Citing the free medical electronic journals of the DOAJ database in the peer-reviewed journals of Iranian medical sciences universities

Abstract Introduction: The medical world needs access to the most recent findings of the researchers in the field every minutes. Electronic journals provide a useful and fast mechanism for distribution of scientific information. Providing free-access electronic journals are a complimentary resource for libraries, which should provide the best and fastest access to the information for researchers. This study assess citing free medical electronic journals of the DOAJ database in the Iranian peer-reviewed journals of the medical science universities. Methods: This is a descriptive survey to analyze the citations in the scientific-research journals of the type one medical universities in Iran during 2005 and 2006, specifically analyzing citing to 369 free access electronic journals of the DOAJ database. Data were collected using two different checklists, one for the number of citations in Iranian journals and the other for the collecting citing free access journals of DOAJ database in the Iranian scientific-research journals. The checklists' validity was approved by professionals and the data were analyzed by SPSS software. Results: Citing to free access electronic journals is less than one percent and it didn't grow in 2006 compared to 2005. Daru Journal published by Pharmaceutics Faculty of the Tehran Medical Science University and Iranian Urology Journal published by Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences had the highest rate of citations from free access medial electronic journals. Also, public health and medicine subjects used more citations from the free access electronic journals compared to other medical subjects. From among 369 free access electronic journals, BMC Public Health with 2 citation about public health had the highest rate. Conclusion: It sounds necessary to find free accessed electronic  journals available in libraries and medical information centers and introduce them to the medical society in various ways. Because the mission of libraries in educational, health care and medical institutions is to facilitate rapid access to the information researchers need. Keywords: Periodical publications, citation, databases