Access to several of the journals published by American Psychiatric Press, Inc. (APPI) is about to become much easier with their inclusion in Index Medicus, one of the research tools biomedical investigators most frequently consult.

Beginning in January, articles appearing in the American Journal on Addictions, American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, and Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research will be cited in the reference work. They join two other APPI-published journals, Psychosomatics and the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, which are already included.

The decision by the National Library of Medicine, a division of the National Institutes of Health, to add these journals to Index Medicus and MEDLINE, the computerized version of the reference books, "is a very important breakthrough," stated APPI's president and chief executive officer Carol Nadelson, M.D. "It will promote the ease of learning and increase access to these publications for researchers and teachers. It will also increase the likelihood that authors will consider these journals for articles they write, since their efforts will now have maximum exposure for others who are interested in the same topics."

The National Library of Medicine reviews four factors in evaluating whether to include a biomedically oriented journal in Index Medicus and MEDLINE. The primary consideration is quality of the content, specifically "the validity, importance, originality, and contribution to the coverage of the field of the overall contents" of each journal. The other elements the library assesses are scope and coverage, which must be predominantly biomedical; quality of the editorial work; and production quality. Also, "neither the advertising content nor commercial sponsorship should raise questions about the objectivity of the published material."

Decisions about whether to index a publication in these reference works is made by a committee chaired by the director of the National Library of Medicine and composed of biomedical academicians, physicians, editors, and health science librarians.

(Psychiatric News, September 6, 1996)