Overview of Library Resources

Introduction

This is an overview of the resources and services of the Purdue University Libraries. There is also some additional information on resources for biomedical research that are external to Purdue, e.g. The National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Purdue Libraries Home Page

The Libraries is your starting point to PULSIS resources.

• The “Quick Search” near the top of the page provides an easy interface to all of our resources. This type of search is quite broad. You may get clearer results using the advanced search interface or by searching the databases, e.g. PubMed (Medline), Web of Science or Scopus, directly. More on Searches below.
• Take special note of the Ask Us / Dig Ref Group tab on the right. This is your link to chat with our Digital Reference (Dig Ref) group. This is a great resource for information on library resources and services.

Library Hours

Library hours vary by location and day of the week. Check the libraries website for more information.

LibKey Nomad

The LibKey Nomad Browser Extension adds powerful features to your browser that will allow you to access Purdue University resources. For example, for certain books on Amazon, a link will pop-up that allows you to access the eBook. The same is true for certain articles if you search the publisher webpage.

LibKey Nomad Guide

Inter Library Loan

The Libraries’ is currently rethinking how we provide Purdue with the resources that we need. One aspect of this is to minimize our subscriptions to expensive journals and databases. This does not mean that you do not have access. Almost any item can be requested by Inter Library Loan (ILL).

To request an item by ILL, you can search for the item in our catalog. (Yes, you can find items that we do not own). The page for the resource should have a link to request via ILL if your are signed in (or on campus).

Currently, ILL is not circulating physical items. They will try to procure an electronic copy for you. Turnaround time varies, but you may get your item in 24 hours.

Purdue University School of Information Studies

The School of Information Studies is part of the Libraries. Additional information about the faculty, research, and academic programming can be found on this site.

School of Information Studies Courses and Certificates

PULSIS faculty teach courses in departments across campus. Recently, we have started to develope our own courses for the School of Information Studies. The course prefix is ILS, Information and Library Science.

Check the latest ILS Course Offerings

Libraries’ Faculty

Every department on campus has a faculty liaison librarian with subject area expertise. If you have question that cannot be answered by Dig Ref, please contact our liaison librarian.

You can find a list of faculty librarians and their subject areas on our Libraries Faculty by Subject page .

We have several librarians that have subject areas expertise that may be relevant to your research. You can find more information at the faculty directory.

Here is a list of faculty that specialize in areas related to the life sciences.

• Andrea Hayes, Public Health

• Chao Cai, Biological Sciences, Plant Sciences and College of Agriculture

• Nicole Kong, Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

• Bethany S. McGowan, Nursing and Health Sciences

• Pete E. Pascuzzi, Biological Sciences, Biochemistry and Medicinal Chemistry

• Jason B. Reed, Pharmacy and Health Sciences

• Jane Yatcilla, Veterinary Medicine

• Dave Zwicky, Chemistry

Research Data Sharing and Management

Most external funding agency require at least some level of data sharing as well as data management plans.

• NIH Scientific Data Sharing
• NSF Data Sharing

Purdue e-Pubs

Purdue e-Pubs is a platform for open access publishing. Possible uses include:

• Sharing a version of a published article.
  
• Sharing a poster or protocol.
  
• Sharing conferences.

In all cases, publication rights must be considered, and Purdue e-Pubs can help.
Importantly, the Office for Research and Partnerships maintains a collection of documents that describe University Resources. These documents are very useful if you need to write a proposal.

Finding Resources

The Libraries’ website is complicated. Here are a few resources that can be difficult to find.

Databases

Many important resources are found on database listings, e.g. PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus (more below). However, other important resources are under databases as well. Note, it can be important to use the Purdue link to many of these resources to easily get access to the information that you need.

Protocols

A search for “protocols” in the databases found the following two important resources.

• Current Protocols

• Springer Nature Experiments

Resources for Bioinformatics

Prof. Pete Pascuzzi maintains a Bioinformatics Research Guide

Resources for Chemistry

Prof. Dave Zwicky maintains a research guide on Chemical Information Resources

Resources for Pharmacy

Prof. Jason Read maintains a research guide on Drug Information

Resources for Life Science Research (not on Library site)

Nature Points of Significance

A series of concise articles on statistics and data science for researchers.

