MEDLINE
National Library of Medicine
MEDLINE serves as the flagship bibliographic database of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), boasting over 29 million references to journal articles primarily focused on life sciences and biomedicine. One of the unique aspects of MEDLINE is its use of NLM Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) for indexing records, which enhances searchability and organization. It plays a crucial role as the foundational component of PubMed, a comprehensive literature database managed by the NLM's National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). MEDLINE is essentially the digital evolution of the MEDical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System (MEDLARS), which was established in 1964. The selection of journals for inclusion in MEDLINE largely relies on the recommendations made by the Literature Selection Technical Review Committee (LSTRC), which comprises external experts appointed by the NIH. The database encompasses literature published from 1966 to the present day, alongside select works from earlier years, thereby providing a rich historical context for researchers. Overall, MEDLINE stands as a critical resource for professionals seeking reliable and organized biomedical literature.