National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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IntroductionSee also MLA - Medical Library Association (U.S.), National Library of Medicine classification and PubMed - MEDLINE The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) is the largest medical library in the world, and provides access to health information in support of the National Institutes of Health and other stakeholders. The NLM maintains several medical databases such as PubMed - MEDLINE and OMIM (a genetic traits database), the fulltext repository PubMed Central and products such as the NLM Classification System and the MeSH thesaurus. NLM's history can be traced back to John Lovell, John Shaw Billings and the Library of the Office of the Surgeon General of the United States Army in the 19th century. NLM's consumer health information portal is called MedlinePlus (U.S.). History of the NLMBefore the United States' Civil War, there was little notion of an American medical library. The Surgeon General of the Army published the first catalogue in 1840, but the collection was not truly established until the temporary war hospitals were closed in 1864, and their holdings were collected under one roof. In 1865, Lieutenant John Shaw Billings, was hired to take charge of the collection. In one year alone, Billings grew the national collection from 2,100 volumes to 13,000. At Billings's retirement in 1895, the library's collection had grown to over 100,000 monographs and nearly 200,000 pamphlets. Another triumph for the National Library instituted by Billings was the introduction of the Index Catalog in 1880, which comprised an author and subject index of the holdings of the library. Beginning around the same time, in 1879, Billings began to index the world's medical journal articles into the Index Medicus. Today, the NLM's online version of that publication, MEDLINE, contains over 15 million citations and is freely available to the public through the NCBI's PubMed. In 1922, the Library of the Surgeon General's Office was renamed the Army Medical Library and began to offer services to healthcare professionals across America. Senators Lister Hill and John F. Kennedy were instrumental in passing an act of Congress in 1956 to move the library from the Army to the Public Health Service and rename it the National Library of Medicine. In 1962, the National Library of Medicine opened its doors on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, just outside Washington, DC. The collections and services of the NLM have not stopped growing, with the development of MEDLINE in the 1970s, the creation of the Lister Hill Research Centre (1967) and the National Center for Biotechnology Information (1988). Online additions to the NLM's services include PubMed, the consumer health resource MedlinePlus and the national registry of drug trials, Clinicaltrials.gov. A more detailed history can be found here, and an overview of the modern organization follows below. Organizational StructureThe NLM is led by Dr. Donald A. Lindberg, a world-renown pathologist, professor and scholar. He has served on the board of many scientific organizations, including the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA, the Computer Science and Engineering Board of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Board of Medical Examiners, and the Council of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. The director's office oversees the major bodies of the NLM including the Office of Administration, Office of Communications and Public Liason, Office of Health Information Programs Development and various library divisions. Library DivisionsThe library divisions of the NLM include:
The official organizational chart of the NLM is available here. National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM)The mission of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) is to advance the progress of medicine and improve the public health by providing all U.S. health professionals with equal access to biomedical information and improving the public's access to information to enable them to make informed decisions about their health. The Program is coordinated by the National Library of Medicine and carried out through a nationwide network of health science libraries and information centers. The NN/LM, formerly the Regional Medical Library Program, has been serving the biomedical information needs of the nation for over forty years. Established in the Medical Library Assistance Act of 1965, member libraries and information centers in the NN/LM provide health professionals and the general public with health information resources and services. Members are supported via eight regional offices under contract to the National Library of Medicine. The National Network Office, located at the National Library of Medicine, oversees these contracts. NLM Associate ProgramThe National Library of Medicine Associate Fellowship Program is a one-year postgraduate program at the NLM in Bethesda, Maryland, with an optional second year. The program is designed to provide a foundation in health sciences information services, and to prepare future leaders in health libraries and health research. Associate Fellows are introduced to a wide range of technologies and skills used in managing information at a national library. The fellowship program provides opportunities to:
The NLM Associate program is a well-respected internship. Through internships, young professionals are able to integrate theory, skills, and knowledge and apply the ideals of the MLIS to practice; the intention is to reduce the gulf between LIS education and professional practice. Canadian contextCanada's de-facto national library of medicine is the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI). References
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