NIH Data Sharing Repositories

Research data generated by NIH projects must be shared in the appropriate repository.

Domain Specific
Other Data Resources
General

Other Data Repositories

Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO)
The gene expression omnibus contains many datasets for gene expression and genomics.

Dryad
Dryad is popular with scientist in many disciplines.

FigShare
FigShare contains research data from a variety of sources and is often the home for supplemental data from journal articles.

Purdue University Research Repository (PURR)
PURR has research data and tools and resources to help you manage your data.

Searching the Scientific Literature

The Library Search (START YOUR SEARCH HERE) platform aggregates most of our electronic and print resources. However, it does not have 100% coverage for important databases such as PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus.

infographic on library search

A Library Search may be sufficient in some cases, e.g. coursework. However, for your thesis research you should access the databases directly. For research in the Life Sciences, you should search a minimum of three databases:

• PubMed or Medline (similar data different interface)
• Web of Science
• Scopus
• Google Scholar

The key to using these resources effectively is to access these resources as a Purdue user. This should happen automatically when your are on campus, but you need to be more deliberate off campus.

See the page on Off-Campus Access

In general, follow these guidelines

• Access the databases from the PUL Databases.
• Link Google Scholar to the Purdue University Libraries.
• DO NOT EXPECT TO ACCESS JOURNAL ARTICLES FROM THE JOURNAL WEBSITE. Access to journal articles is complicated by issues that effect access.

PubMed

PubMed is likely the most useful database for biomedical research. Make sure that you bookmark the PUL Link.

This will enable the FIND IT Purdue Libraries link.

Find it

Web of Science

Web of Science has better coverage of resources for agricultural research. Again, use the PUL link, Web of Science. (You might need to go through the PUL Database page directly).

One caution with Web of Science, the Topics searches Title, Abstract, Author Keywords and Keywords Plus. The latter is a new feature that can make your search too broad. You may get more precise results if you search Title, Abstract and Author Keywords directly. Web of Science has also introduced an AI-assisted search that replaces the basic search. The performance is still being evaluated. I suggest that you use the advanced search interface.

Google Scholar

Opinions of Google Scholar are mixed (at least as a systematic search engine). However, you will almost certainly use it, so you should link it to the Purdue Libraries.

Go to Google Scholar. Click on the “hamburger icon”, ☰ , at the upper left corner.

Google Scholar Homepage

Click on Settings.

Settings

Click on Library Links

Library links

Search for and select, Purdue University West Lafayette.

Select libraries

You should now see a Full Text at Purdue link next to your search results.

Full Text at Purdue

Scite

Purdue University pays for access to Scite. It is a powerful tool for searching, and I recommend it with the caveat that it does not have complete coverage of the literature.

The following quote was take from the Scite home page

“Scite is an AI-powered platform that helps researchers discover and evaluate scientific literature through Smart Citations, showing whether studies support or contradict a claim. Now part of Research Solutions, Scite has indexed 1.4B+ citations, partners with 30+ publishers, and serves 2M users worldwide.”

Scite is an AI-enhanced database that allows you to search the scientific literature including patents. There are more details at the scite research guide. Important, scite relies on open access and licensing agreement to index information. There will be important gaps in the coverage of scite.

Research Rabbit

I have limited experience with Research Rabbit, but it is popular with some people. Research Rabbit relies on the citation patterns among a collection of articles to find new articles. This is nothing new because you can find similar articles or citing articles in PubMed, Web of Science, and other databases. What is new is that Research Rabbit uses this as the central search strategy. My concern is the journal coverage and the handling of citation data.

General Use of AI

AI tools such as ChatGPT, CoPilot, and Gemini can help you to find information, but they are all prone AI error, hallucination, or confabulation. You must have a working knowledge of the problem that you are researching so that you can push AI to find the information that you need to answer the question. For myself, I have found AI useful to research questions that pull information from web site, white papers, and gray literature, but not from research articles. AI can be very useful for coding, and that extends to creating search strings for databases such as PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus (see Searching).

