COVERAGE OF MEXICAN MANUSCRIPTS AND JOURN ALS IN A MEXICAN BIOMEDICALDATA-BASE

Objective. To evaluate the coverage of Mexican journals and manuscript s of biomedical research in a Mexican data base (Bibliomex Salud) duri ng its 10 years of existence (1985-1994). Material and methods. All th e manu scripts published by a single Mexican journal Revista de Invest igacion Clinica (RIC) were searched for in Bibliomex: the absence of a RIC manuscript in Bibliomex was considered a failure. Also, the numbe r and identity of the Mexican journals included in Bibliomex was also noted. From a total of 744 manuscripts 99 were excluded (22 non-Mexica n, 25 non-indexable, and 52 initially not indexed by Bibliomex). The r emainder (645) were classified according to starting year of indexing: originals since the first year; letters to the editor since 1990; and editorials and authors' replies since 1993. Results. Bibliomex starte d out with 21 Mexican journals and now has more than 50 (12 indexed du ring the 10 years, 27 for the last 5-9 years, and 16 for the last 1-4 years). Regarding manuscripts, Bibliomex had an 8% failure rate in ori ginals (46/597) and letters (3/36), and 25% in editorials and authors' replies (3/12). Conclusions. a) The coverage of Bibliomex has improve d in its second half of life in the number of both journals and manusc ripts indexed; b) the retrieval of information could be improved by tw o changes in the procedures of Bibliomex; c) Bibliomex seems to be a d atabase which could be used to analyze Mexican research production at several levels (institutional, regional, and national).