My Bibliography is a tool in My NCBI to save and maintain your citations. You can directly save publications in PubMed or upload/input other citations into the bibliography. The bibliography also interfaces with other tools on the My NCBI platform such as SciENcv to create CVs and biosketches and monitoring NIH Public Access Policy Compliance.
A note for Science Administrative Professionals: in order for a publication to be included in an NIH grant application or RPPR through eRA Commons, the publication should be included in the PI's My Bibliography on My NCBI. You can add publications to their My Bibliography if you have been assigned as a delegate. Once you have been assigned as a delegate, follow the steps below to add a publication to their My Bibliography.
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One method for adding papers to the "My Bibliography" section is to conduct a search in PubMed and find all of your publications. You can search for individual publications or, if you are importing an entire publication record for a researcher, you can conduct an author search.
Step 1. Log into My NCBI and navigate to PubMed.
Step 2. Run your search.
Step 3. Select the publication(s) that you want to add to the Bibliography by clicking the box to the left of the entry, and click the "Send to" button at the top of the page.
Step 4. Click "My Bibliography". A toolbar will appear to specify which results to send to the Bibliography. For Delegates: you will also have the option to specify which "My Bibliography" to send the publication. Once you have made your selections, click "Add".
You can also search for PubMed publications directly in the Bibliography.
Step 1. Navigate to the bibliography, and click "+ Add citations" and select "From PubMed".
Step 2. A search box will appear. You can search for a single publication or conduct an author search to populate the publications. Type your search terms into the search box and click "Search PubMed". The results will populate below. Select the publications that you would like to add by clicking the box to the left of the entry, and then click "Add To My Bibliography".
You also have the option to export the publications from another system (like a reference management tool) and import them using either a MEDLINE or RIS format.
Step 1. Download the MEDLINE or RIS file from the other tool you were using to manage publications. The example below is from the Elements publication management system.
Step 2. Navigate to My Bibliography in My NCBI, and click "Add Citations".
Step 3. Select the option "From a file", and upload the RIS or MEDLINE file that you have downloaded from another source.
Step 4. The system will import the citation(s) from the file. Once it is complete, click "Done".
Step 5. The system might attempt to find all publications in the uploaded bibliography in PubMed. Therefore, you will most likely see a banner at the top of the bibliography indication "X citations require your attention". You will want to reconcile these by clicking on the "click here" in the banner.
Step 6. The system will ask you if the publication that you imported is/are the same as the one(s) found in PubMed. Check these very carefully. In the case of the example below, the citations are the same, so I selected the corresponding PubMed citation. You have the option to click "Not found in this list", which will be the case for any publications that do not appear in PubMed. You can also "Defer making a decision for now". Once you have selected an option, click "Next Conflict >".
Step 7. Work through all of the conflicts.
Step 8. Once you have imported the paper(s) citations, the author of this guide strongly recommends that you go through the bibliography and check to make sure you do not have replicates and that all information is there for the imported citations.
You also have the option, for publications not found in PubMed, to create a citation manually.
Step 1. Log into My NCBI and navigate to My Bibliography.
Step 2. Click the "+Add citations" button and click "Manually" from the dropdown options.
Step 3. A pop-up box will appear. Click the drop-down menu at the top of the box to select the type of citation that you want to add and then fill in the information requested in the box. Important note: if you are adding a citation manually, it is really important that you select the correct type of citation rather than default to "Journal article that does not appear in PubMed". By selecting this option, the system will assume that the citation needs to be made compliant when it may not be.
Then, click "Add Citation". A tip for CSHL researchers & delegates: if you need additional citation information for the publication that you are inputting, find the publication in the CSHL Institutional Repository.
Users who have connected their eRA Commons account to their My NCBI account are able to monitor the NIH Public Access Compliance status of their publications in their "My Bibliography". To learn more about what these colors and statuses mean, please visit the Compliance Statuses Box in our NIH Public Access Policy LibGuide.
The NIH encourages all researchers to report interim research projects, including preprints, in their grant applications and research progress reports. Furthermore, the NLM is running a pilot program to make preprints linked to NIH grants and/or including NIH-funded authors available on PubMed Central and PubMed.
If you are trying to add a preprint posted after January 1, 2023 to My Bibliography, be sure to search PubMed and PubMed Central for that preprint. It might have been posted to these databases, enabling you to easily add it to your My Bibliography.
If you are trying to add a preprint posted before January 1, 2023 or one that has not been posted to PubMed Central and PubMed, then you will have to add it manually to your bibliography.
You have the option to make your "My Bibliography" publicly accessible via a hyperlink.
Step 1. Navigate to your "My Bibliography". At the top, notice the text that says "Your bibliography is currently private. If you want to share with a URL, make your bibliography public." The default of every bibliography is private. Click the "make your bibliography public" text.
Step 2. The text at the top of your "My Bibliography" will then change to include a hyperlink that you can share. If you need to make the bibliography private at any point, just click the "Make bibliography private" text.
You have the option to hide certain citations from your public My Bibliography. This might be particularly relevant to researchers who manage NIH grants with publications on which they are not authors.
Step 1. Navigate to your My Bibliography and select the publication(s) that you wish to make private.
Step 2. Click "Manage citations" on the top left of your My Bibliography and select "Set to private".
Screenshot credit from: My Bibliography Guide
Step 3. The "Private" designation will appear below the citation(s) in My Bibliography, and you can use the same steps to set a publication to public.
Screenshot credit from: My Bibliography Guide
A PubMed citation, if it exists, is always preferable in the My Bibliography compared to a manually-entered or imported citation. Thus, the My Bibliography will try to reconcile manually-entered citations with PubMed citations. It is good practice to reconcile these citations, especially if you have an NIH grant and will need to report your publications via eRA Commons.
You will know that you need to reconcile an entry because a light yellow banner will appear at the top of the My Bibliography that states "# citation(s) requires attention. Please click here to resolve the issues."
Once you click to resolve, you will have the option to consolidate citations. Be sure to double check that the recommended PubMed citation does, in fact, match the imported or manually-entered citations. As a reminder, PubMed generally does not have citations for many conferences and preprints. Then, you will have the option to resolve the citations, indicate that it is not found on the list, or defer making the decision for now. Choose the best option and then click "Resolve and Close".