Search Strategies

There are a variety of search strategies such as PEO, PICO, and SPIDER that can help you to search the biomedical literature systematically.

PEO

1. P - Population
2. E - Exposure
3. O - Outcome

PICO

1. P - Patient
2. I - Intervention
3. C - Comparison
4. O - Outcome

SPIDER

1. S - Sample
2. P I - Phenomenon of interest
3. D - Design
4. E - Evaluation
5. R - Research type

Do not worry too much about specifying all of the search aspects.

search strategy

Search Fields

The fields that you can search will vary somewhat by database. Generally, you will have the field below, but databases will vary. MeSH terms are a powerful feature of PubMed, but effective use requires some training.

1. Title
2. Abstract
3. Keywords
4. Author information such as name or identification numbers
5. Topic (often an amalgam of title, abstract, and keywords)
6. Structured vocabulary such as Medical Subject Headings (MeSH terms)
7. Journal name
8. Document type
9. Publication year
10. Affiliation

Search Syntax and Boolean Operators

You will construct your search using Boolean operators that can narrow or broaden your results. Exact phrases are indicated with quotes, and you can use wild cards to include alternate spellings or plural case.

• AND
• OR
• NOT
• Quotes for “exact phrases”
• Wild cards for fuzzy search* (search/searching/searches)

Boolean Venn Diagram

Using AI to Help Search

I use Claude regularly when I code, and it performs well within certain limits, i.e. it can misunderstand your question, and it can misunderstand the material. I know that some librarians are using AI to help them construct their searches. However, the searches still need to be evaluated by someone with experience. The main purpose of this exercise is to compare the searches at three major databases.

PEP: “Can you create search strings for PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus?”

Claude: “I’d be happy to help you create search strings for PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus! However, I need to know what topic or research question you’re searching for.”

“Could you tell me: - What is your research topic or question?
- Are there specific concepts, interventions, populations, or outcomes you want to include?
- Do you have any exclusion criteria?
- Are there particular keywords or terms you know you want to use?”

“Once you provide this information, I can create tailored search strings optimized for each database’s syntax and features (like MeSH terms for PubMed, wildcards, Boolean operators, etc.).”

PEP: “I want to search for problems in hip replacement such as post operative infections because i want to develop a new product to help at risk patients especially the elderly.”

Claude: “I’ll create comprehensive search strings for your topic on hip replacement complications, particularly post-operative infections in elderly patients. Let me develop optimized searches for each database.I’ve created comprehensive search strings for PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus tailored to your research on post-operative infections in hip replacement patients, with a focus on elderly and at-risk populations.”

“The document includes:”

“- Optimized search strings for each database with their specific syntax”
“- MeSH terms for PubMed”
“- Alternative simplified versions if you get too few results”
“- Document type filters to focus on articles and reviews”
“- Strategy notes explaining the concepts covered and how to modify searches”
“- Tips for narrowing or broadening your results based on what you find”

“The searches cover three main concept groups: hip replacement procedures (using various terminology), post-operative infections (including surgical site infections and periprosthetic joint infections), and at-risk populations (particularly elderly patients).”

“For your product development work, you might also want to search specifically for prevention strategies, risk assessment tools, and prophylaxis protocols once you’ve identified the key problems. Good luck with your research!”

The following information was provided by Claude AI as a markdown document.

Literature Search Strings for Hip Replacement Post-Operative Infections

Research Focus: Post-operative infections in hip replacement, particularly in elderly/at-risk patients

---

1. PubMed Search String

PubMed uses MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) terms and allows for field tags.

