Dentistry Resources at LHL: Databases & Research

Here are some databases useful for biomedical researchers:

PubMed: free resource (provided by NCBI and NLM)   More information

• includes about 30,000,000 citations to biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books
• has a powerful search engine that maps to MeSH terms and multiple useful limits
• provides links to full text articles at UAB

Embase  More information

• Biomedical and pharmacologic database with extensive international journal and conference coverage​
• A gold standard database for searchers writing systematic reviews
• 8,000 journals and Medline citations included
• Extensive indexing for pharmaceuticals and medical devices

Google Scholar  More information

• Google search of the scholarly literature
• Interdisciplinary: includes Medline and works with scholarly publishers to index articles across disciplines
• Searches full text of articles, not just the citations
• Relevancy ranked
• Can be personalized to link to full text available at UAB

Scopus  More information

• Large abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and web sources
• 50 million records with references and citations after 1995 from 21,000+ journals
• Includes 100% Medline coverage and EMBASE records, conference abstracts and proceedings
• Interdisciplinary, with international focus
• Provides links to UAB full text 
• Sort by date, relevance, and time cited, and more

Link to full text articles using the Full Text@UAB Libraries button.

On the library homepage, type in the name of the article in the Search Collections search box and enter that search to see the matching results from our collection.

If you know the article came from a particular database, such as PubMed, you can select the database from the databases page and search the database for the article. 

1. Identify key concepts and brainstorm search terms and synonyms. Watch this tutorial to learn more

2.  Build search strings using "AND" "OR" and, sometimes, *"NOT"

•  Learn more about Boolean operators here 
• "AND" narrows your topic, "OR" broadens it

3.  Choose the right resources or databases to search. Use articles to find evidence for evidence-based dentistry.

4. Each database searches differently. Some use subject terms that include popular synonyms.  Others search by keyword. Use search tips or Help files in each database to focus your searches

5.  Ask a Librarian if you get stuck.

*Use NOT only rarely; employing NOT in a search can easily lead to missing articles that might have been useful and on-topic