PubMed Central apparently was often confused with PubMed, so NLM has decided to change its name to just PMC. According to the Tech Bulletin PMC has a new look and feel to go with its new name. The redesign is an attempt to present a “cleaner and more uniform presentation across PMC’s site as well as its article, issue, and journal archive pages.” Pictures of the redesign can be seen on the Tech Bulletin page.
Other improvements include:
- New links for article front matter such as article notes, copyright and license information
- Views for tables and figures have been improved
- Easier readability, navigation, and linking within the new article page
- Enhance bibliographic citation look
- “Go to” navigation drop down menu linking to sections within the article
Other improvements will be coming and will be featured in future Tech Bulls.
I have only one small gripe. It is with the changing of the name from PubMed Central to PMC. If NLM intended to try to eliminate confusion with PubMed, I don’t think changing the name to PMC will do it. Unfortunately, I feel PMC is still too close to PubMed and the name still doesn’t really tell people what the product is to differentiate it. It really needs a name that indicates it is an area that contains fulltext articles in PubMed. (Even that is slightly a misnomer because there are full text articles to journals not in PubMed…but only geeky librarians and NLM really know that.) Something like PubMed Full Text Archive, while not exactly short and sweet is more descriptive and less open to confusion than PMC.
I couldn’t agree more. PMC is still too close to PubMed; I’d like to see another name entirely–losing Pub/Med altogether.