New Version of PubMed Central® Journal List Released

PubMed Central (PMC) released a new and improved journal list on March 31, 2009, after a comprehensive redesign for greater clarity and organization.

The new design not only combines the full-list and tabbed-list views of the previous version but also includes some new or updated features (see Figure 1) to provide users with a greater overview of the total PMC archive. Looking at this new list, you will find:

1. An Expanded View of PMC journals that includes NIH Portfolio
2. Special Collections
3. A New "Participation Level" Journal Category
4. Hide/Show Display Option for Predecessor Titles
5. Article and Journal Search Feature

Look at What's Now in PMC
You can now get a more comprehensive view of all the collections in PMC, ranging from journals for which publishers deposit all of their articles to those that are part of the NIH Portfolio or other publisher programs. A new Special Collections category (see Figure 2) allows you to see all the current publisher programs that are depositing only selected articles from their journals.

Also on the Special Collections page, note the descriptions of the categories in the legend at the bottom (see Figure 2). You will see that Special Collections comprises those articles usually published under the journals' fee-based open access option. Although some of these programs include NIH-funded articles, please note that the journals included in Special Collections do not automatically deposit every NIH-funded paper in PMC.

New Participation Level Journal Category
A new journal list category, Participation Level (see Figure 3) was created to specifically designate each journal's type of publisher arrangement with PMC, such as "Full" or "NIH Portfolio."

The Participation Levels are explained in the reformatted legend (see Figure 4) at the bottom of the journal list page.

The revamping of the journal list categories also includes a redesigned icon to indicate "open acess" status. Please note that in the PMC context, "open access" signifies that all or some of the articles in a journal or publisher collection are available under a Creative Commons® or similar distribution license. This redesigned icon now appears in the Free Access column (see Figure 5).

New "Hide/Show Predecessor Titles" Display Option
A new display option, Hide Predecessor Titles/Show Predecessor Titles, can facilitate navigation of the journal list. Hide Predecessor Titles is the default option but clicking the Show Predecessor Titles button shows all the journals included in a particular series, indicated by "now published as" (see Figure 6).

The list of PMC journal titles has also been enhanced, where applicable, to include information on the first volume and year that the earliest title in a particular journal series was published. For example, in Figure 7 below, you will see that the earliest title in the Canadian Journal of Veterinary Research series was published in 1937 as volume 1, although under a different name ( in this case, Canadian Journal of Comparative Medicine). However, the first volume of the journal to be published under its current title goes back to volume 50, 1986 as indicated in the column to the right.

"More, Better" Searching
Finally, take a look at the new search feature (see Figure 8) directly above the Hide Predecessor Titles/Show Predecessor Titles buttons. Rather than limiting your search to journals, you can now search for either articles or journal titles.

Last but not Least
One other change worth mentioning is that the CSV (comma-separated-values) file information for downloading the journal list at the bottom of the page has also been updated. In all, the new list should provide you with a better look at and easier access to the whole PMC archive (see Figure 9).

To be notified about further developments to the PMC site, you may subscribe to PMC mailing list.