PubMed Central "author manuscript" version

In PubMed I sometimes see a link to PMC, PubMed Central, that includes the phrase "author manuscript." Is that article the same as as the version that was published in a journal?

NIH Public Access policy requires "all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication."
The author manuscript version does not look like the pages from the actual journal and usually does not show final page numbers, but it is supposed to be the final version. Many publishers do make the article itself available after publication and those include the journal page numbers. Although freely accessible, articles in PMC are still covered by copyright.

Websites referenced:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/   or www.pubmed.gov
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/   or www.pubmedcentral.gov
http://publicaccess.nih.gov/policy.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/about/copyright/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3144698
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3144698/pdf/nihms311257.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC279809/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC279809/pdf/pnas00257-0225.pdf

"PMC" -- a New Name for PubMed Central

PMC is the new official name for PubMed Central, the National Library of Medicine's free online repository for scientific articles resulting from NIH-funded research. The name change should reduce confusion with NLM's MEDLINE search service called PubMed. When you do a search in PubMed you will see a link to any results available in PMC indicated by the note "Free PMC Article" in the listing. You can also search directly in PMC.

"In keeping with NLM’s legislative mandate to collect and preserve the biomedical literature, PMC serves as a digital counterpart to NLM’s extensive print journal collection."

Remember if you would like to see PubMed results that show an icon for the materials we have, bookmark our custom PubMed URL.

Websites referenced:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?holding=txudtslib