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FAQ: What does the phrase "Date range of indexed citations unspecified" in the Indexed field in LocatorPlus and the NLM Catalog mean

Question: When I look up some journals in Locatorplus I see that the indexing coverage indicates that the date range of indexed citations is unspecified for MEDLINE and PubMed. What does this mean?
Answer:

MEDLINE/PubMed contains citations to journals that were not regularly indexed for MEDLINE. Some of these journals may not even appear to be in scope for MEDLINE. These citations were added to MEDLINE via our database collaborators as a part of our special collaborative agreements either directly or older citations may have been added to MEDLINE when we merged our specialty databases (BIOETHICSLINE, POPLINE, HSTAR, HISTLINE, and SPACELINE) into our single MEDLINE database in 2001. These database collaborators selected articles for their subject scope and their selection criteria varies. Additionally individual citations may appear in PubMed due to the NIH Public Access policy which requires authors of NIH funded research to provide author manuscripts in PubMed Central.

To identify these journals, go to the indexing information in LocatorPlus.

If the "Indexed In" section reads: "Date range of indexed citations unspecified," certain articles from that journal are cited in PubMed.

To identify the collaborator partner responsible for selecting the citations, search the journal in PubMed and view the MEDLINE display for the citations. The OWN field identifies the originating organization. To identify Author manuscript citations, see the PubMed label on the Summary, Abstract, AbstractPlus and Citation displays that reads "[PubMed - author manuscript in PMC]."

Existing internal Customer Service Stock Reply:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/internal/custserv/sr/qa_date_range.html

For questions about missing citations from PubMed, where you check LocatorPlus and find the "Date Range of Indexed Citations Unspecified" note.

Answer:

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) received your question about missing citations in PubMed. The journal you asked about is not regularly indexed in PubMed. Some citations from that journal may have been added to PubMed when we merged our other databases (BIOETHICSLINE, HEALTH, POPLINE and SPACELINE) into the system. Partner organizations select articles for the other databases, and their selection criteria varies. Additional citations may be author manuscripts in PubMed Central.

To identify these journals, go to the indexing information in LocatorPlus.

If the Indexed In section reads: "Date range of indexed citations unspecified," only selected articles from that journal are in PubMed. The NLM will not add citations from these journals.

Last updated: 20 May 2008
First published: 20 May 2008
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