BMJ is shifting the way they publish. BMJ intends for this to benefit readers and authors. Since July BMJ has been publishing content continuously on bmj.com. At first that sound like a no brainer, of course a major publisher will continually put their content online. But here is the issue, all of BMJ's articles will be "published online as they become ready, so bmj.com will update several times a day. Once published, articles will then be selected for a subsequent print issue."

This change is to speed up the process and help articles be published faster. According to BMJ, "Continuous publication also gives readers more flexibility in the way they engage with our content: as a continuous stream or in a weekly "package," or both. And it will allow us to tailor the print journal—which is read largely by UK readers—to their needs."

This change affects how articles will be organized and cited. From now on each article will have online one permanent citation and IT WILL NO LONGER DERIVE FROM PRINT. The citation will be year, volume, and e-locator (unique identifier for that article). The e-locator is what will appear in MEDLINE as well as other bibliographic indexes. Authors will need to need to use this information when citing a BMJ article, not the traditional method for citing articles with the year, volume, and page number.

I did a quick search on PubMed and here is a sample BMJ citation retrieved from PubMed.

Consensus statement on ovarian cancer aims to settle dispute over symptoms.
BMJ. 2008 Oct 7;337:a2007. doi: 10.1136/bmj.a2007. No abstract available.
PMID: 18840635 [PubMed - in process]

I am assuming since BMJ is continually publishing, there will be no "epub ahead of print" on BMJ citations.

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