Full-text access is really desirable and it’s something we’re always trying to improve on. Up until now Pro users have been able to access full-text only if it exists on PubMed Central. This meant that 38% of all journal articles linked out to full-text.  We’re now working with an external partner who has some very clever technology and now – in some areas – the link out to full-text is over 80%.

We’ve redesigned the results to help people see these full-text options and so here they are:

Old results

New results

So, what are the changes:

  • If you’re a Pro user the link out defaults to the full-text. In the image above this is clearly marked with (full text) after the document title. There is also the option to link to the PubMed abstract.
  • If you’re a Pro user and we haven’t got a full-text link out we signify this with (PubMed) after the document title.
  • We’ve improved the spacing of the results.
  • The links to tweeting, starring etc have been made more obvious and aesthetically better.
  • If you’re a free user you can clearly see if a full-text is available.

 

The redesigned results is a great improvement while the massive increase in link outs to full-text is phenomenal.