Journal Coverage Terminology Change Affects LocatorPlus and NLM Catalog Records

NLM has been using the phrase "Date range of indexed citations unspecified" for indexing coverage of journals that are not regularly indexed for MEDLINE, either because the citations come from special collaborative agreements or the NIH Public Access Policy. This phrase was confusing to users of LocatorPlus and the NLM Catalog, and actually misleading at times, as citations in PubMed for author manuscripts are not actually indexed.

Therefore NLM has made a global change to the journal records, replacing the old phrase with "Selected citations only" (see Figure 1). Beginning June 21, 2014, users of LocatorPlus and the NLM Catalog will see the new terminology in the indexing coverage field (labeled "In") for journals not regularly indexed for MEDLINE. For journals where the indexing status has changed over time, the MEDLINE and PubMed data may have a volume and date range, followed by the phrase "Selected citations only [before/after] this date" (see Figure 2).

In addition, we will add a sentence to the Current Indexing Status element in the Full and Journal displays in the NLM Catalog when a journal contributes only author manuscript citations to PubMed that reads: "Only citations for author manuscripts are included".

The new wording will make the indexing and the PubMed coverage clearer and more accurate.