Who Adds Citations to PubMed?

Posted by Margot M on November 6th, 2025 Posted in: NLM Resources
Tags: National Library of Medicine, PubMed

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Have you wondered how citations are added to PubMed? PubMed is a scientific literature database that is maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a division of the National Library of Medicine.

Citations listed in PubMed are from academic publications, academic institutions, scholarly societies, governmental organizations, and non-governmental organizations. Publishers are the primary source of new citations. Publishers must apply and be selected by the National Library of Medicine before they can add citations. Citations and abstract data must be submitted electronically via Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP).  Details can be found at XML Help for PubMed Data Providers. 

NIH-funded investigators and authors can submit manuscripts accepted for publication to PubMed Central (PMC). Accepted manuscripts are submitted through the NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) System. The submission is processed and formatted for PMC. After the Principle Investigator approves the final version, a citation will populate in PubMed. Learn more about the manuscript submission process at Submitting to PubMed Central.

Are citations added during a government shutdown? Yes, publishers continue to add citations to PubMed. We recommend that investigators and authors continue to submit accepted manuscripts through NIHMS during the government shutdown to stay in compliance.

How can I tell if citations are being added to PubMed?  PubMed is updated daily. You can see records added for any day using the search format: 2025/11/09[crdt]​. PMC is updated daily. You can see records added for any day using the search format: 2025/11/09[pmclivedate].

Brush Up on Your PubMed Knowledge

We have two How PubMed Works webinars schedule for November.

• How PubMed Works: Medical Subject Headings will be offered on Wed, Nov 12 at 2pm ET. Register at this link.
• How PubMed Works: Automatic Term Mapping will be offered on Wed, Nov 19 at 2pm ET. Register at this link.

Both webinars will be recorded. All registrants will receive a link to the recording. Recordings are available on this NNLM YouTube playlist.