2) Quality and Content.

The most important aspect of any

PERSPECTIVES journal is its scientific merit (validity, importance, and degree
of contributions to the biomedical sciences).
Is Your Journal Indexed in MEDLINE? 3) Quality of Editorial Work. The quality of the editorial
work must reflect objectivity, credibility, and quality. The

A fter some philosophic musings in my last Perspectives, I

think the start of a new year is a good time to come back to
some editorial issues. In this short article, I will detail what it
committee carefully evaluates the external peer-review pro-
cess, adherence to ethical guidelines, disclosure of conflicts of
interest, timely publication of errata, responsible retractions
takes for a medical journal to become indexed in MEDLINE when appropriate, and opportunity for the expression of dis-
and briefly discuss other available data bases. Undoubtedly, senting opinions.
one of the largest and the most prestigious data bases is MED- 4) Lack of Commercial Influence. The committee specifi-
LINE. It houses more than 17 million articles from more than cally assesses the potential influence that any advertising or
5300 journals published in 80 different countries (there are commercial activities may have on the quality of the articles
about 13,000 14,000 biomedical journals published world- published.
wide).1 It is administered by the National Library of Medicine 5) Production Quality. The layout, printing, graphics, and
(part of the Department of Health). This library, physically illustrations are all taken into account. A journal printed on
located on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in acid-free paper (as the American Journal of Neuroradiology
Bethesda, Maryland, is the largest facility of its kind in the [AJNR] is) receives higher evaluation scores.
world. It houses more than 7 million books, journals, films, 6) Audience. Journals must be geared toward audiences
etc. The MEDLINE data base contains articles from medical, comprising health professionals at every level (physicians, re-
nursing, dental, veterinary, health care, and preclinical sci- searchers, administrators, etc).
ences journals and is updated 5 days a week. 7) Types of Content. Content of a journal must include 1
The instrument that is used to search this huge data base is or more of the following: original research, clinical observa-
called PubMed (the name comes from Pub for published tions, reviews, statistical compilations, case reports, and vary-
and public and Med for medicine). PubMed also ing analysis (philosophic, ethical, social, etc). Publications
searches some journals not contained in MEDLINE. PubMed consisting mainly of previously published articles (such as our
is available free of charge and, during 2009, was used about 1.3 Special Collections) or only abstracts (such as meeting program
billion times, an increase of nearly 65% compared with 2008.2 syllabi) are not considered for inclusion in MEDLINE.
The PubMed software was designed by the National Center for 8) Journals in Languages other than English. These are

EDITORIALS
Biotechnology Information and the National Library of Med- considered as long as the abstracts are in English and they meet
icine as a part of a larger search system called Entrez. PubMed the same criteria as their English counterparts.
has several features I particularly like, such as See related 9) Geographic Coverage. Journals are selected indepen-
articles (no explanation needed) and LinkOut, which di- dent of where they are published. They should provide wide
rects you to specific publisher Web sites. Nearly 90% of all international coverage.
articles indexed in MEDLINE are in English. To rapidly search 10) Journal Categories. All of the above criteria are influ-
the data base, PubMed uses a system based on medical subject enced by the main purpose of a journal. Journals fall into the
headings (MeSH). The algorithm used is a Boolean expression following categories:
in which the results are either true of false. One of its benefits is A) Research: those that report original investigations.
that it is very fast. MeSH also allows searching definitions of B) Clinical or Practice: those that contain information re-
individual terms. garding the current state of medical practice.
MEDLINE is part of a larger data base called MEDLARS. C) Review: those that provide background information of
The on-line component of MEDLARS is MEDLINE. The de- accepted principles in a consensus fashion.
cision to accept a journal into MEDLINE is made by the Di- D) General or All-Purpose: those geared toward broad au-
rector of the National Library of Medicine under the guidance diences that contain elements of AC.
of an advisory group called the Literature Selection Technical After evaluation, journals are graded on a 0- to 5-point
Review Committee.3 The committee assures representation of scale and about 25% of those reviewed will be accepted for
minorities, women, and individuals with different expertise indexing in MEDLINE. Only those receiving scores of 3.75 or
from all regions of the United States. Members (a total of 15) higher are selected. If acceptance is denied, one may appeal the
are elected on the basis of their scientific activities, achieve- decision or decide to reapply 2 years later. Subsequent reviews
ments, honors, and other traits, but an MD or PhD is usually are done on a 3-year basis. If a journal is less than 3 years old,
needed. To balance it out, some members of the general public it will be indexed entirely at the time of selection; if it is older
are included. Total membership is renewed every 4 years in a than 4 years, indexing begins with the most recent year. A
tiered fashion. This committee convenes 3 times per year, and change in the title of a journal necessitates undergoing a new
during each meeting, about 140 publications are evaluated. application. The merger of an indexed journal with one that is
The committee assesses the following elements when consid- not indexed also requires a new application. Journals are au-
ering a journal for inclusion in MEDLINE: dited periodically, and major changes for the worse may result
1) Scope and Coverage. Articles must deal with biomedical in loss of their indexing.
subjects. The committee will, however, consider non-biomed- Of course, because less than 50% of all biomedical publi-
ical journals occasionally if they are thought to significantly cations are listed on MEDLINE, there are other data bases.
contribute to the medical and allied sciences. This commentary would not be complete without mention of

