The National Library of Medicine (NLM) has launched a pilot project to test the viability of making preprints resulting from NIH-funded research available via PubMed Central (PMC). It is very important to note that these preprints will NOT be peer-reviewed. Therefore, when you search PubMed Central or PubMed (which also retrieves PubMed Central articles), you may see preprints in your search results that will display the banner shown to the right below.
The pilot project will run for a minimum of 12 months and will initially focus on increasing the discoverability of preprints relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. Once curation and ingest workflows become scalable, NLM hopes to expand the pilot to include the full spectrum of NIH research.
Searching for preprints
PubMed Central: Use the search filter: preprint[filter]
PubMed: Query by publication type: preprint[pt]
Excluding preprint records from your search results
Use the Boolean operator "NOT" in either database
PubMed Central: covid-19 NOT preprint[filter]
PubMed: covid-19 NOT preprint[pt]
NLM will continually monitor the impact of the pilot on the scholarly communications landscape, including how and when research results are shared, discovered, disseminated, and reported. NLM will also look for evidence of increased awareness and emerging best practices around preprint sharing. Regular updates on the pilot status will be posted to the NLM Technical Bulletin.