("Arthroplasty, Replacement, Hip"[Mesh] OR "hip replacement*"[tiab] OR "hip arthroplasty"[tiab] OR "total hip replacement*"[tiab] OR "total hip arthroplasty"[tiab] OR THR[tiab] OR THA[tiab])
AND
("Surgical Wound Infection"[Mesh] OR "Prosthesis-Related Infections"[Mesh] OR "Postoperative Complications"[Mesh] OR "surgical site infection*"[tiab] OR SSI[tiab] OR "postoperative infection*"[tiab] OR "post-operative infection*"[tiab] OR "periprosthetic infection*"[tiab] OR PJI[tiab] OR "prosthetic joint infection*"[tiab] OR "wound infection*"[tiab] OR "healthcare-associated infection*"[tiab] OR "nosocomial infection*"[tiab])
AND
("Aged"[Mesh] OR "Frail Elderly"[Mesh] OR elderly[tiab] OR geriatric*[tiab] OR "older adult*"[tiab] OR "older patient*"[tiab] OR senior*[tiab] OR "aged patient*"[tiab] OR "at-risk patient*"[tiab] OR "high-risk patient*"[tiab] OR frail*[tiab] OR "Risk Factors"[Mesh])

Alternative Simplified Version (if results are too limited):

("hip replacement*" OR "hip arthroplasty" OR "total hip replacement*" OR "total hip arthroplasty" OR THR OR THA)
AND
("surgical site infection*" OR "postoperative infection*" OR "post-operative infection*" OR "periprosthetic infection*" OR PJI OR "prosthetic joint infection*" OR "wound infection*")
AND
(elderly OR geriatric* OR "older adult*" OR "older patient*" OR "at-risk" OR "high-risk" OR frail*)

---

2. Web of Science Search String

Web of Science uses different syntax with TS= (Topic Search) covering title, abstract, author keywords, and Keywords Plus.

TS=(("hip replacement*" OR "hip arthroplasty" OR "total hip replacement*" OR "total hip arthroplasty" OR "hip prosthe*" OR THR OR THA))
AND
TS=(("surgical site infection*" OR "postoperative infection*" OR "post-operative infection*" OR "periprosthetic infection*" OR PJI OR "prosthetic joint infection*" OR "wound infection*" OR "healthcare-associated infection*" OR "nosocomial infection*" OR "surgical wound infection*" OR SSI OR "implant infection*" OR "deep infection*"))
AND
TS=((elderly OR geriatric* OR "older adult*" OR "older patient*" OR senior* OR "aged patient*" OR "at-risk patient*" OR "high-risk patient*" OR "risk factor*" OR frail* OR comorbid* OR "vulnerable patient*"))

With Document Type Filter (recommended):

TS=(("hip replacement*" OR "hip arthroplasty" OR "total hip replacement*" OR "total hip arthroplasty" OR "hip prosthe*" OR THR OR THA))
AND
TS=(("surgical site infection*" OR "postoperative infection*" OR "post-operative infection*" OR "periprosthetic infection*" OR PJI OR "prosthetic joint infection*" OR "wound infection*" OR "healthcare-associated infection*" OR "nosocomial infection*" OR "surgical wound infection*" OR SSI OR "implant infection*" OR "deep infection*"))
AND
TS=((elderly OR geriatric* OR "older adult*" OR "older patient*" OR senior* OR "aged patient*" OR "at-risk patient*" OR "high-risk patient*" OR "risk factor*" OR frail* OR comorbid* OR "vulnerable patient*"))
AND
DT=(Article OR Review)

---

3. Scopus Search String

Scopus uses TITLE-ABS-KEY for searching in titles, abstracts, and keywords.

TITLE-ABS-KEY(("hip replacement*" OR "hip arthroplasty" OR "total hip replacement*" OR "total hip arthroplasty" OR "hip prosthe*" OR thr OR tha))
AND
TITLE-ABS-KEY(("surgical site infection*" OR "postoperative infection*" OR "post-operative infection*" OR "periprosthetic infection*" OR pji OR "prosthetic joint infection*" OR "wound infection*" OR "healthcare-associated infection*" OR "nosocomial infection*" OR "surgical wound infection*" OR ssi OR "implant infection*" OR "deep infection*" OR "superficial infection*"))
AND
TITLE-ABS-KEY((elderly OR geriatric* OR "older adult*" OR "older patient*" OR senior* OR "aged patient*" OR "at-risk patient*" OR "high-risk patient*" OR "risk factor*" OR frail* OR comorbid* OR "vulnerable patient*" OR "advanced age"))

With Document Type Filter (recommended):

