Major bibliographic errors in PubMed: personal experience among 240 publications and proposed remediation process for errors

Mitchell S Cappell

doi:10.3163/1536-5050.104.1.015

Abstract

Although substantial data exist on errors in bibliographic citations in journal articles [1], literature review reveals no data on errors in bibliographic citations in PubMed. Yet bibliographic errors in PubMed are much more important than errors in individual journals. PubMed is a ubiquitous literature search engine. Errors in PubMed could render articles inaccessible to researchers or clinicians performing computerized literature searches.

Highlights

Despite major contributions to academic medicine, the National Library of Medicine (NLM), like any human institution, is subject to errors, including errors in PubMed
When called about this last error, the PubMed representative said the error was in a reference listed as ‘‘in process’’ and would be corrected during a systematic reference verification
Citation errors can arise most often from two sources: (1) as published incorrectly in the full-text article or (2) as introduced by either the XML supplier or by NLM during its processing

Summary

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Major bibliographic errors in PubMed: personal experience among 240 publications and proposed remediation process for errors. Review of my 240 articles cited in PubMed, 1982–2015, revealed 3 major errors (1.25% rate). The 3 errors comprised misspelling of surnames of authors in 2 cases and deletion of all authors in 1 case [2, 3] When called about this last error, the PubMed representative said the error was in a reference listed as ‘‘in process’’ and would be corrected during a systematic reference verification. The verified (corrected) reference would be listed without the ‘‘in process’’ designation. This reference verification process can require considerable time. PubMed should warn during every literature search that references listed as ‘‘PubMed—in process’’ are preliminary and subject to errors. This work received an exemption/approval from the Institutional Review Board of William Beaumont Hospital on May 7, 2015

Letter to the editor

David Gillikin