What is a selectively indexed journal?
A number of journals are multidisciplinary, and publish articles about such non-biomedical fields as astronomy, geology, mathematics, and the like. From these journals, NLM selects the articles that pertain to biomedicine, and indexes them for the MEDLINE database. Examples of multidisciplinary journals are Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Other journals cover many aspects of a subject field, including non-biomedical aspects. For instance, chemical journals may contain articles about physical chemistry as well as biochemistry. NLM indexes only the articles that pertain to biomedicine. The majority of journals are indexed “cover to cover.” That is, all articles, substantive editorials, and letters are indexed. However, NLM does not index book reviews, abstracts, software or equipment reviews, meeting announcements, or other non-article items from any journal.