TITLE-ABS-KEY(("hip replacement*" OR "hip arthroplasty" OR "total hip replacement*" OR "total hip arthroplasty" OR "hip prosthe*" OR thr OR tha))
AND
TITLE-ABS-KEY(("surgical site infection*" OR "postoperative infection*" OR "post-operative infection*" OR "periprosthetic infection*" OR pji OR "prosthetic joint infection*" OR "wound infection*" OR "healthcare-associated infection*" OR "nosocomial infection*" OR "surgical wound infection*" OR ssi OR "implant infection*" OR "deep infection*" OR "superficial infection*"))
AND
TITLE-ABS-KEY((elderly OR geriatric* OR "older adult*" OR "older patient*" OR senior* OR "aged patient*" OR "at-risk patient*" OR "high-risk patient*" OR "risk factor*" OR frail* OR comorbid* OR "vulnerable patient*" OR "advanced age"))
AND
DOCTYPE(ar OR re)

---

4. Engineering Village (Compendex) Search String

Engineering Village includes Compendex and other engineering databases. It’s particularly useful for medical device development, biomaterials, and engineering solutions.

((("hip replacement*" OR "hip arthroplasty" OR "total hip replacement*" OR "total hip arthroplasty" OR "hip prosthe*" OR THR OR THA) WN KY) OR (("hip replacement*" OR "hip arthroplasty" OR "total hip replacement*" OR "total hip arthroplasty" OR "hip prosthe*") WN TI) OR (("hip replacement*" OR "hip arthroplasty" OR "total hip replacement*" OR "total hip arthroplasty" OR "hip prosthe*") WN AB))
AND
((("surgical site infection*" OR "postoperative infection*" OR "post-operative infection*" OR "periprosthetic infection*" OR PJI OR "prosthetic joint infection*" OR "wound infection*" OR "implant infection*" OR "biofilm*" OR "bacterial adhesion") WN KY) OR (("infection*" OR "biofilm*" OR "bacterial adhesion" OR "antimicrobial") WN TI) OR (("surgical site infection*" OR "postoperative infection*" OR "periprosthetic infection*" OR "wound infection*") WN AB))
AND
((("elderly" OR geriatric* OR "older adult*" OR "older patient*" OR "at-risk patient*" OR "high-risk patient*" OR "risk factor*" OR frail* OR comorbid*) WN KY) OR (("elderly" OR geriatric* OR "older patient*" OR "at-risk" OR "high-risk" OR "risk factor*") WN TI) OR (("elderly" OR geriatric* OR "older adult*" OR "at-risk patient*" OR "high-risk patient*") WN AB))

Simplified Version (General Product Development Focus):

(("hip replacement*" OR "hip arthroplasty" OR "hip prosthe*" OR THR OR THA) WN ALL)
AND
(("infection*" OR "periprosthetic infection*" OR "prosthetic joint infection*" OR "biofilm*" OR "antimicrobial" OR "antibacterial") WN ALL)
AND
(("prevention" OR "prophylaxis" OR "risk" OR elderly OR geriatric* OR "medical device*" OR "biomaterial*") WN ALL)

Engineering/Device Development Focused Search:

(("hip replacement*" OR "hip arthroplasty" OR "hip prosthe*" OR "hip implant*" OR THR OR THA) WN ALL)
AND
(("infection prevention" OR "antimicrobial coating*" OR "antibacterial surface*" OR "biofilm prevention" OR "bacterial adhesion" OR "infection control" OR "prophylactic device*" OR "antimicrobial material*" OR "silver coating*" OR "antibiotic-loaded" OR "infection-resistant") WN ALL)
AND
(("medical device*" OR "implant design" OR "surface modification" OR "coating technology" OR biomaterial* OR "device development" OR "product design" OR innovation*) WN ALL)

Engineering Village Syntax Notes:

• WN = Within (searches for terms within specified fields)
• KY = Keywords (Controlled vocabulary and author keywords)
• TI = Title
• AB = Abstract
• ALL = All fields (title, abstract, keywords)
• Use parentheses for grouping Boolean operators
• Quotation marks for exact phrases
• * for truncation/wildcards

