Report from the Field: PubMed Central, an XML-based Archive of Life Sciences Journal Articles

Abstract

PubMed Central (PMC) is an XML-based archive of life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Heath that allows public access to full-text journal articles. The archive was created in 2000 and has grown steadily to over 2 million records. The project has been successful in part because of the strict XML control and the flexibility that PMC givesre its submitters. This paper gives an overview of the PMC data evaluation process; the XML processing model; the PMC philosophy toward XML use, including use of the NLM DTD, XML Taggging Style, usability or reusablilty of the XML, public XML tools, and our people; and some challenges we continue to face maintaining the archive.