Technical Notes - e1

Year-End Processing - e2

MeSH Coming Attractions - e3

Fees and New Format for Leasing NLM Databases in 2000 - e4

Scope Expands for PubMed and MEDLINE - e5

Data Changes Expected - e6

Hands On - e7

2000 Update Schedule for MEDLINE on PubMed and Internet Grateful Med [corrected 1999/11/16]

In June 1997, PubMed was introduced as the National Library of Medicine's (NLM) new bibliographic Web-based search system. PubMed includes MEDLINE and publisher-supplied journal article citations, and provides access to PubRef (a service designed to expand the bibliographic linking feature of PubMed to a broader set of non-life sciences scientific journals and full-text of articles at publishers' Web sites). In the Spring of 2000, yet another service, called PubMed Central (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/), will be accessible using PubMed. PubMed Central will serve as a repository for life sciences full-text journal articles. References to PubMed Central's full-text journal articles will appear in PubMed and the full-text link from there will go to the PubMed Central server, which is also an electronic archive.

To reflect the scope of PubMed Central, the scope of PubMed will expand further into the life sciences. Currently the scope of PubMed is the same as MEDLINE's with the addition of references to out-of-scope articles. [Editor's note: NLM is reducing the number of MEDLINE journals (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/nd99/nd99_changes.html) that are selectively indexed.] PubMed and MEDLINE will continue to have the same general scope, but PubMed's depth of coverage in the life sciences will be greater. MEDLINE's scope, quality, and content will continue to be selective and focused on life sciences that are vital to biomedical practitioners, researchers, and educators, including some aspects of biology, environmental science, marine biology, plant and animal science as well as biophysics and chemistry. MEDLINE will maintain its coverage in the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and pre-clinical sciences.

MEDLINE will also continue the policy of including only journal titles reviewed and approved by NLM's Literature Selection Technical Review Committee (LSTRC) and will contain MeSH headings assigned by indexers. PubMed Central will have an advisory committee [This link was removed because it is no longer valid.] and selection criteria to ensure submission quality. Citations to articles from non-MEDLINE journals selected based on quality criteria for PubMed will contain author abstracts but no MeSH indexing.

Electronic communication is making a dramatic change in the way information is exchanged. The expanded scopes of PubMed and MEDLINE will enhance NLM's goal of making knowledge and ideas in life sciences more accessible to the scientific community and the general public.

--prepared by Nadine Benton

MEDLARS Management Section

Next article

Table of contents

Home

Index