Engineering Village Database Tips:

• Compendex covers engineering literature including biomedical engineering, materials science, and medical devices
• Excellent for finding technical solutions, patents, and device development research
• Can filter by treatment types: “Experimental”, “Theoretical”, “Applications”
• Consider using classification codes for more precise results (e.g., medical device classifications)
• Good for finding innovation in infection prevention technologies

Recommended Filters for Engineering Village:

• Document Type: Journal article, Conference paper
• Treatment: Applications, Experimental
• Database: Compendex (primary), Inspec (for materials/devices)
• Language: English
• Date Range: Last 10-15 years for recent innovations

---

Search Strategy Notes

Key Concepts Covered:

1. Hip Replacement Procedures: Various terminology including medical and common terms
2. Post-operative Infections: Including surgical site infections, periprosthetic infections, and prosthetic joint infections
3. At-Risk Populations: Focus on elderly patients and high-risk groups

Wildcards Used:

• * = truncation (captures multiple word endings)
  • Example: infection* captures infection, infections, infectious
  • Example: geriatric* captures geriatric, geriatrics, geriatrician

Tips for Execution:

PubMed: - Use the advanced search builder to break down concepts - Consider using publication date filters for recent research - Can add filters for human studies, English language, etc.

Web of Science: - Use quotation marks for exact phrases - Can refine by research areas, document types, languages - Consider timespan limitations

Scopus: - Offers good citation analysis features - Can limit by subject area, document type, date range - Useful for tracking highly cited papers

Potential Modifications:

To Narrow Results (if too many): - Add date range (e.g., last 5-10 years) - Add specific infection types (e.g., MRSA, Staphylococcus) - Focus on specific patient populations (e.g., diabetic, immunocompromised) - Add intervention terms (e.g., prevention, prophylaxis)

To Broaden Results (if too few): - Remove the elderly/at-risk patient component initially - Use only major concepts (hip replacement + infection) - Remove specific infection terminology and use general terms

Additional Search Considerations:

For product development, you may also want to search for: - Prevention strategies and prophylaxis - Risk assessment tools - Antibiotic protocols - Patient monitoring systems - Cost-effectiveness studies - Quality improvement initiatives

Recommended Next Steps:

1. Run searches in all three databases
2. Remove duplicates using reference management software (EndNote, Mendeley, Zotero)
3. Screen titles and abstracts based on inclusion/exclusion criteria
4. Consider supplementing with grey literature, clinical guidelines, and patents
5. Set up alerts in each database to track new publications

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Date of Search Strategy Creation: February 1, 2026 Databases: PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Engineering Village (Compendex) Search Strategy Developed For: Post-operative infections in hip replacement patients, particularly elderly/at-risk populations

Evaluation of Search Strings

My overall impression is that Claude AI was able to create effective search strings for each of the databases. However, I have not had time to critically evaluate every aspect of the search results.

Here is a tally of the results from each search:

• PubMed #1 - 13,899 results
  
• Web of Science #1, All Databases - 2,497 results
  
• Web of Science #1, Core Databases - 1,590 results
• Scopus - 3,629 results
  
• Engineering Village #1, A+B+C - 13 results
  
• Engineering Village #1, A - hip replacement - 27,131 results
  
• Engineering Village #1, B - infection - 143,223 results
• Engineering Village #1, c - elderly - 176,666 results
• Engineering Village #1, A+B - hip + infection - 196 results
  
• Engineering Village #1, A+C - hip + elderly - 390 results
  
• Engineering Village #1, B+C - infection + elderly - 1,230 results

Citation Management

You should begin using Citation Management software ASAP. The decision on which software to use may depend on your research group. If your thesis adviser uses EndNote, then you will likely need to use the same. Other options include Zotero and Mendeley. You can create an EndNote Basic account with Web of Science. This is a web-based version of EndNote.

PUL maintains a research guide for Citation Management. Workshops are offered periodically.

Manage your Professional Profile

ORCiD

There are many tools that can help you to manage your professional profile, e.g. LinkedIn. It can be very important to manage your publications as well. Google Scholar can help with this, but all of you should register with ORCiD to help you unambiguously manage your publications. Many journals now request your ORCiD ID for publications.

