Q: Can a journal with an NLM serial ID be considered PubMed-indexed?

Detailed Question -

It is difficult to understand the difference between the NLM catalog and titles such as 'journals currently indexed in PubMed.'

1 Answer to this question
Answer:

The catalog of a library is a list of its holdings in which some additional information is given about each item. The entry for a book, for example, consists of not only the title of the book and its author but additional information about the book, such as year in which it was published, publisher, number of pages, edition if other than the first, and so on. Every library has a catalog, and the [US] National Library of Medicine (NLM) is no exception. As it states on their site, “The NLM Catalog provides access to NLM bibliographic data for journals, books, audiovisuals, computer software, electronic resources and other materials.”

PubMed is not a library but a service in the form of a database. As it states on their site too, “PubMed is a free resource supporting the search and retrieval of biomedical and life sciences literature with the aim of improving health – both globally and personally… developed and maintained by NCBI, the [US] National Center for Biotechnology Information.”

Therefore, an NLM serial ID simply means that the periodical, or serial, in question is part of holdings of the NLM but may or may not be part of the PubMed database.

Hope that helps. You may also find it worthwhile to go through these previous queries on PubMed by other researchers:

​​​​​​​[With inputs from Yateendra Joshi]

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