through Interlibrary Loan. See the My NCBI and Full Text box below for more full-text options.
You'll also see a link in our database list to PubMed Central (PMC). PMC is a part of PubMed that is entirely open access and free to use from anywhere by anyone. When you're searching in PubMed you'll also see results from PubMed Central, but the same is not true in reverse.
Peer-review
Nearly every article in PubMed is peer-reviewed! Though, you may come across an article here or there that is very new and hasn't completed the peer-review process yet.
My NCBI is a tool for customizing PubMed and other NCBI databases. It also increases the availability of full text by enabling access to UMaine ejournal subscriptions even if PubMed does not provide direct links to an article. For detailed information about My NCBI, including My Bibliography, managing compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy, and SciENcv, consult My NCBI Help.
It's important to note that your MyNCBI account will only save searches for 8 hours of inactivity.
Options for Full-Text access include:
The first 2 options display the Find It button 
in PubMed search results displayed in Abstract Format. Clicking the button provides direct links to full text. When full text is unavailable, Find It provides options to use LibrarySearch for items available in print at the library, and to submit document delivery/interlibrary loan (ILL) requests.
