Using PubMed's Collection feature
A "collection" serves like a folder in PubMed. You can create collections to help you organize different projects. PubMed allows you to save individual results to a Collection. To create and use PubMed's collections, you will need to create a My NCBI Account. If you haven't done so already, check out Creating an Account for more information.
Saving to a Collection
1. Once you're logged in and have a search you are happy with and wish to save, you will click on "send to." This will show some more options, you will select "Collections"
2. You should now see a new pop-up asking you to choose a collection. If you already have an existing collection, you will add to that collection. If not you will select the "Create a new collection" option. Here you can also choose if you wish to add All results, all results on this page, or a selection of results.
You have now saved those results to your collection!
Viewing and Managing your Collections
1. To view you collections, you will click on your account on the top right-hand side.
2. Then you will click "Dashboard"
3. You should now be redirected to your My NCBI dashboard. Under "Collections" you will see the collections you have created. Here you can edit and manage existing collections.
Using the Clipboard
You can also save individual articles to your clipboard. The clipboard is a temporary saving feature in PubMed. Please note that articles will disappear from clipboard after 8 hours. If you wish to permanently save these articles, you will need to save these articles a different way.
1. To add articles to your clipboard, after running a search you will select the articles you wish to save.
2. Once the articles have been selected you will then click the "Send to" button found below your search bar. You should now see a drop down with a few more options. Here you will select "clipboard".
And that's it, you have successfully saved articles to your clipboard! You can view the articles you have saved by clicking on "Clipboard" right below the search bar.
Saving the Clipboard
Once you have added articles to your clipboard, the next step would be to save your clipboard. Remember the clipboard is not meant to serve as a final saving spot, it will clear out after 8 hours.
There are several ways to save your clipboard including:
- Saving PMIDs - checkout Using PMIDs for more information
- Adding articles to a collection - checkout Using PubMed's Collection Feature for more information
- Exporting the articles to a reference manager (i.e. RefWorks or Zotero)
- Emailing the results to yourself
Using PMIDs
A PubMed Identifier (PMID) is a unique numerical identifier that is assigned to every articles indexed in PubMed. They can be useful for sharing or saving articles.
Locating an Article's PMID
An article's PMID can be found under the article's title. It should be shown in green text.
Saving PMIDs
PMIDs can be used to save and share articles. You can copy and paste the PMIDs of the articles you wish to save and store them in a Word/Google document. To access the articles, you would only paste the PMIDs into PubMed's search bar, and the articles should be returned.
Another way to use and save PMIDs is by also using your clipboard. If you're unfamiliar with what the clipboard is, checkout Using the Clipboard.