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Policy Statement on the Addition of Non-NLM Titles to the NLM LocatorPlus Database for DOCLINE Reporting

Criteria for inclusion of non-NLM titles

DOCLINE libraries in the United States, Canada, and Mexico may request that NLM add serial titles held by them to LocatorPlus to support DOCLINE Serial Holdings reporting. Serials will be added if they are substantive journals which are currently offered on interlibrary loan by biomedical institutions to support biomedicine, health care delivery, research, education, and management. Electronic resources in serial format will be added with the understanding that the reporting libraries have a license to these resources that allows interlibrary loan and the libraries commit to servicing loan requests for citations from those publications. 

Exclusions

Records for electronic journal titles that are free on the web should not be submitted since they do not require interlibrary loan for access.  Additionally, journals which are purchased to provide recreational reading for health professionals or their patients should not be submitted as these are not usually provided through interlibrary loan from a medical institution. Because DOCLINE Serial Holdings is primarily for routing of interlibrary loan requests, NLM does not encourage the addition of publications which have no citable articles or potential for indexing. Similarly catalogs, directories, reports and reference works, particularly in subjects peripheral to medicine will not be added.

NLM reserves the right to make final decisions on the addition or exclusion of any title.

Submission of titles

Titles reported to NLM for addition to or modification of bibliographic data in NLM LocatorPlus catalog must be accompanied by supporting bibliographic documentation such as OCLC, RLIN, or LC records (if available), or a photocopy of the title page and cover of the journal in question if no bibliographic record is available.

All reported titles are to be sent to NLM using the NLM LocatorPlus Bibliographic Data Addition/Modification Form.

Last Reviewed: August 7, 2020