Guides and manuals

Document Selection Guidelines for LILACS Database

This Guide contains criteria for the selection of documents that will become part of the LILACS database, one of the Information Sources of VHL (Virtual Health Library). It is composed of two principal sections: database coverage, and selection criteria by literature type, as well as two appendixes. The first section corresponds to definitions of thematic coverage, chronology, geography and language of the LILACS database. The second section corresponds to the specific selection criteria by literature type, such as periodical publications, books, theses, dissertations, and others. In the appendixes are found a list containing the principal DeCS categories and the Periodical Selection Criteria for the LILACS Database.

Journal Selection and permanence criteria for LILACS

The document makes public the general criteria adopted for the selection and permanence of LILACS periodicals and its application in the regional environment (LA &C), in line with theICMJE - International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.

Recommendation for Open Access and Online Content in LILACS

It is recommended that editors of periodicals indexed in LILACS, that, as of January 2013, all journals published in this database should make the complete text of the entire periodical available in open access electronic form. The LILACS Brazil Periodical Evaluation and Selection Committee adheres to this recommendation.

Manual of Bibliographic Description

This provides guidelines for filling out data fields defined in the LILACS format. It describes each data field and gives examples of how it should be filled out. The standardization of the data elements follows international standards for the treatment of bibliographic information such as AARC2, ISBD, UNISIST Reference Manual, MARC Lite and ISO.

Technical-methodological support documents

• Treatment of errata in LILACS

Document indexing manual (in Portuguese)

This describes the procedures that should be followed for the analysis of document content to be incorporated in the LILACS database. It is based on the MEDLINE indexing manual.

LILDBI-Web procedures manual

This provides guidelines for conducting tasks such as input, maintenance, and quality control of the bibliographic databases that follow the LILACS methodology through LILDBI-Web.

Technical notes

This updates the manuals and application software through specific notes about new features of the systems, work flows, and methodology changes.

• LILDBI-Web 1.6
• LILDBI-Web 1.7
• Security recommendations for LILDBI-Web 06/21/2010
• LILACS Search resources update
• Guidelines to use LILDBI-Web on Internet Explorer 9
• Filling the individual author field without using Assist

Data dictionary for the LILACS model (in Spanish)

This instructs system analysts about the structure of the directories and the structure of the database fields of the LILACS methodology and the LILDBI-Web system.

Systems, applications and plug-ins

LILDBI-Web

Used for the administration of databases in accordance with the LILACS methodology. It permits the entry, maintenance, quality control, storage and retrieval of data in bibliographic databases in a decentralized manner.

LILACS-Express Editor

System which contains the minimum data of the periodicals that are not indexed in SciELO and that do not adopt its methodology.

LILACS Submission

This is a technical cooperation support system for the products and services offered by BIREME. Still in its initial phase, it hopes to send files in the ISO 2709 format for inclusion in the LILACS database and accompany the processing status of the record lots.

SeCS

Cooperatively produced catalogue of scientific journals by the institutions that make up the Virtual Health Library. It registers bibliographic data of scientific journals in the health sciences area indexed in the LILACS and MEDLINE databases, and the respective collections of the VHL cooperating libraries.

Authority Control

DeCS controlled vocabulary - Health Sciences Descriptors

Controlled, structured, and trilingual vocabulary in the area of health. Translation of MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) with the addition of 4 specific regional categories. Used for the indexing and retrieval of scientific and technical literature in the LILACS database as well as others.

Auxiliary tables – Cooperating Centers, Countries and Periodical Titles

Update files of LILDBI-Web for the control of code fields of the Cooperating Center, Country, LILACS Periodic Title and DeCS Descriptors.

• Updating Common Bases
• LILDBI-WEB readme auxiliary databases
• LILDBI-WEB readme database DeCS

The table is updated annually following the release of the DeCS translation.

Development, updating, and maintenance of the LILACS methodology

The LILACS methodology has been developed, maintained and updated by its body of technical specialists which include librarians and system analysts and was constituted in its present form in 1999 in the form of the LILACS Brazil Journal Evaluation and Selection Committee, which among its other activities, acts in the revision of the LILACS Journal Evaluation and Permanence Criteria and works with documents and recommendations regarding scientific content and accessibility to the complete text.

The updates and revisions of the Methodology are done in moments such as:

Given the complexity of the current moment in which there are constant changes in the scientific scenarios as well as social and cultural changes that provides incentive and the search for interaction and cooperation, the final users of systems and scientific networks are more and more pro-active, conscious of, and demanding new developments.

In this sense and on a basis of scientific and technical cooperation that permeates all action in the Network, the development, updating and maintenance of the LILACS Methodology will be done in collaborative manner. See the instructions about what and how to request alterations, updates, answer doubts, and suggest inclusions: Guide for collaboration with the LILACS Methodology (in Portuguese)]

See also

• Main article about LILACS
• LILDBI-Web - application currently used for data entry in LILACS
• List of articles about LILACS

• Frequently asked questions about LILACS
• LILACS-Express
• LILDBI-Web
• LILACS Communication Channels