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Journal Title Abbreviation Maintenance

Knecht LS. Journal Title Abbreviation Maintenance. NLM Tech Bull. 2009 May-Jun;(368):e17.

June 09, 2009 [posted]

The National Library of Medicine® (NLM®) is in the process of removing square brackets from MEDLINE® journal title abbreviations (TA). These square brackets usually enclose a part designation, e.g.: J Antibiot [B]. Removing the square brackets will simplify searching for these journals by TA in PubMed® where the square brackets are used for search tags.

This maintenance affects about 100 journals, of which only six are currently indexed for MEDLINE. These six are:

Current Title Abbreviation Title Abbreviation After the Maintenance
Ann Univ Mariae Curie Sklodowska [Med] Ann Univ Mariae Curie Sklodowska Med
Glas Srp Akad Nauka [Med] Glas Srp Akad Nauka Med
J Comp Physiol [B] J Comp Physiol B
J Hand Surg [Am] J Hand Surg Am
Proc Inst Mech Eng [H] Proc Inst Mech Eng H
Z Naturforsch [C] Z Naturforsch C

As the journal title abbreviations are edited in LocatorPlus® and then in the Journals database, the citations in MEDLINE/PubMed will be automatically corrected.

NLM expects to complete the edits to the affected records and citations by the end of June 2009.