PubMed Central Overview:
– Proposed in May 1999 by Harold Varmus.
– Launched in February 2000 with the goal of providing free access to biomedical research.
– Developed by NCBI as a free digital repository for open access scholarly articles.
– Contains over 5.2 million articles as of December 2018.
– PMC archives full articles, while PubMed is a searchable database of citations and abstracts.
– PMC accessible via web browser, linked to other NCBI databases, and searchable through Entrez systems.
PMC Adoption and Statistics:
– Rapid growth due to the NIH Public Access Policy.
– Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 mandated NIH to modify policies for free access.
– Author-initiated deposits exceeded 103,000 papers from Jan 2013 to Jan 2014.
– About 4,000 journals participate in content deposition.
– Some publishers impose embargo periods on article releases.
– PMC receives submissions from publishers, not authors, and allows time-embargoed paywalls.
PMC Technology and Reception:
– Articles sent in XML or SGML format to PMC, then converted to NLM Archiving and Interchange DTD.
– In-house indexing system for search capability and conversion of NLM markup to HTML for delivery.
– Mixed reactions in the scholarly community with support from libraries, universities, and patient rights organizations.
– Open access papers in certain fields show greater research impact.
– NIH policy has inspired similar actions in other federal agencies.
PMCID and Related Projects:
– PMCID is a bibliographic identifier for PubMed Central, required in NIH award applications.
– Europe PubMed Central, JATS technology, MEDLINE, PMID, and PubMed Central Canada are related projects.
– PMC accelerated deposit procedures for coronavirus publications in 2020.
– Various related projects and databases exist with scholarly reactions to PMC varying.
Semantic Web and Open Access Initiatives:
– Semantic Web aims to express real-life situations with flexible language for expression.
– CrossRef formed for document linking, while Public Library of Science focuses on open access.
– NCBI and NLM DTD provide standard XML formats for journal publications.
– Public access to research is mandated by U.S. Federal agencies, with open access articles showing higher research impact.
– National Library of Medicine expands access to coronavirus literature, emphasizing the importance of including PMCID in citations for accessibility.
PubMed Central (PMC) is a free digital repository that archives open access full-text scholarly articles that have been published in biomedical and life sciences journals. As one of the major research databases developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), PubMed Central is more than a document repository. Submissions to PMC are indexed and formatted for enhanced metadata, medical ontology, and unique identifiers which enrich the XML structured data for each article. Content within PMC can be linked to other NCBI databases and accessed via Entrez search and retrieval systems, further enhancing the public's ability to discover, read and build upon its biomedical knowledge.
| Producer | United States National Library of Medicine (United States) |
|---|---|
| History | 2000–present |
| Access | |
| Cost | Free |
| Coverage | |
| Disciplines | Medicine |
| Record depth | Index, abstract & full-text |
| Format coverage | Journal articles |
| No. of records | 9,700,000  |
| Links | |
| Website | www |
| Title list(s) | www |
PubMed Central is distinct from PubMed. PubMed Central is a free digital archive of full articles, accessible to anyone from anywhere via a web browser (with varying provisions for reuse). Conversely, although PubMed is a searchable database of biomedical citations and abstracts, the full-text article resides elsewhere (in print or online, free or behind a subscriber paywall).
As of December 2018[update], the PMC archive contained over 5.2 million articles, with contributions coming from publishers or authors depositing their manuscripts into the repository per the NIH Public Access Policy. Earlier data shows that from January 2013 to January 2014 author-initiated deposits exceeded 103,000 papers during a 12-month period. PMC identifies about 4,000 journals which participate in some capacity to deposit their published content into the PMC repository. Some publishers delay the release of their articles on PubMed Central for a set time after publication, referred to as an "embargo period", ranging from a few months to a few years depending on the journal. (Embargoes of six to twelve months are the most common.) PubMed Central is a key example of "systematic external distribution by a third party", which is still prohibited by the contributor agreements of many publishers.