AJNR Am J Neuroradiol 32:12 Jan 2011 www.ajnr.org 1

some of these. The Embase data base (owned by Elsevier) con- paradoxically, is its comprehensiveness. Because all references
tains about 1800 journal titles not found in MEDLINE (for a appear in a search, one must be careful to select only those
total of approximately 7000) and about 20 million individual items that seem reliable, relevant, timely, and valid. This
entries.4 The benefit of using Embase is wider coverage and search engine can also look for legal opinions and patents.
inclusion of extensive pharmacologic and drug-related litera- Google Scholar is still considered to be in its beta testing
ture. Most medical school libraries that I know subscribe to stage and what the final product will be able to do and look
this fee-for-service activity. Elsevier also owns the FIRST Con- like, no one is certain. At this time, some academic libraries use
sult data base.5 This data base is divided into 3 parts: medical Google Scholar as one of their search engines. Google Scholar
topics (apparently those related to evidence-based medicine), sends crawlers into Web sites to learn their content, and
differential diagnosis, and a guide to procedures. It contains some sites do not allow it. Listings of articles published in
an index to all articles published in the Clinics series. Another journals owned by Elsevier may be limited because this pub-
important data base owned by Elsevier is Scopus.6 This data lisher did not allow entry of Google crawlers before 2007.
base covers articles and abstracts from more than 16,500 jour- More important, Google Scholar often displays only the first
nals extending beyond the biomedical sciences. The interest- and last authors. Because Google Scholar registers all activities
ing thing about Scopus is that it contains author information related to publications, it may become the most important
including bibliography, citation rates, affiliations, etc. scientific search engine in the future.
There are other data bases that deal mostly with drugs, To end, a few words about Index Medicus. The Index was
natural medicine, sports-related diseases, and psychiatric ill- started in 1879 as a comprehensive list of medical science ar-
nesses that are of no or little interest to neuroradiologists and ticles and was last published in 2004. Throughout its history, it
are not addressed here. The Web of Science data base (owned assumed different configurations and was published by the
by Thomson Reuters) is of interest mostly to editors and those National Library of Medicine or the American Medical Asso-
in related occupations (it is also used by some promotions ciation. All data contained in it can now be found on MED-
committees).7 It contains information on more than 10,000 LINE and are accessible via PubMed.8 Inclusion of a journal in
highly rated journals and expands to the social sciences, hu- the Index was subject to the same requirements as MEDLINE.
manities, and arts. This powerful data base allows in-depth Many of us still remember using the hefty Cumulated Index
analysis of the performance of a journal and individual au- Medicus books to look for references. What a relief to be able to
thors. The Journal Citation Reports data base is part of the do it from our computers!
Web of Science (it contains the famous Impact Factor). I think our readers and contributors can be confident that
These are also paid services and are generally available through AJNR meets all criteria put forth by all data bases mentioned
most medical school libraries. and can be found there. As criteria change, we will too, assur-
The main difference between MEDLINE and the above- ing that AJNR maintains its preeminent position in the clinical
mentioned data bases is that journals included in them gener- neurosciences.
ally do not undergo rigorous evaluation. For example, Embase
requires filling out a simple form suggesting the title you want
included there. Their Web site provides no details as to who
References
reviews the applications or the process. For Scopus, the title to 1. Fact Sheet. MEDLINE Journal Selection. National Library of Medicine. http://
be included is evaluated by a committee formed by approxi- www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/jsel.html. Accessed March 16, 2010
mately 20 scientists and 10 librarians from all corners of the 2. Key MEDLINE Indicators. National Library of Medicine. http://www.nlm.nih.
gov/bsd/bsd_key.html. Accessed March 16, 2010
world, but further details are not given on that Web site. 3. FAQ: Journal Selection for MEDLINE Indexing at NLM. National Library of
Content (either partial or full) from AJNR is found in all of Medicine. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/j_sel_faq.html. Accessed
these data bases. March 16, 2010
4. Embase Biomedical Answers. http://www.info.embase.com. Accessed March
Now I want to touch on Google Scholar. This is a subset of 16, 2010
Google Web Search that permits searching of the academic 5. MD Consult. http://www.mdconsult.com. Accessed March 16, 2010
literature, including articles, theses, books, and reports, so it is 6. Scopus. http://www.info.scopus.com. Accessed March 16, 2010
7. ISI Web of Knowledge. http://apps.isiknowledge.com. Accessed March 16, 2010
much more comprehensive than all other data bases. Google 8. FAQ: Index Medicus Chronology. National Library of Medicine. http://www.
Scholar often links you to the article you are looking for via the nlm.nih.gov/services/indexmedicus.html. Accessed March 16, 2010
Web site of the commercial publisher (these, in turn, may be M. Castillo
linked to your medical school library, and you should not have Editor-in-Chief
to pay for most articles). The problem with Google Scholar, DOI 10.3174/ajnr.A2119

2 Editorials AJNR 32 Jan 2011 www.ajnr.org