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''Index Medicus'' (''IM'') is a curated subset of
MEDLINE MEDLINE (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online, or MEDLARS Online) is a bibliographic database of life sciences and biomedical information. It includes bibliographic information for articles from academic journals covering medic ...
, which is a
bibliographic database A bibliographic database is a database of bibliographic records, an organized digital collection of references to published literature, including journal and newspaper articles, conference proceedings, reports, government and legal publications, p ...
of
life science Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy t ...
and
biomedical science Biomedical sciences are a set of sciences applying portions of natural science or formal science, or both, to develop knowledge, interventions, or technology that are of use in healthcare or public health. Such disciplines as medical microbio ...
information, principally
scientific journal In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. Content Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such as s ...
articles. From 1879 to 2004, ''Index Medicus'' was a comprehensive
bibliographic index A bibliographic index is a bibliography intended to help find a publication. Citations are usually listed by author and subject in separate sections, or in a single alphabetical sequence under a system of authorized headings collectively known as ...
of such articles in the form of a print index or (in later years) its onscreen equivalent. Medical history experts have said of ''Index Medicus'' that it is “America's greatest contribution to medical knowledge.”


Function

The function of Index Medicus is to give people around the world access to quality medical journal literature. To this end, the publishers of Index Medicus must perform, at least, two vital activities: determine which literature is good (has quality) and provide access.


Journal selection

Early in the history of Index Medicus, quality was determined by manually sifting through publications and choosing what subjectively seemed good, but later the Editor of Index Medicus convened a committee of world experts to identify the world's best medical journals and then have citations for articles from those journals made accessible. Inclusion into the ''Index Medicus'' is not automatic and depends on a journal's scientific policy and scientific quality. The journal selection criteria are evaluated by the "Literature Selection Technical Review Committee" and the final decision is made by the NLM director. The review process may include outside reviewers and journals may be dropped from inclusion.


Access

From 1897 till the computer age, access was provided solely by paper publication of the Index. The challenge was how to structure this index so as to make it most useful. To that end, the publishers of Index Medicus created an indexing language. Later this language became the
Medical Subject Headings Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) is a comprehensive controlled vocabulary for the purpose of indexing journal articles and books in the life sciences. It serves as a thesaurus that facilitates searching. Created and updated by the United States N ...
(MeSH). MeSH is a comprehensive controlled vocabulary, and indexers paid by the publisher go through all articles to be included in the Index and identify each article with several, key concepts (each represented by a term) from MeSH. The paper publication of Index Medicus would then show a listing of the MeSH terms with pointers to each citation that was indexed with that term, and users could find relevant literature by going from the term to the citation.


History

''Index Medicus'' was begun by John Shaw Billings, head of the
Library of the Surgeon General's Office The Library of the Surgeon General's Office, later called the Army Medical Library, was the institutional medical literature repository of the U.S. Army Surgeon General from 1836 to 1956 when it was transformed into the National Library of Medic ...
,
United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
. This library later evolved into the
United States National Library of Medicine The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. Its ...
(NLM). For such a major publication over many years the history naturally involved many changes as people died and sources of funding changed.


Years of paper publication

''Index Medicus'' publication began in 1879 and continued monthly through 1926, with a hiatus between 1899 and 1902. During this hiatus, a similar index, the ''Bibliographia medica'', was published in French by the Institut de Bibliographie in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
. The edition was edited by
Charles Richet Charles Robert Richet (25 August 1850 – 4 December 1935) was a French physiologist at the Collège de France known for his pioneering work in immunology. In 1913, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "in recognition of his work on ...
,
Henri de Rothschild Henri James Nathaniel Charles, Baron de Rothschild (26 July 1872 – 12 October 1947) was a French playwright who wrote under the pen names André Pascal, Charles des Fontaines, and P.-L. Naveau. He was also qualified as a physician (although he ...
and G.M. Debove, while Marcel Baudoin ruled as editor in chief and also as director of the Parish institute of bibliography. The first volume of Index Medicus appeared in January 1879 and was listed as compiled under the supervision of John Shaw Billings and Robert Fletcher, while later volumes were listed as co-edited by Billings and Fletcher. Billings retired from the National Library of Medicine in 1895. For most of the period from 1876 to 1912 Robert Fletcher was the Editor or Co-editor of Index Medicus. In 1903 Fielding Garrison became Co-editor and continued as Editor or Co-editor until 1917. Albert Allemann was Editor from 1918 to 1932 when Index Medicus was suspended from 1933 to 1936 due to the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
. For the 125 years that Index Medicus was published in paper form, getting funding was a challenge, and in 1927 the
American Medical Association The American Medical Association (AMA) is a professional association and lobbying group of physicians and medical students. Founded in 1847, it is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Membership was approximately 240,000 in 2016. The AMA's state ...
began publishing it. The ''Index Medicus'' was amalgamated with the
American Medical Association The American Medical Association (AMA) is a professional association and lobbying group of physicians and medical students. Founded in 1847, it is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Membership was approximately 240,000 in 2016. The AMA's state ...
's ''Quarterly Cumulative Index to Current Literature'' (QCICL) as the ''Quarterly Cumulative Index Medicus'' (QCIM) in 1927 and the AMA continued to publish this until 1956. From 1960 to 2004 the printed edition was published by the National Library of Medicine under the name ''Index Medicus/Cumulated Index Medicus'' (IM/CIM). An abridged version was published from 1970 to 1997 as the ''Abridged Index Medicus''. Harold Jones was editor from 1936 to 1945; Frank Rogers, from 1949 to 1963; Clifford Bachrach from 1969 to 1985;
Roy Rada Roy F Rada (born June 13, 1951) is a professor emeritus whose research in computer science and information systems appeared in journal articles from 1979 till 2022. Early life and education Rada was born in Vienna, Austria in 1951. He gradua ...
from 1985 to 1988; and from 1988 until it ceased paper publication in 2004 it was produced by the NLM's Bibliographic Services Division. The abridged edition is a subset of the journals covered by
PubMed PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health maintain the ...
("core clinical journals"). The last issue of ''Index Medicus'' was published in December 2004 (Volume 45). The stated reason for discontinuing the printed publication was that online resources had supplanted it, most especially
PubMed PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health maintain the ...
, which continues to include the ''Index'' as a subset of the journals it covers.


