ver the coming weeks, PubMed will be revised to reflect the National Library of Medicine's (NLM's) changes to MEDLINE. [Editor's note: these changes were implemented on June 5, 2003]. A description of these changes as they will work follows. Complete information will be available in PubMed's Help.

Corporate Author (CN)
This field identifies the corporate authorship of an article. Corporate Author was introduced in April 2001 (as Corporate Name), but was displayed only in Abstract, Citation, and MEDLINE^® formats. If present, it now appears in display formats after a semi-colon following the author names, or, if there are no author names, in that part of the citation.

Sample display in Summary format:

Cono J, Casey CG, Bell DM; Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention.

This field displays on the MEDLINE format with the CN field tag:

CN - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Corporate names display exactly as they appear in the journal, i.e., NLM does not edit the names to standardize them or translate them into English (except to remove initial articles, i.e., The, An, A).

This field is searchable using the [CN] search tag with the whole name or with individual words from the name.

Sample searches:

american dental association [cn]

american [cn] AND dental [cn] AND association [cn]

Note: Citations indexed pre-2000 and some citations indexed in 2000-2001 retain corporate authors at the end of the title field. For comprehensive searches, consider including terms and/or words searched in the title field.

Sample search:

american dental association [cn] OR american dental association [ti]

Status Tag
A new status tag, [PubMed] will identify citations that will not receive MEDLINE indexing, either because the articles are out of scope or because they are from issues of MEDLINE journals published prior to the date the journal was selected for indexing. The possible status tags on PubMed citations are:

[PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

[PubMed - in process]

[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[PubMed]

Ahead of Print
The date a citation was published electronically in advance of the printed publication is retained on citations if publishers provide NLM with this information.

Sample:
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003 Apr 1;100(7):3925-9. Epub 2003 Mar 24.

Comments/Corrections Added to Summary Format
The following information that has been available on the Abstract and Citation formats now appears on the Summary format also:

Corrected and republished in:

Erratum in:

Retraction in:

Summary for patients in:

Update in:

In some cases, this data links to the respective record in PubMed. For more information about Comment/Corrections, please see the article, PubMed/MEDLINE Available with 2002 MeSH and Two Changes.

The Publication Type, Retracted Publication, no longer appears on the Summary display.

Comments/Corrections data can be retrieved as follows:

These can be searched alone or incorporated into a search:

hiv hasretractionin

Place of Publication (PL)
This field was formerly called Country of Publication (CY). It displays on the MEDLINE format with the PL field tag:

PL - Nigeria

The Place of Publication for a citation indicates the cited journal's country of publication. We had expected this field to be searchable last year, but it was not possible until this year. The search tag is [PL].

Sample search:

aids AND nigeria [pl]

• Geographic Place of Publication regions are not searchable. In order to retrieve records for all countries in a region (e.g., North America) it is necessary to OR together the countries of interest.
  
  
• This field is not included in All Fields or Text Word retrieval, so be sure to use the [PL] search tag.
  
  
• See the article, Changes to PubMed for 2001 in the January-February 2001 issue of the NLM Technical Bulletin for more information about this field.

Grant Number (GR)
Grant and contract numbers used to display in the Identification Number (ID) field on the MEDLINE format and were searched using the Affiliation [AD] tag. This data now has its own field (GR) and can be searched with the [GR] search tag.

Sample search:

lm05545/lm/nlm [gr]

The three pieces of an NIH grant number, i.e., number, acronym, and institute mnemonic, are each individually searchable using the [GR] tag.

Sample search:

nlm [gr]

NLM Unique ID (JID)
This field contains a 7- or 9-alpha-numeric identifier for the cited journal that was assigned by NLM's Integrated Library System (accessible using LocatorPlus). It was added last year to display on the MEDLINE format with the JID field tag:

JID - 0375267

This field is searchable. The search tag is [JID].

Sample search:

> 0375267 [jid]

Full Personal Name as Subject (FPS)
This field contains the full name of the subject of the article for citations with a date of publication beginning with 2002. It is associated with the Personal Name as Subject (PS) field. See the article, PubMed^®/MEDLINE^® Available with 2002 MeSH and Two Changes in the January-February 2002 issue of the NLM Technical Bulletin for information on full names.

This field displays on the MEDLINE format with the FPS field tag:

FPS - Watson, James

This field is not searchable.

General Note (GN)
The General Note field contains supplemental or descriptive information related to the document (such as how to locate it). The data in this field may be preceded by the acronym for the collaborator who has provided this information. The list of acronyms and names follows:

The field displays on the MEDLINE format with the GN field tag:

GN - KIE: Article and commentaries

This field is not searchable.

