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Information about OLDMEDLINE

U.S. National Library of Medicine
September 5, 2003

To NLM® OLDMEDLINE Licensees:

The next distribution of the OLDMEDLINE database containing citations published in the 1953 - 1959 Current List of Medical Literature (CLML) and the 1960 -1965 Cumulative Index Medicus (CIM) to licensees is expected to be December 2003 (change from original announcement). After that distribution, records from the 1950-1952 Current List of Medical Literature (CLML) will be distributed separately, expected before March 2004. It is not determined yet when additional records will be added to the database.

Please make note of the following new information and reminders regarding the forthcoming distribution of the 2004 version of OLDMEDLINE:

  1. DTD - The OLDMEDLINE DTD will no longer will be used. The OLDMEDLINE XML will be generated using the forthcoming 2004 version of the MEDLINE® DTD. NLM expects to make the new 2004 MEDLINE DTDs available within a couple of weeks.

  2. <CitationSubset> - All OLDMEDLINE citations will carry the value OM in <CitationSubset>. A small number of records will also contain the <CitationSubset> values D (on citations from non-Index Medicus journals in the field of dentistry) and N (on citations from non-Index Medicus journals in the field of nursing) where appropriate.

  3. Owner and Status attributes - All OLDMEDLINE citations will carry contain MedlineCitation Owner NLM and MedlineCitation Status Completed.

  4. <Initials> in <Author> - <Initials> element will be added to <Author>. This element is not present in the current version of OLDMEDLINE.

  5. <KeywordList> - Terms that had been present in <OldMeshList> will reside in <KeywordList>. The original Medical Subject Headings (MeSH®) assigned at the time the records were first established prior to 1966 that now reside in <KeywordList> may not match current MeSH vocabulary. The KeywordList Owner attribute will be NLM and Keyword MajorTopic occurrences will be set to Y. A slash (no spaces) separates the heading from the subheading. There are no subheadings on records published in the 1963 through 1965 CIM. Citations from the 1960 through 1962 CIM and citations from the 1953 through 1959 CLML do contain subject heading/subheading combinations that were in effect at the time. All of the terms assigned to OLDMEDLINE citations are identified as the major topic of the article. (Change from original announcement.)

  6. <PersonalNameSubject> - <PersonalNameSubject> will still not be parsed into <LastName>, <ForeName>, <Initials>, and <Suffix>; all data for the <PersonalNameSubject> will continue to reside in <LastName>. <PersonalNameSubject> will be parsed into <LastName>, <ForeName>, <Initials>, and <Suffix> after the next distribution of the entire database and will be distributed as revised records.

  7. Abstracts - OLDMEDLINE citations do not have abstracts.

  8. <Country> - An actual country name is present only on citations from 1964-1965 CIM. Citations from 1960-1963 CIM and 1953-1959 CLML contain the value "Not Available" in the <Country> element. (Change from original announcement.)

  9. <Publication Type> - All citations have "Journal Article". No other PublicationType values are used.

  10. <OldTA> - This element will no longer be exported.

  11. <Issue> - Data are currently not present for 1960-1965 CIM citations in the separate Issue element. There are citations from 1960-1963 that have both Volume and Issue data in the Volume element. There are citations from 1957 and 1956 that have Issue, but no Volume data. After these records undergo maintenance the revised records will be distributed.

  12. <Language> - Citations from 1953-1954 CLML currently have the value of either "eng" or "und" because the actual foreign language was not specified and is, thus, undetermined.

The Sept-Oct 2003 NLM Technical Bulletin article contains general information about OLDMEDLINE as well as details about the migration of OLDMEDLINE data to PubMed® expected later this month.

A new sample file will be available in the future.

Please let me know if you have questions.

Regards, Jane

Jane L. Rosov
MEDLARS Management Section
National Library of Medicine
8600 Rockville Pike
Bethesda MD 20894
janer@nlm.nih.gov
phone: 301-496-7706
fax: 301-496-0822
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Last updated: 27 February 2004
First published: 03 September 2003
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