PMC, formerly PubMed Central, is a free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature, currently containing approximately 2.5 million articles.
PMC is a repository for journal literature deposited by participating publishers, as well as for author manuscripts that have been submitted in compliance with the Public Access Policy mandated by NIH and other research funding agencies. The repository includes material dating back prior to the NIH mandate, including some which date to the mid to late 1800s or early 1900s. A sampling of journals going back to volume 1 includes American Journal of Human Genetics (v. 1, 1949-), Biophysical Journal (v. 1, 1960-), and Transactions of the American Ophthalmological Society (v.1, 1865-).
Almost all the content of PMC is protected by U.S. and/or foreign copyright laws, although access is free for all materials. Respective copyright holders retain rights for reproduction, redistribution and reuse.