A Major Milestone for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery-Global Open: Indexing and Archiving in PubMed Central.

Give me but a firm spot on which to stand, and I shall move the earth.

In April 2013, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), our publisher Wolters Kluwer Health, the Editorial Board, Editorial Office staff, and I set sail on a new adventure with the launch of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery—Global Open (PRS Global Open).[1] It was a voyage into unknown territory for some of us: PRS Global Open was one of the first open-access surgery journals in the world, and the first new academic journal for ASPS in more than half a century. When PRS Global Open began, we knew we had our sights set very high: we wanted to bring regional news, advances, case reports, and original research in plastic and reconstructive surgery to anyone, anywhere in the entire world with an Internet connection. PRSGlobalOpen.com and the iPad application have been free since the beginning, while content and readers have come from all over the world. But the potential reach of PRS Global Open—and the true beginning of our intended voyage—could not be fully realized until the Journal was easily discoverable and highly visible. As you have likely heard already, PRS Global Open attained our first milestone in being “on the map”—as of October 2014, PRS Global Open is completely and retroactively indexed in PubMed Central (PMC). PMC is not only an index but an archive of (already 3 millions) articles that can be accessed immediately and free of charge.

Now, after a very brief period of existence, our new Journal is standing on a new, firmer spot, and we anticipate that you—our readers, authors, and reviewers—will be able to move the plastic surgery world through PRS Global Open.

INITIAL GLOBAL RESPONSE

The initial response to PRS Global Open has been incredible: articles were submitted from more than 20 countries during PRS Global Open’s first 6 months. That number has grown to 36 countries through October 2014, including articles from plastic surgeons in Australia, China, Japan, and Taiwan[2] (Fig. 1). More than 60% of all submissions to the Journal have come from outside the United States. The initial readership has been impressively globalized as well, with more than 63% of unique visitors to PRSGlobalOpen.com in 2014 accessing the Journal from abroad (through October 1, 2014), including readers from Brazil, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom.[3] Although we predict that even more nations and areas of the globe will join the readers and authors of PRS Global Open as time goes on, we also predict that the indexing in PMC and discoverability in PubMed will initiate a precipitous increase in the sheer number of submissions and readers.

Fig. 1.

Origin of submissions to PRS Global Open, through October 1, 2014.

BENEFIT OF PMC

PMC is a “free archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the US National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine.”[4] The database was founded in 2000 with the intent of “deliver[ing] primary literature research findings to the scientific community free of charge, without registration, advertisements, or other barriers.”[5] One of the core tenets of PMC is permanent, free access to all of its journal literature. The archive now contains millions of articles from thousands of participating journals, each of which had to go through a selection and approval process.[6] Most of the free, archived, full-text journal articles on PMC have a corresponding listing in PubMed (http://www.PubMed.gov), making most PMC articles and journals discoverable via PubMed.

What do PMC indexing and discoverability in PubMed mean for PRS Global Open authors and readers? Several things:

1. All PRS Global Open articles (back to issue 1, volume 1) are now searchable and discoverable in both a PMC search and a PubMed search.

2. Topical searches on popular search engines are likely to return results from PubMed as one of the top results, making PRS Global Open articles exceptionally discoverable.

3. The articles themselves can be found in the PMC archive.

In short, being indexed in PMC is a huge milestone for our relatively new Journal; PRS Global Open just got a lot more discoverable and visible, and is that much closer to providing the best open-access plastic surgery literature to anyone, anywhere with an Internet connection.

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Submit your case reports, original research, experimental studies, and other plastic surgery articles to PRS Global Open today at http://www.prs.edmgr.com. Authors will enjoy several benefits including:

Quick, constructive peer review: typically in less than 2 weeks

Rapid publication timeline: articles can be published online within 35 calendar days of acceptance

Retention of copyright

Inclusion of types of articles typically not published by other journals, including a focus on Case Reports

Global dissemination

Presented FREE forever on PRSGlobalOpen.com and our application for the iPad[1]

In addition to the preexisting author benefits that have been part of our mission from day 1, authors now have the added power of enhanced discoverability and visibility through PubMed and PMC. From this firm platform, we are more confident today than ever that our authors will be able to move, inform, and teach plastic surgeons all over the globe.

THE NEXT DESTINATION

Although the leaderships of the ASPS, Publisher, and the Journal are excited to have reached this important landmark, we are not content to simply “stand” on this firm ground. From this incredible vantage point, we will continue to grow, improve, and evolve PRS Global Open. Our next destination in the journey of this Journal would be to attain Medline indexing, which is a more exclusive body than PMC and PubMed. We were only able to reach our first milestone with the support of readers, sharers, and writers like you, and we will only be able to reach the next milestone with the same incredible efforts from you and your peers. So, let me be the first to thank you for helping us attain indexing in PMC. I know you, I, and all of us will reap the benefits. And let me be the first to thank you for helping us reach our next goal too: your reviews, your articles, your readership, and your support will continue to help make PRS Global Open the best peer-reviewed open-access plastic surgery literature in the world, and one of the best platforms to help you move the earth and shape our field.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Ed Tynan, Staff Editor of PRS Global Open, and Mike Stokes, ASPS Publications Director, for their careful edits of this article.