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Fact Sheet
Construction of National Library of Medicine Title Abbreviations
Printer-friendly VersionThis fact sheet discusses the rules currently used by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to construct title abbreviations for items cited in NLM's online services. The majority of these items are journals indexed for MEDLINE® in the PubMed® database. Policies and procedures have changed over time at NLM; therefore it is possible to encounter older title abbreviations that were not established according to the rules described below.
Guiding Principle
Each journal title indexed by NLM is assigned a unique title abbreviation.
Standards Used
NLM establishes title abbreviations based on the rules outlined in Information and Documentation, Rules for the Abbreviation of Title Words and Titles of Publications (ISO 4, 3rd ed. 1997) and American National Standard for Information Sciences, Abbreviation of Titles for Publications (ANSI Z39.5--1985). Where the ISO standard instructions conflict with the ANSI standard, NLM generally prefers the ANSI standard, despite the fact that this is no longer a current U.S. standard. In some instances, NLM's rules for title abbreviations differ from both existing standards.
Source of Title Abbreviation
The title abbreviation is constructed from the title proper of the journal, as defined by the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2), 2nd ed. 2002 rev. The title proper includes part designations and section titles, if present, but does not include subtitle or parallel title (titles presented in other languages) information. See examples 1-2 below.
Under current cataloging rules, when a full title and an acronym both appear on the chief source of the journal (usually the title page or the cover), the fully spelled out form is always considered the title proper. See example 3.
How Title Abbreviations are Determined
The title abbreviation is based on the journal title at the initial point of cataloging by NLM.
Each word in the title proper is compared against a master list of abbreviations issued by the ISSN International Centre. If the word or word root is found in the master list, that abbreviation is used.
If a word is not found in the ISSN list, the word appears in the title abbreviation as it appears in the title proper.
Articles, conjunctions, and prepositions are always omitted from title abbreviations.
For compound words, NLM only abbreviates the second element of such words. See example 4.
For terms containing a hyphen or a slash, each element is treated separately only if each word could stand alone. See examples 5-6.
The first letter of each word in the title abbreviation is capitalized.
All diacritics are removed.
All punctuation is removed, except for parentheses used when a qualifier is supplied.
Exceptions to above rules:
- One word titles are never abbreviated.
- At least two letters must be dropped from a word before it is abbreviated. Words from which only a single letter would be dropped are not abbreviated. See example 7.
If a journal emanates from a corporate body and deals with the internal policies, procedures, or resources of the organization, the organizational name is added at the end of the title abbreviation, using the appropriate abbreviations for any words in the organizational name. See example 8.
Use of Qualifiers
As noted above, a fundamental principle of title abbreviation assignment is that each title abbreviation must be unique. If two journals have the same title, or have titles which, when the above procedures are followed, would result in the same title abbreviation, NLM supplies one of the following qualifying elements enclosed in parentheses, in the following order of preference, to the title abbreviation to make it unique:
- Original city of publication, using the approved abbreviation for a place name, if one exists
- Publisher name
- Edition statement
- Date of publication
Policy on Changes
If a journal title undergoes minor changes that do not require a new bibliographic record, the existing title abbreviation continues to be used.
- Once the title abbreviation has been assigned, NLM does not go back and change a title abbreviation qualified by place name, even if the place of publication changes over time. See example 9.
- Title abbreviations are not changed to reflect additional titles in other languages under which the serial might also be known, even if the order of appearance of these titles changes on later issues. See example 10.
- Occasionally the ISSN Centre changes the approved abbreviation of a word, so that two different titles containing the same word may have a different abbreviation for that word, depending upon when the title abbreviation was assigned. NLM does not go back and change earlier title abbreviations.
If the title proper of the journal undergoes a major change, requiring the creation of another bibliographic record for the new journal, NLM assigns a different title abbreviation for the new journal. The rules determining major changes in title proper are governed by the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, (AACR2), 2nd ed. 2002 rev. See example 11.
Examples:
| Journal title is: | Journal of neural transmission. General section | |
| Title abbreviation is: | J Neural Transm Gen Sect |
| Journal title is: | Arthritis care and research : the official journal of the Arthritis Health Professions Association | |
| Title abbreviation is: | Arthritis Care Res |
| On cover of journal: | JMS | |
| Journal of mass spectrometry | ||
| Journal title is: | Journal of mass spectrometry | |
| Title abbreviation is: | J Mass Spectrom |
| If the journal title contained the word: Forschungstechnologie, it is abbreviated as Forschungstechnol, rather than Forschtechnol. |
| Journal title is: | Diabetes self-management | |
| Title abbreviation is: | Diabetes Self Manag | |
| (both Self and Management could stand alone) |
| Journal title is: | Journal of cranio-maxillo-facial surgery | |
| Title abbreviation is: | J Craniomaxillofacial Surg | |
| (neither Cranio nor Maxillo can stand alone) |
| If the journal title contained the word Psychiatry, it is not abbreviated to Psychiatr, but the word Psychiatric is abbreviated to Psychiatr. |
| Journal title is: | Report of proceedings. | |
| It is issued by the Scottish Society of the History of Medicine | ||
| Title abbreviation is: | Rep Proc Scott Soc Hist Med |
| Journal title is: | Pediatrics |
| There are already several journals with that title in the database, so the city of publication of the first issue cataloged, Chicago, is added to the title abbreviation. Later the city of publication changes to Philadelphia, but the title abbreviation remains as initially established. |
| Title abbreviation is: | Pediatrics (Chic) | |
| [Note that as a single word title, Pediatrics is not abbreviated] |
| Journal title is: | Hu li yan jiu |
| In the first issue cataloged, the Chinese title appears first on the title page with the English title Nursing research presented below it. |
| Title abbreviaton is: | Hu Li Yan Jiu |
| Later issues present the English title first: Nursing research, with the Chinese title appearing below it. Since the Chinese title was initially selected as the title proper and it continues to appear on the title page, the title abbreviation remains as initially established. |
| Title abbreviation remains: | Hu Li Yan Jiu |
| Journal title is: | Medical toxicology | |
| Title abbreviation is: | Med Toxicol |
| The journal later changes its title to: Medical toxicology and adverse drug experience. This is considered a major change and a new bibliographic record for this title is created. |
| New Journal title: | Medical toxicology and adverse drug experience | |
| Title abbreviation is: | Med Toxicol Adverse Drug Exp |
A complete list of NLM Fact Sheets is available at:
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http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/factsheets.html:
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http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/factsubj.html:
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FACT SHEETS
Office of Communications and Public Liaison
National Library of Medicine
8600 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, Maryland 20894
Phone: (301) 496-6308
Fax: (301) 496-4450
email: publicinfo@nlm.nih.gov
Last updated: 25 October 2002
First published: 25 October 2002
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