NLM Broadens PubMed Central Eligibility Requirements to Accept Applications from Spanish-Language Journals

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) has expanded the eligibility requirements for PubMed Central (PMC), NLM's full-text digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature, to consider applications from non-MEDLINE journals published primarily in Spanish. Prior to this update, PMC's Language Guidelines required that the full-text content of a non-MEDLINE journal be published largely in English to be eligible to apply to the archive. This policy update will broaden the PMC eligibility requirements to be more inclusive of non-English-language journals and increase the global representation in NLM's literature databases.

In building a collection that is more representative of the diversity of biomedical literature and engages a wider audience, this policy update aligns the PMC scope more closely with that of MEDLINE and the broader NLM Collection, and is consistent with one of NLM's Strategic Plan goals: "Reach more people in more ways through enhanced dissemination and engagement." PMC will continue to accept applications from journals in any language if they are currently indexed for MEDLINE.

Expansion of the PMC eligibility requirements to include Spanish-language journals will inform future efforts to support applications from non-MEDLINE journals in most major languages.

Eligibility and Application Process

As with English-language journals, Spanish-language journals must meet PMC's Pre-Application Requirements and must be suitable for the NLM Collection (according to the Collection Development Guidelines of the NLM). Additionally, while not a requirement, journals are strongly encouraged to publish English translations of article titles and abstracts to enhance discovery.

At this time, individual publishers will initially be limited to submitting one Spanish-language title at a time, and decision times are expected to exceed the standard timeframes. Publishers and journals interested in participating can send an email to pmcapplication@mail.nlm.nih.gov for more information on how to apply.

Applications will be assessed according to PMC's standard scientific and editorial quality considerations and publishers are strongly encouraged to review PMC's rigorous technical quality expectations prior to applying. If a journal successfully passes all steps in the evaluation and setup process, the complete contents of each volume/issue (within the limits of the Back Content policy) will be accepted for deposit in PMC.

Feedback or Questions

NLM encourages you to send questions or comments to pmcapplication@mail.nlm.nih.gov.