Which sources should I search?
We currently support 14 different literature sources, and provide automated translations (of your search strategy) for many more. Here’s a brief summary of each to help you decide which ones are right for you:
ACM Guide to Computing Literature
A bibliographic database that categorizes and abstracts most computing literature, including all ACM publications and literature from other publishers. Offers good support for structured searching. Suitable for academics and researchers.
Further details: ACM search help, operators and field tags
Bing
A web search engine operated by Microsoft. Can be used to search 3rd party sites (e.g. LinkedIn, Twitter, GitHub, Stack Overflow, etc.) using x-ray search. Offers limited support for structured searching. Best suited for recruiters and generic search needs.
Further details: Bing search help, operators and field tags
Epistemonikos
A multilingual database of health evidence, and the largest source of systematic reviews relevant for health-decision making. Covers a broad range of sources with basic support for structured searching. Suitable for health professionals, researchers and health decision-makers.
Further details: Epistemonikos search help, operators and field tags
ERIC
An online digital library of 1.5 million bibliographic records of journal articles and other education-related materials. Offers extensive support for structured searching. Suitable for academics, researchers, educators and policymakers.
Further details: ERIC syntax guide, operators and field tags
The most used search engine on the web. Can be used to search 3rd party sites (e.g. LinkedIn, Twitter, GitHub, Stack Overflow, etc.) using x-ray search. Offers inconsistent support for structured searching. Best suited for recruiters and generic search needs.
Further details: Google search help, operators and field tags
Google Patents
A freely accessible search engine that indexes over 120 million patent publications from 100+ patent offices around the world. Offers extensive (although somewhat idiosyncratic) support for structured searching, including classification codes, proximity, field searching, and searching by metadata.
Further details: Google Patents searching guide, operators and field tags
Google scholar
A freely accessible search engine that indexes some 389 million records of scholarly literature available on the web. Extremely broad coverage, but offers inconsistent support for structured searching so best used for initial scoping searches or in combination with other databases.
Further details: Google Scholar search help, operators and field tags
IDEAS
IDEAS is the largest bibliographic database dedicated to Economics and available freely on the Internet. Based on RePEc, it indexes over 3,500,000 items of research, including over 3,200,000 that can be downloaded in full text. Offers basic support for structured searching. Suitable for academics and researchers.
Further details: IDEAS search help, operators and field tags
IEEE Xplore
A research database of over 5 million scholarly records in electrical engineering, computer science and electronics. Offers extensive support for structured searching. Suitable for academics and researchers.
Further details: Xplore syntax guide, operators and field tags
Lens Patents
A free platform for discovery of patent literature, with over 144 million patent records from over 95 different jurisdictions. Offers extensive support for structured searching. including classification codes, proximity, field searching, and searching by metadata.
Further details: Lens Patents syntax guide, operators and field tags
Lens scholar
A free platform for discovery of scholarly literature, with over 200 million records sourced from PubMed, Crossref, Microsoft Academic Graph and CORE. Covers a broad range of scientific disciplines, and offers extensive support for structured searching.
Further details: Lens Scholar syntax guide, operators and field tags
Pubmed
A freely accessible database of more than 30 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Offers extensive support for structured searching. Suitable for information professionals and researchers.
Further details: Pubmed syntax guide, operators and field tags
Trip Database
A free clinical search engine whose primary function is to help clinicians identify the best available evidence with which to answer clinical questions. Offers basic support for structured searching. Suitable for information professionals, researchers and clinicians.
Further details: Trip syntax guide, operators and field tags
Yandex
The world’s 5th largest search engine, and the largest on the Internet in Russian. Can be used to search 3rd party sites (e.g. LinkedIn, Twitter, GitHub, Stack Overflow,, etc.) using x-ray search. Offers limited support for structured searching. Best suited for recruiters and generic search needs.
Further details: Yandex syntax guide, operators and field tags
What if my favourite source isn’t listed?
We also provide query translations for the following databases:
You can find these on the Query tab of the PubMed Results pane. Note that controlled vocabulary terms will still need to be translated manually.
What sources can I search in future?
In due course we will be rolling out further integrations, and 2Dsearch can be customized to search proprietary databases (for further details please contact us).