Can't Find What You Need?
If the book or full text of an article you're looking for is not owned by the Wolfgram Library then you need the services of Interlibrary Loan. This service obtains materials from other libraries worldwide on your behalf.
Use ILLiad for Books & Articles
Use E-ZBorrow for Books only
Have Questions?
InterLibrary Loan Tutorial Guide Available Here
With a foundation in clinical medicine, PubMed includes a wide range of biomedical and health topics including:
PubMed is a free resource supporting the search and retrieval of biomedical and life sciences literature with the aim of improving health–both globally and personally.
The PubMed database contains more than 34 million citations and abstracts of biomedical literature. Widener University provides access to the full-text of many of these articles. They can be accessed when you begin your PubMed searches from our A to Z Databases List or the navigation link below.
PubMed was developed and is maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), at the US National Library of Medicine (NLM), located at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
PubMed facilitates searching across several NLM literature resources:
Navigate to PubMed
The basic search strategy for PubMed is best for researchers looking at a topic for the first time. It also takes less time and planning than advanced searching. Often, for assignments that require 5 or fewer sources, this search strategy is sufficient. if you aren't finding results using this method, I advise referring to the PubMed User Guide or trying the advanced search strategy.
Before you begin searching, think about the terms you want to use. Take a moment to brainstorm any potential synonyms for your search terms. Is there a more technical term used by people in the field? Are there brand name or generic options? Is there a word that may have been used in the past but is now considered outdated? Write or type these terms before moving to step 2.
The PubMed homepage is a single search bar interface. You can select the "Advanced" link under the search bar for an advanced interface. Enter the terms selected in step 1 to find related results.
This is an important step. Your assignments often have publication date limits and require peer-reviewed academic journal articles. The "My NCBI Filters" menu on the left of the search interface is where you can use these limits to filter your results.
The PubMed Advanced Search Builder is best for researchers who are more familiar with their topic or who haven't found the results they needed using the basic search strategy. This is the preferred search method for post-graduate researchers or researchers working on review or analysis assignments.
Before you begin searching, think about the terms you want to use. Take a moment to brainstorm any potential synonyms for your search terms. Is there a more technical term used by people in the field? Are there brand name or generic options? Is there a word that may have been used in the past but is now considered outdated? Write or type these terms before moving to step 2.
Databases are built like social media platforms. They use hashtags to group items that relate to the same topic. In databases, we call these tags "Subject Headings." PubMed gives users the ability to search through their hashtags to find the ones that connect all of the papers on your topic of interest. We access this information by using the MeSH Subject Heading Search Interface provided by the NLM.
Search for your term and read the entry to check the definition and add the term to the PubMed Search Builder on the right menu.
Tools included on the Advanced Search page help users to: search for terms in a specific field, combine searches and build large, complex search strings, see how each query was translated by PubMed, and compare number of results for different queries.
Use this video tutorial from the NLM for detailed instructions
This is an important step. Your assignments often have publication date limits and require peer-reviewed academic journal articles. The "My NCBI Filters" menu on the left of the search interface is where you can use these limits to filter your results.
