Currently, a large number of bibliographic databases are accessible online. The most important databases for medical purposes include MEDLINE, EMBASE, CANCERLIT, TOXLINE, BIOS and SCISEARCH, each with several million indexed articles. As the key database for the medical sciences, MEDLINE published by the U.S. National Library of Medicine can be accessed through PubMed on the address http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/. EMBASE, an index based on Excerpta Medica, is particular valuable for retrieving literature in the field of occupational medicine and consequently also in maritime medicine. It can be accessed on the internet on the address http://www.embase.com/. Most indexed references contain abstracts and an increasing and high proportion of them also provide free access to full-text articles.

The maritime research institutes (see section below) list their publications on their own websites and frequently provide links to their reports and articles. Valuable scientific material can also be accessed from research institutions with a broader scope, such as occupational health and safety, e.g. the websites of NIOSH at the Centers of Disease Control in U.S.A (http://www.cdc.gov/NIOSH/), HSE in Britain (http://www.hse.gov.uk/) and CCOHS in Canada (http://www.ccohs.ca/). International bodies such as the ILO (http://www.ilo.org/global/lang--en/index.htm) and WHO (http://www.who.int/en/) provide legislative material and to some degree also scientific reports that can be downloaded from the web. The IMO (http://www.imo.org/) also provides valuable background material to maritime health and safety.

Only a few scientific journals are solely or particularly devoted to maritime medicine. The most important one of these is International Maritime Health (http://www.imh.mug.edu.pl/), which is now aiming for quarterly issues. This journal is published by the Institute of Maritime and Tropical Medicine in Gdynia. Another journal addressing in particular hispanofrancophone colleagues is Medicina Marítima (http://www.semm.org/wsemm2.html).

Many additional journals deal with issues that may also have relevance to the maritime environment and the health and safety of seafarers or fishermen. Safety Science, Journal of Telemedicine and Journal of Travel Medicine are examples of journals that are particularly devoted to specific subjects (safety, visual and verbal health communication, and infectious diseases, respectively) but also cover other themes that may apply to maritime medicine. The many journals devoted to occupational and community health also regularly publishes papers of relevance to maritime health and safety.

Other journals focus on the maritime setting with their main readers being professionals of the trade such as mates and captains. These journals include The International Maritime Human Element Bulletin and the WMU Journal of Maritime affairs. While less focused on diseases of seafarers, these journals do address issues relating to human resources, culture and safety.

Each scientific journal runs a peer-review to secure scientific soundness of published manuscripts and they are ranked by their impact factor, which is based on the number of citations from the articles.

Occupational Health Research provides a multitude of links to relevant scientific resources (http://www.systoc.com/healthresources/resources.aspx).

Other sources of information include encyclopedias and databases dealing with occupational health and safety such as the ILO Encyclopedia and CISILO database that can both be accessed on the internet (http://www.ilocis.org/en/default.html), and textbooks of occupational medicine such as the practical handbook of Koh, Seng and Jeyaratnam, which is accessible on line (http://books.google.dk/books?id=bNd3ICX8BxoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=textbook+occupational+medicine&source=bl&ots=cavXHUN1dS&sig=1JQoG828K8vJdjH_t-Zkpr9FahU&hl=da&ei=nSQWTOvTA9yXONqYibQM&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false).

The Safety Library (http://www.thesafetylibrary.com/lib/occupationalmedicine/textbooks.php) provides access to numerous resources online including occupational medicine and marine safety. The Virtual Naval Hospital is another source of online literature addressing many aspects of maritime medicine (http://www.vnh.org/). Additional resources on occupational health can be accessed on the internet but downloading may carry a fee.

“Research methodology: a step-by-step guide for beginners” by Ranjit Kumar can be downloaded for free (http://books.google.dk/books?id=x_kp__WmFzoC&dq=research+methodology+a+step-by-step+guide+for+beginners&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=da&ei=HjQWTLy6Ec6lOMvQuKQM&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false).

Medical Education Online is another open access resource dealing with e.g. education in basic and clinical science, research design, and statistics (http://med-ed-online.net/index.php/meo).

An introduction to medical statistics is currently developed by Wikipedia (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Medical_Statistics). Textbooks on medical statistics include [1] and [2].

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has described uniform requirements for manuscripts (http://www.icmje.org/) and authors should adhere to these.

Literature references can be managed by several commercial programs, which are designed for storage and retrieval in adapted formats. References can be downloaded directly from internet-based literature databases and include abstracts and keywords. Popular computer programs include Reference Manager and End Note.