Additional OLDMEDLINE Citations

In an ongoing project to convert information from older print indexes that were the precursors to Index Medicus, over 11,800 citations from the 1950-1959 Current List of Medical Literature (CLML) and the 1960-1965 Cumulative Index Medicus (CIM) were added to PubMed. Adding citations from these older CLML and CIM indexes to PubMed was delayed because the correct journal for each citation was hard to verify. All citations processed through our Data Creation and Maintenance System (DCMS) and loaded into PubMed must link to a serial record in LocatorPlus. Determining the proper journal for some of these older citations takes research time which can result in some citations being made available later than the online debut date for the majority of a year's index. When the original MEDLINE database made its debut in 1971, it contained citations to journal articles published from approximately 1966 forward. OLDMEDLINE citations represent 20 years of going back in time to enhance access to the older biomedical literature.

NLM also continues the work of mapping the original keywords assigned to these older references so that current Medical Subject Headings, or MeSH terms, are added to the records and available for searching in PubMed.

Additional information about the OLDMEDLINE data project is available.