Bibliographic research in scientific literature

The ability to trace the information saved in the databases of the scientific literature constitutes a fundamental aspect not only for the researchers but also for the professionals and the students, so much so that there are countless handbooks, courses and articles on the subject (almost all university institutions offer advice, guides or manuals for the use of PubMed, (for example the University of Padua and the University of Milan).

It is evident that the life of a patient may depend on whether a doctor is up to date on the most recent studies of his specialty. Moreover, a rigorous bibliographic research not only is indispensable to the researchers who have to know the state of the art before designing a new study to avoid duplications and the waste of resources, but also it is an indispensable prerequisite for the conduct of the systematic reviews, which affect the development of the guidelines and therefore on the care erogated by the health systems.

The corpus of the articles and documents containing the scientific publications is defined literature. By convention it is defined as white literature, namely the totality of the texts printed in books, magazines and journals freely accessible by everyone. The white literature is opposed to the gray literature,¹ represented by the information produced by channels different from the commercial traditional ones, which includes, for example, reports, final dissertations, conference proceedings, seminars, round tables, bulletins, registered trials, patents…

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