If you don’t have an ORCiD ID yet, do it soon! This profile belongs to you!

Web of Science Author Profiles

Web of Science creates author profiles from their bibliometric data. It is important to create and account so that you can claim and help to manage your profile! The Web of Science Profile belongs to Web of Science!

Scopus Author Profiles

These are similar to Web of Science. You can help them manage the profile, but it belongs to Scopus.

How to Assess a Scientific Paper

Quality of Journal

Scientific publishing is generally a for-profit endeavor. Many “predatory” journals may be willing to publish your work. However, many of these journals are not legitimate. How can you tell the difference?

Is the Journal Indexed by Medline, Web of Science or Scopus?

NLM, PubMed and Medline

You can search the National Library of Medicine for indexed journals

Surprisingly, you will retrieve articles from uncommon journals with a PubMed search. If the journal is not familiar to you, you can search NLM for information on the journal.

Web of Science

You can also use Web of Science to assess the quality of the journal. From your search results, click on the name of a journal, and the statistics for that journal will appear in a new window.

You can also browse Web of Science indexed journals with Journal Citation Reports

It can be useful to browse journals by Web of Science categories, but this can be complicated because research articles are frequently published in journals that accept a wide variety of research, e.g. Nature and Science, so a category-specific journal might not be the best place to publish your research or find the article that you need. However, JCR does have 72 journals categorized as Chemistry > Chemistry, Medicinal and 354 journals categorized as Chemistry/Biology & Biochemistry > Pharmacology & Pharmacy. It can be helpful to browse these lists when search for a journal.

Scopus

Scopus also has metrics to help you judge a journal, and they also maintain a database of Sources. Scopus has a journal-level subject area categorization system. There is no area for Medicinal Chemistry, but there are many areas that are relevant such as Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics > Drug Discovery which has 255 journals.

Purdue University College of Pharmacy Top Journals (a preliminary analysis)

An Advanced search of Web of Science was performed for addresses associated with Departments in the College of Pharmacy. About 2500 indexed publications were discovered for 2013 - 2023.

The journals were ranked based by number of publications and the top 20 are shown if the figure below.

articles

To help understand the impact of articles in the above journals, a boxplot of article citations is shown.

boxplot

For elite journals, there are fewer articles but these articles can be highly cited! Below is a barplot that shows the total number of citations to these journals.

total

Quality of Scientific Articles

There are many articles, websites or blogs that have opinions on how to assess a published article.

• Guidelines Project
  

• Critical Appraisal of Scientific Articles

Here are things that I look for:

Journal Impact Factor

• Don’t get hung up on the impact factor of a journal. The majority of Cell, Nature or Science papers are great, but you are more likely to find useful information or data in lower tier journals because there is simply more published research in these journals. It is important that your research is discoverable so make sure that the journal is indexed in PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science, or Scopus.

Title

• Is the title clear and concise and free of exaggeration?

Abstract

• Can I tell from the abstract whether the article is relevant to my research?

Keywords or MeSH Terms

• Do the authors provide relevant keywords for the research?
  
• For PubMed, what are the relevant MeSH Terms?

Introduction

• Is the introduction clearly written with appropriate citations?
  
• Does it present more that one side of a particular research question?

Methods and Materials

• Is there sufficient detail that I could in theory reproduce the described experiments?
  
• Are statistical methods described, especially with regards to experimental design?
  
• Are protocols and data shared?

Results

• Are figures easy to interpret with clear labels and legends?
  
• When appropriate, are statistics used to show that the results are significantly different?

Discussion

• Do the authors provide a balanced interpretation of their results?
  
• Are opposing views or alternative explanations included?

Other Issues

• Was the paper easy to access?, i.e. the journal is open access or the library subscribes.
  
• What was the peer review process for the article?
  
• Are there potential conflicts of interest?
  
• Was the paper shared in a preprint repository such as arXiv
  
• Do the authors have a retraction history, check Retraction Watch or Retraction Watch Database

Other Opinions?