ARCHIVES OF IRANIAN MEDICINE: CHALLENGES OF BECOMING INDEXED

Archives of Iranian Medicine (AIM) is one of the few Iranian medical journals which has been accepted for indexing in one of the most recognized international indexing systems. From January 2002, four Iranian biomedical publications, namely Archives of Iranian Medicine, Iranian Journal of Medical Sciences, Iranian Biomedical Journal and Daru were indexed in Excerpta Medica Database (EMBASE), which is considered generally as the European equivalent of Index Medicus. The services of this database which (http://www.embase.com) is not for free and individuals, libraries and academic institutes must subscribe for using it. Before the Islamic revolution of Iran in 1979, four Iranian journals were indexed in Index Medicus but their indexing were soon discontinued, presumably because of the publication delays or closing of the editorial offices. The same pattern was evident in other countries of the region and many journals were indexed in the late 70s but they were excluded soon after from the database. Now, after 23 years of underrepresentation in the global medical forum, becoming indexed in top indexing systems is a great challenge for journals in developing countries. There are no definite criteria for ensuring the acceptance of a journal in an indexing system and it is generally relied upon the decision of Literature Selection Technical Review Committee (LSTRC). There is a fact sheet in the National Library of Medicine website (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/j_sel_faq.html) that tells the editors about the conditions for journals to apply for indexing in Index Medicus but they are generally ambiguous and journal editors must create their own strategies for this big step. One of our major goals at AIM is to become indexed in as many international indexing systems as possible. Being indexed in Index Medicus which makes our abstracts retrievable from PubMed to a worldwide audience is especially one of our top priorities. To achieve this, we developed a strategy which, in our opinion, paves our road to become indexed.