The National Library of Medicine's (NLM) National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) recently made a preview of forthcoming updates to the PubMed Central (PMC) website available to the public. One of the most significant changes is a redesign of the PMC Journal List. This redesign makes it easier to determine a journal's status in PMC and reflects other user-requested features.

PMC users are encouraged to try out the updated PMC Journal List and provide feedback through the NLM Helpdesk or the yellow "Feedback" button located on every PMC webpage. The new Journal List format will become the default on the PMC website in October 2024.

Notable changes to the PMC Journal List:

1. The updated Journal List is limited to journals that have a formal agreement with NLM to deposit:
   • the final published version of all articles in PMC or,
   • the final published version of all NIH-funded articles (as defined by the NIH Public Access Policy).

   The PMC Journal List also includes historically significant journals archived in PMC under the Biomedical Journal Digitization project.

   Other journals that have individual articles deposited as manuscripts by the authors in support of a funder mandate, or by the publisher through a Selective Deposit arrangement, are not included in the updated PMC Journal List. Visit the PMC User Guide for more information about how to search for these journals.

2. The display for each journal record has been updated from table to "card" format. This update includes clearer labeling of PMC deposit agreement type and agreement status.
3. The Journal Note section includes information on gaps in PMC's content coverage for a journal or other important changes in a journal's agreement type with NLM.
4. The Title History section contains a history of title changes for a journal over time.
5. New filters to make it easier to narrow search results by different characteristics, such as embargo status, PMC agreement status, deposit coverage, and journals added to PMC in the last 30 days.
6. The ability to download the full Journal List, or just the results of their search and applied filters has been added.
7. Each record includes a link to generate a list of all articles in PMC from that journal, providing a quick way to access all the journal's content in PMC.

With these improvements to the PMC Journal List, the updated version of the PMC website launching in October 2024 will no longer include separate archive pages that list all available issues for a journal, or "table of contents" pages that list the contents for a specific issue.

To view journal content by volume and issue, you can filter by these and other desired parameters in the full text search interface. See the PMC User Guide for how to search for content in PMC by journal, volume, and issue.

Changes to the downloadable version of the Journal List:

PMC will continue to make a downloadable version of the Journal List available in comma separated value (csv) format. However, some of the field names and values in the csv file have changed, in order to make the information in the journal records displayed on the website and in the downloadable version consistent.

The new csv file format is available now from the "Download full journal list" and "Download results" links on the page: https://cdn.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/home/jlist.csv. NCBI plans to make the downloadable file available in its current format for a limited time after the new version becomes the default in October.

If you currently use the downloadable version, you are encouraged to review the new file and update any processes that rely on the data as soon as possible.

Current field name	New field name	Changes to available Values
Journal title	Journal Title	none
NLM TA	NLM Title Abbreviation (TA)	none
Publisher	Publisher	none
pISSN	ISSN (print)	none
eISSN	ISSN (online)	none
LocatorPlusID	NLM Unique ID	none
Latest Issue	Most Recent	The volume and year of the most recent content available in PMC. Previously showed volume, issue number, and date if available.
Earliest volume	Earliest	none
Free access	Release Delay (Embargo)	No longer indicates "or less" or "or more" qualifiers.
Open Access		No longer included in the CSV file. This field previously indicated whether ‘All,’ ‘Some,’ or ‘No’ articles from this journal are included in the PMC Open Access Subset under a Creative Commons or similar distribution license.
Deposit status	Agreement Status	Previous values: Blank, No New Content, Predecessor. New values: Active, No longer participating, No longer published, Predecessor title. Previous values map to the new values: Blank = Active. No New Content includes both No longer published and No longer participating. Predecessor = Predecessor title.
Participation level	Agreement to Deposit	Previous values: Full, NIH Portfolio. New value: All articles, NIH funded articles. Previous values map to the new values: Full = All articles. NIH Portfolio = NIH-funded articles.
n/a	Journal Note	New field: Additional information about PMC coverage, including gaps in coverage or changes in Agreement to Deposit.
Journal URL	PMC URL	Previously, was a link to a PMC archive page or a link to PMC search for all articles in PMC from the journal. New values: A link to PMC search results for all articles in PMC from the journal.