Investigator (IR) and Full Investigator (FIR)
These fields contain names of interest to users of the former SPACELINE ^TM database. The name identifies the NASA-funded principal investigator(s) who conducted the research. This field is associated with the Investigator Affiliation [IRAD] field (see below). These Investigators' names display on the MEDLINE format with the IR field tag and in the full name format with the FIR tag (see the article, PubMed^®/MEDLINE^® Available with 2002 MeSH and Two Changes in the January-February 2002 issue of the NLM Technical Bulletin for information on full names):

IR- Arrhenius G

FIR - Arrhenius, G

The IR field is searchable. Names should be entered following the author format, with the search tag, [IR].

Sample search:

arrhenius g [ir]

The FIR field is not searchable.

Investigator Affiliation (IRAD)
This field contains data of interest to users of the former SPACELINE database and is associated with the Investigator field (above). It identifies NASA-supplied information about the affiliation of the Investigator.

This field displays after the IR field in the MEDLINE formats with the IRAD field tag:

IRAD - U WI, Madison

This field is not searchable.

Other Term (OT)
The Other Term field contains largely non-MeSH subject terms (previously referred to as Keywords) assigned by an organization identified by the Other Term Owner (OTO) field (see below). This information is present on a small percentage of citations in the database.

Other Terms will display after the OTO field on the MEDLINE format with the OT field tag. The Other Term data may be marked with an asterisk to indicate a major concept. (Asterisks are for display only. You cannot search Other Terms with a major concept tag.)

This field displays on the MEDLINE format with the OT field tag:

OT - Legal Approach

The OT field is searchable with the Text Word [TW] and Other Term [OT] search tags.

Sample search:

legal approach [ot]

Other Term Owner (OTO)
The Other Term Owner is an acronym that precedes the Other Term list (see above). It identifies the organization that provided the Other Term data. The list of Other Term Owner acronyms and the respective organizations follows:

This field displays on the MEDLINE format with the OTO field tag:

OTO - NASA

This field is not searchable.

Other Abstract (OAB)
The Other Abstract field contains an abstract supplied by the NLM collaborating organization that provided the citation data. The abstract is not written by the author(s) of the article. The acronym for the collaborating organization appears at the start of the field. The list of acronyms and collaborating organizations follows:

This field displays on the Abstract, Citation, and MEDLINE (field tag OAB) formats. This field is associated with the Other Copyright Information field (OCI), which displays beneath OAB.

Sample MEDLINE display:
OAB - NASA: The purpose of this review is to delineate the ubiquitous and pivotal role of Ca2+ in diverse physiological processes. Emphasis will be given to the role of Ca2+ in stimulus-response coupling. In addition to reviewing the present status of research, our intention is to critically evaluate the existing data and describe the newly developing areas of Ca2+ research in plants.

The text of this field is searchable with the Text Word [TW] and Title/Abstract [TIAB] search tags.

Other Copyright Information (OCI)
This field identifies the copyright owner. It appears on some records created by a collaborating producer if that producer has written the abstract. The information for this field displays at the end of the Other Abstract on the Abstract and Citation formats, and on the MEDLINE format with the OCI field tag:

OCI - NASA Edited

This field is not searchable.

Other ID (OID)
This field contains identification numbers provided by various organizations or entities supplying citation data for MEDLINE. The ID number will contain an acronym for the organization. A list of these along with names they represent follows:

This field displays on the MEDLINE format with the OID field tag:

OID - KIE: 30206

OID - NRCBL: 18.2

This field is not searchable.

Space Flight Mission (SFM)
This field contains NASA-supplied data of interest to users of the former SPACELINE database. It is the space flight/mission name and/or number when results of research conducted in space are covered in the cited publication. View a complete list of Space Flight Missions and their associated values: manned/unmanned; short/long duration.

This field displays in the MEDLINE format with the SFM field tag:

SFM - Flight Experiment

SFM - Mir Project

SFM - long duration

SFM - manned

This field is searchable with Text Word [TW] and Other Term [OT] search tags.

Sample search:

mir project [ot]

Owner (OWN)
This field is intended for NLM use. It contains an acronym and identifies the organization that supplied the citation data for MEDLINE. A list of acronyms with the organization they represent follows:

This field displays on the MEDLINE format with the OWN field tag:

OWN - NASA

This field is searchable using "owner" + the owner acronym.

Sample search:

ownernasa

Status (STAT)
This field contains information used by NLM for maintenance and testing and is intended for NLM use only.

Notice of previous change:
The MEDLINE Unique Identifier (UI) and Subset (SB) field were removed from citations with the status of "PubMed - as supplied by publisher."

Data in XML Format
All fields, including these new fields, are included in PubMed's XML format. PubMed's XML output conforms to several DTDs. Descriptions of the MEDLINE XML Elements may be of interest to users of the XML format.

By Annette M. Nahin
MEDLARS Management Section

Nahin AM. Changes to PubMed^® for 2003. NLM Tech Bull. 2003 Mar-Apr;(331):e14.