Index Medicus (national Library Of Medicine) Abbreviations For Journal Titles
Gaby Zenz
This fact sheet discusses the rules currently used by NLM to construct title abbreviations for journals indexed in PubMed. Users should keep in mind that policies and procedures have changed over time at NLM, and they may encounter older title abbreviations that are not established according to the rules described below.
As of March 1, 2007, NLM generally establishes title abbreviations based on the form used by the ISSN Centre as their abbreviated key title, whenever this is available, editing only for format as described below:
The ISSN Centre constructs abbreviations generally using the same principles that NLM used prior to March 2007. The title abbreviation is based on the title proper of the journal at its first issue. The title proper includes part designations and section titles, if present, but does not include subtitle or parallel title (titles presented in other languages) information. See examples 1-2.
Each word in the title proper is compared against a master list of abbreviations issued by the ISSN International Centre. If the word or word root is found in the master list, that abbreviation is used. If a word is not found in the ISSN list, the word appears in the title abbreviation as it appears in the title proper.
As noted above, a fundamental principle of title abbreviation assignment is that each title abbreviation must be unique. If two journals have the same title, or have titles which, when the above procedures are followed, would result in the same title abbreviation, one or more qualifying elements are added to the title abbreviation to make it unique. The original city of publication (using the approved abbreviation for a place name, if one exists) is the preferred qualifier. Other elements that may be added are:
If the title proper of the journal undergoes a major change, requiring the creation of a new bibliographic record for the journal, a new title abbreviation is assigned for the new journal. The guidelines for determining major changes in title proper are governed by the cataloging guidelines, Resource Description and Access (RDA).
Ovid MEDLINE covers the international literature on biomedicine, including the allied health fields and the biological and physical sciences, humanities, and information science as they relate to medicine and health care. Information is indexed from approximately 5,600 journals published world-wide. Records start in the early 1800's and go all the way to our daily updates.
The Publisher records have recently been added to PubMed via electronic submission from a publisher, and are soon to proceed to the next stage, In-Process. This tag is also on citations received before late 2003 if they are from journals not indexed for MEDLINE, or from a journal that was accepted for MEDLINE after the citations' publication date. These citations bibliographic data have not been reviewed.
The PubMed-not-MEDLINE records have undergone quality review but are not assigned MeSH headings because the cited item is not in scope for MEDLINE either by topic or by date of publication, or is from a non-MEDLINE journal. These records are constantly changing. PubMed-not-MEDLINE records will not be added to the Medline database.
Ovid OLDMEDLINE covers the international biomedical journals covering the fields of medicine, preclinical sciences, and allied health sciences. The citations were originally printed in hard copy indexes published from 1946 through 1965.
The limit of databases that you can select for a multifile search session is based upon database segments rather than actual databases. The Ovid multifile segment limit is set at 120 to avoid impacting your search sessions. This database includes 39 segments.
Since 1975, NLM has included author-written abstracts from journals whose publishers gave the NLM permission for their use. These abstracts appear in the Abstract (AB) field. Over 50% of the documents in Ovid MEDLINE(R) contain abstracts. The abstract index contains all searchable words from the abstract.
The Authors (AU) field contains the authors of the article. The format for authors is last name followed by one or more initials: Smith JC or Smith J. Enter the last name, or if it is a common name, enter the last name and first initial. If you are unsure of the spelling of the last name (macdonald or mcdonald), enter one version and then scroll through the list of names to find the other.
Misspelled and corrected names are now included in the Author Index to ensure all possible matches. Only correct author names display, while incorrectly spelled names are indexed along with the correct spelling of the name.
The Publisher Item Identifier (DI) field uniquely identifies individual published documents that are provided by the publisher for new citation submitted. The full PII appears as such e.g .S0036-36342008000600005.
The ISSN Electronic (ES) field contains the Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN) for the journal in which an article was published. It appears as an 8 digit number, separated by a hyphen: 0028-4793. To retrieve all of the articles for a journal, search by the Journal Name (JN).
