Re: BMC titles indexing in NLM PubMed

[Heather Morrison <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>]

with apologies for cross-posting this reply (to the SPARC Open Access  
Forum and Liblicense):

greetings -

Regardless of why this may be happening, may I suggest that, all else
being equal, it would make perfect sense to NLM to establish different
criteria for open access publications?  With subscription-based resources
only, the indexing does not lead the user directly to the article.  Open
access articles added directly to PMC are a different matter, particularly
if the publisher is providing these - in convenient format - directly to
NLM to add to PMC (as BMC does).

cheers,

Heather Morrison

On 10-Feb-05, at 3:33 PM, Alexei Koudinov wrote:

>  I am puzzled how new journals by BioMedCentral get immediate indexing  
> in PubMed? NIH NLM Rules for PubMed indexing were/are straight forward  
> (current version is available at this link) and request(ed) the  
> publication of at least 20 (twenty!) articles for an electronic  
> journal evaluation for PubMed indexing.
> <http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/j_sel_faq.html>at this link)  
> The NLM specifically states that "once an electronic journal has been
> accessible for at least six months, an editor or publisher may request
> that the journal be reviewed for possible indexing if at least 20
> articles have been published and made available online." (Source: Fact
> Sheet: <http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/j_sel_faq.html>Response
> to Inquiries about Journal Selection for Indexing at
> <http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/j_sel_faq.html>NLM, last viewed
> 11 February 2004, 00:43 Jerusalem time).
>
> This is apparently not a case for a great number of BioMed Central (BMC)
> titles. The screening of first twenty journals listed at
> <http://www.biomedcentral.com/independent/launched>The Launched
> BioMed<http://www.biomedcentral.com/independent/launched> Central
> Independent Journals shows that more then half titles (12 of first
> twenty on the
> <http://www.biomedcentral.com/independent/launched>BMC<http://
> www.biomedcentral.com/independent/launched> list) are indexed in PubMed
> without satisfying the National Library of Medicine minimum article
> sample size for a journal quality assessment.
>
> One may wonder what is this? A quality compromise by NIH evaluation, a
> sort of special arrangement employed by BMC? Developed by NLM special
> mechanism for a commercial publisher? Discrimination of certain scholar
> journals or something else?
>
> I am particularly interested to know the answer, because an independent
> journal that I lead (Neurobiology of Lipids, ISSN 1683-5506) has 20+
> publications but was discouraged (few months ago) to apply for PubMed
> indexing until twenty peer-reviewed articles are published in the
> journal, and despite the fact that 10 editors of the journal (of 40+
> international board members) serve as PIs on NIH research grants.
>
> I look forward to have this issue clarified in a public forum.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Alexei Koudinov, MD, PhD
> Neurobiology of Lipids
> <http://neurobiologyoflipids.org>