Evolution from Print to Digital

In the 1960s, the NLM began computerizing the indexing work by creating MEDLARS, a
bibliographic database A bibliographic database is a database of bibliographic records, an organized digital collection of references to published literature, including journal and newspaper articles, conference proceedings, reports, government and legal publications, p ...
, which became
MEDLINE MEDLINE (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online, or MEDLARS Online) is a bibliographic database of life sciences and biomedical information. It includes bibliographic information for articles from academic journals covering medic ...
(MEDLARS online) in 1971 when the NLM offered MEDLARS searches "online" to other medical libraries, and remote computers able to log into the NLM MEDLARS system. ''Index Medicus'' thus (after 1965) became the print presentation of the MEDLINE database's content, which users accessed usually by visiting a
library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...
which subscribed to ''Index Medicus'' (for example, a university scientist at the
university library An academic library is a library that is attached to a higher education institution and serves two complementary purposes: to support the curriculum and the research of the university faculty and students. It is unknown how many academic librar ...
). It continued in this role through the 1980s and 1990s, while various electronic presentations of MEDLINE's content also evolved, first with proprietary online services (accessed mostly at libraries) and later with
CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...
s, then with
Entrez The Entrez (pronounced ''ɒnˈtreɪ'') Global Query Cross-Database Search System is a federated search engine, or web portal that allows users to search many discrete health sciences databases at the National Center for Biotechnology Information ...
and
PubMed PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health maintain the ...
(1996). As users gradually migrated from print to online use, ''Index Medicus'' print subscriptions dwindled. During the 1990s, the dissemination of home internet connections, the launch of the Web and
web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...
s, and the launch of
PubMed PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health maintain the ...
greatly accelerated the shift of online access to MEDLINE from something one did at the library to something one did anywhere. This dissemination, along with the superior usability of
search Searching or search may refer to: Computing technology * Search algorithm, including keyword search ** :Search algorithms * Search and optimization for problem solving in artificial intelligence * Search engine technology, software for findi ...
compared with use of a print index in serving the user's purpose (which is to distill relevant subsets of information from a vast superset), caused the use of MEDLINE's print output, ''Index Medicus'', to drop precipitously. In 2004, print publication ceased. Today, ''Index Medicus'' and ''Abridged Index Medicus'' still exist conceptually as
content curation Content curation is the process of gathering information relevant to a particular topic or area of interest, usually with the intention of adding value through the process of selecting, organizing, and looking after the items in a collection or e ...
services that curate MEDLINE content into search subsets or database views (in other words, subsets of MEDLINE
records A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, ...
from some journals but not others). Biomedical journals indexed in MEDLINE, as well as those listed in ''Index Medicus'', are almost always quality journals because the National Library of Medicine will not index junk journals. (See the
External links An internal link is a type of hyperlink on a web page to another page or resource, such as an image or document, on the same website or domain. Hyperlinks are considered either "external" or "internal" depending on their target or destination ...
, below, for links to pages on the National Library of Medicine website that contain a list of journals indexed in MEDLINE; journals listed in ''Index Medicus''; and a list of ''Abridged Index Medicus'' journals (also known as "Core clinical" journals).


See also

* EMBASE


Notes


References


External links


List of Abridged Index Medicus (AIM) journals
(118 journals as of 5 May 2020)
Search the NLM Catalog
using jsubsetim ll Fields/code> to find all Index Medicus journals (5021 as of 29 May 2020); or go directly to th
search results for all Index Medicus journals

Search the NLM Catalog
using currentlyindexed ll/code> to find all journals indexed in MEDLINE (5266 as of 29 May 2020); or go directly to th
search results for all journals indexed in MEDLINE
{{Authority control Publications established in 1879 Bibliographic databases and indexes Medical literature