PubMed Central (PMC) has cleaned up nicely with its most recent redesign to conform to the National Center for Biotechnology Information‘s (NCBI) new Web page design standards. The new design lends itself well to the database’s functionality and uniformity with other NCBI resources, making it easier for users to toggle between databases and feel comfortable doing so. Here is a short list of some of the top changes made to PMC:
- More compact navigation links on pages
- More uniform color palette
- More white space for easier viewing
- Improved image and figure viewing
- Direct linking to PubMed results for authors
- New GO TO feature at the top of each record to quickly get to a certain section of a paper
There’s a trend in the science world to allow for easier access to freely available (open access) publications and some databases other than PMC are taking notice. PubMed Central Canada (PMCC) and UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) are enhancing their interfaces for improved usability and discovery as well. These initiatives act as gateways to UK and Canadian health research on searchable platforms by anyone from anywhere. Some upcoming additions to these resources include:
- PMCC to include bilingual search interface (both English and French)
- UKPMC changing to Europe PubMed Central to include all European open access research
All three international PubMed Central interfaces discussed are searchable on the MSK Library list of databases.