Subheadings are qualifiers added to MeSH subject headings to refine their meaning. Terms such as "etiology" or "therapy," when combined with a MeSH heading, give a precise idea of what an article covers.
This field displays as part of the Grant and Funding Information (GI) field. Back GI Grant and Funding Information [Phrase Indexed]
hhsn263201200074i.gi.
The Grant and Funding Information (GI) field displays information about awarded grants, may contain Grant Number (NO), Grant Acronym (GR) or funding organization acronym, Grant Organization (GO) and Grant Country (GC). Back GO Grant Organization [Word Indexed]
nih.go.
The Grant Organization (GO) field contains the full name of the organization that has awarded the grant. This field displays as part of the Grant and Funding Information (GI) field. Back GR Grant Acronym [Phrase Indexed]
od.gr.
The Grant Acronym (GR) field contains contains the 2-letter grant code or funding organization acronym that has awarded the grant. This field displays as part of the Grant and Funding Information (GI) field. Back GS Gene Symbol [Phrase Indexed]
16s rrna.gs. The Gene Symbol (GS) field contains Gene Symbols as they are entered into Ovid MEDLINE(R) in the original document. They often, but not always, conform to standardized human gene nomenclature. Ignore super or sub-scripts in entry of a gene symbol: psub 1450 would be entered p1450. Enter hyphens as in the original symbol.
The Subject Heading Word (HW) index allows you to retrieve every MeSH subject headings and Publication Type that include a particular word. Do this by searching a single word in the Subject Heading Word (HW) field.
The Indexing Method (IG) field was introduced by the NLM in September 2018. It will only be present in records if a value is specified. If Indexing Method is not present in status MEDLINE records, the indexing method is fully human indexed.
The Institution (IN) field contains the author's full name and its affiliation, which is usually the source for a reprint of the article. This information can be searched in most documents since 1988, but records from earlier years which were added to the database after 1988 may also contain institution information. Beginning with documents indexed in 1996, author's email address will also be included, if present in the journal.
The information is taken from the source document and is not standardized. Enter the single most descriptive word in an institution (harvard, not university). Consider both full spellings and abbreviations.
The Investigator (IR) field contains personal names of individuals (e.g., collaborators and investigators) who are not authors of a paper but rather are listed in the paper as members of a collective/corporate group that is an author of the paper. The format for authors is last name followed by one or more initials: Smith JC or Smith J.
The ISSN Print (IS) field contains the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) for the journal in which an article was published. It appears as an 8 digit number, separated by a hyphen: 0028-4793. To retrieve all of the articles for a journal, search by the Journal Name (JN). Both Electronic and Print ISSNs can be searched in the IS index.
The Investigator NameID (IX) field is defined to contain a unique identifier associated with the name. The values in the Identifier attribute Source will designate the organizational authority that established the unique identifier.
The Journal Name (JN) field contains the full name of the journal in which the article was published. Journal names are indexed as phrases, so enter enough letters of the journal name to locate the name in the index: new engl (for New England Journal of Medicine). This field usually displays as part of the Source (SO) field.
The Keyword Heading Word (KF) index allows you to retrieve every Keyword Heading assigned by authors that include a particular word. Do this by searching a single word in the Keyword Heading Word (KF) field.
The Keyword Heading Owner (KO) field contains an acronym that identifies the organization that provided the Keyword Heading (KW) data. The Keyword Heading Owner (KO) acronyms and their respective organizations are:
KIE = Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University
NASA = National Aeronautics and Space Administration
PIP = Population Information Program, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health
NLM = National Library of Medicine (used for the OLDMEDLINE records)
NOTNLM = (The journal publisher or other data provider. This is used when the Keyword Heading (KW) field includes author-supplied keywords. NLM began using this value in January 2013.)
The Keyword Heading (KW) field contains the Keyword Headings assigned by authors. Keyword Headings are the author keywords. To retrieve every Keyword Heading that includes a particular word, search for the word in the Keyword Heading Word (KF) field.
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