While indexes are not the main focus of the open access movement, Medline is important in that it opened up a whole new form of use of scientific literature – by the public, not just professionals.
V 1980. letih je Nacionalna medicinska knjižnica ("National Library of Medicine", NLM) ustvarila Medline, najobširnejši imenik medicinske literature na svetu, in ga leta 1997 ponudila zastonj na spletu v obliki baze PubMed.