Changes to OLDMEDLINE Records - Status Tag Change

s ince 1996, the National Library of Medicine® (NLM) has been working on a series of OLDMEDLINE retrospective conversion projects to make citations from the older print indices of the Cumulated Index Medicus (CIM) and the Current List of Medical Literature (CLML) available electronically. These projects have included digitization of older print indices and the mapping of the index terms or keywords used to index in these older citations to current MeSH® vocabulary. The OLDMEDLINE MeSH Mapping Project will take a large step forward this fall during the NLM annual year-end processing cycle.

To begin with, the status tag [PubMed – OLDMEDLINE for pre1966] will be simplified to [PubMed – OLDMEDLINE]. With the progress of mapping the OLDMEDLINE keywords to current MeSH terms, approximately 72% [Correction: This number was corrected on October 18, 2006.] of the OLDMEDLINE citations have had all of their keywords mapped to current MeSH. These citations will be included during this fall's year-end processing cycle. This means their MeSH headings will be maintained with the upcoming 2007 version of MeSH. As a part of the 2006 MEDLINE year-end processing activities, these records will be designated as MEDLINE records. Since all of their keywords have been mapped, all processing on these citations is considered completed. Their PubMed® citation status will be changed from [PubMed - OLDMEDLINE] to [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]. These records will be retrieved when limiting to the MEDLINE® subset, or when searching medline [sb]. Searchers not interested in these older citations are advised to restrict their searches using the date range function within the Limits feature, or to set up a filter for publication date.

Citations from the OLDMEDLINE print index sources that have not had all of their keywords mapped to current MeSH will have the status tag [PubMed – OLDMEDLINE]. A search for oldmedline [sb] will identify these records. NLM is working on completing this mapping for citations identified with [PubMed – OLDMEDLINE].

Any additional citations digitized in the future from earlier years of the print index CLML will be entered in PubMed with the citation status of [PubMed – OLDMEDLINE] until their keywords are completely mapped to current MeSH. Once this mapping is completed, these records will be designated as MEDLINE records and their citation status will then become [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE].

All records introduced into MEDLINE/PubMed as part of the OLDMEDLINE retrospective conversion projects will continue to have the value of om in the Subset (SB) field. This value of om indicates the record originated from one of the two print indices – the CIM or the CLML. Interested searchers can isolate these records by searching on jsubsetom.

Given the workload and timing considerations of other citation maintenance projects this fall, some OLDMEDLINE records may undergo the change in status and appear in PubMed labeled as MEDLINE before the mid-December target date for the new PubMed database having 2007 MeSH.

Gillikin D. Changes to OLDMEDLINE Records - Status Tag Change. NLM Tech Bull. 2006 Sep-Oct;(352):e3.