**1. History and Adoption of PubMed Central:**
– PMC originated as E-biomed by Harold Varmus in 1999.
– PMC aimed to provide free access to biomedical research papers.
– Launched in February 2000, PMC is part of the NIH Public Access Policy.
– The repository has grown significantly since its inception.
– Many publishers cooperate with NIH for free access to their works.
**2. Content and Distinction of PubMed Central:**
– PMC archives open access full-text scholarly articles in biomedical and life sciences.
– Indexed submissions are formatted for enhanced metadata and linked to NCBI databases.
– As of December 2018, PMC housed over 5.2 million articles from 4,000 journals.
– PMC is distinct from PubMed, offering free access to full articles via the web.
– Some publishers impose embargo periods on article releases on PMC.
**3. Technology and Reception of PubMed Central:**
– Articles are sent in XML or SGML, converted to NLM DTD, and indexed for search capability.
– Graphics are standardized, and citations are linked to relevant abstracts.
– Mixed reactions from the scholarly community regarding PMC.
– Libraries, universities, and patient rights organizations support PMC.
– Open access papers in specific fields show greater research impact.
**4. PMCID and Related Concepts:**
– PMCID is a bibliographic identifier for PubMed Central, distinct from PMID.
– Required in NIH award applications, PMCID format is PMC followed by numbers.
– Europe PubMed Central and PubMed Central Canada are related repositories.
– JATS is a technology related to PMC archiving standards.
– PMCID is essential for tracking and referencing articles in NIH applications.
**5. Initiatives and Impact of Open Access:**
– Public Library of Science and NIH provide open access to research articles.
– NASA and Autism Speaks also offer free access to research findings.
– Open access articles generally have a higher research impact.
– Public deposit of scientific articles can increase readership.
– Open access publishing can lead to higher downloads and citations, benefiting scholarly communication.
PubMed Central (PMC) is a free digital repository that archives open access full-text scholarly articles that have been published in biomedical and life sciences journals. As one of the major research databases developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), PubMed Central is more than a document repository. Submissions to PMC are indexed and formatted for enhanced metadata, medical ontology, and unique identifiers which enrich the XML structured data for each article. Content within PMC can be linked to other NCBI databases and accessed via Entrez search and retrieval systems, further enhancing the public's ability to discover, read and build upon its biomedical knowledge.
| Producer | United States National Library of Medicine (United States) |
|---|---|
| History | 2000–present |
| Access | |
| Cost | Free |
| Coverage | |
| Disciplines | Medicine |
| Record depth | Index, abstract & full-text |
| Format coverage | Journal articles |
| No. of records | 9,700,000  |
| Links | |
| Website | www |
| Title list(s) | www |
PubMed Central is distinct from PubMed. PubMed Central is a free digital archive of full articles, accessible to anyone from anywhere via a web browser (with varying provisions for reuse). Conversely, although PubMed is a searchable database of biomedical citations and abstracts, the full-text article resides elsewhere (in print or online, free or behind a subscriber paywall).
As of December 2018[update], the PMC archive contained over 5.2 million articles, with contributions coming from publishers or authors depositing their manuscripts into the repository per the NIH Public Access Policy. Earlier data shows that from January 2013 to January 2014 author-initiated deposits exceeded 103,000 papers during a 12-month period. PMC identifies about 4,000 journals which participate in some capacity to deposit their published content into the PMC repository. Some publishers delay the release of their articles on PubMed Central for a set time after publication, referred to as an "embargo period", ranging from a few months to a few years depending on the journal. (Embargoes of six to twelve months are the most common.) PubMed Central is a key example of "systematic external distribution by a third party", which is still prohibited by the contributor agreements of many publishers.