Journal of Oncology Practice (JOP) is now fully searchable online in PubMed Central, four months after each issue's publication date, thus having its material accessible by an even wider audience.

PubMed Central is a free digital archive of journal literature developed and operated by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a division of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).

In addition to articles, it also contains author manuscripts of selected articles written by NIH-funded researchers from several thousand journals not archived in PubMed. The goals of PubMed, as stated within the NLM's Congressional mandate, are to: 1) permanently preserve digital journal literature in the life sciences, and 2) improve access to biomedical information for health professionals, researchers, and the public.

Full Content of JOP Available

JOP is committed to a full-participation agreement with PubMed Central. More specifically, the complete contents of all future editions of JOP will be deposited to the database, as well as archival content of the first five years. In addition to its presence on PubMed Central, JOP is indexed in EBSCOhost, CINAHL, and Embase, and is also easily identified with Google Scholar.

The January 2010 issue of JOP was the first issue to be included in the database.

"We're excited because it means that authors who submit their work and are published in the JOP will be able to find [more] readers, and readers who are looking for their work will be able to find it most easily," said Editor-in-Chief John V. Cox, DO, MBA. "I view that as a success for JOP because our work is [now] more accessible-and hopefully we'll find a wider audience and [put the publication to] more use, and that's exactly what JOP is all about."

The PubMed Central National Advisory Committee, established in 1999, provides independent advice on the content and operation of PubMed Central. Accordingly, PubMed Central does not include any unreviewed research articles. The Committee is responsible for establishing criteria for groups submitting material to the system, and ensuring that PubMed Central remains responsive to the needs of researchers, publishers, librarians, and the general public. Members of the Committee are appointed by the Director of NIH from the biomedical and information communities, as well as the general public.

Qualifications: Scientific and Editorial Quality

Only material that meets the NLM's standards for the archive can be accepted. A journal must qualify on two levels: the scientific and editorial quality of its content, and the technical quality of its digital files.

PubMed Central contains nearly two million articles, most of which have a corresponding entry in its counterpart, PubMed. PubMed is a free search engine for accessing the MEDLINE database of citations, abstracts, and some full-text articles; it also provides access to additional relevant websites, and links to the other NCBI molecular biology resources.

As part of the new agreement between JOP and PubMed Central, JOP metadata will be entered into PubMed's database when content goes live on PubMed Central-making JOP material discoverable in PubMed for the first time.

"The editorial staff at JOP is proud of the fact that work published in JOP is searchable by interested readers via so many resources," Dr. Cox said. "The enhanced accessibility of work published by JOP reinforces the value of the Journal to practicing doctors. This increase in visibility also enhances the value of the Journal to authors who wish their work widely available."

Originally printed in ASCO News & Forum © American Society of Clinical Oncology. (ASCO News & Forum, April 2010: 38) All rights reserved.