| United States National Library of Medicine | |
|---|---|
 | |
 Library in 1999 | |
 | |
| 38°59′45″N77°05′56″W / 38.995951°N 77.098832°W /38.995951; -77.098832 | |
| Location | Bethesda,Maryland,United States |
| Type | Medical library |
| Established | 1836; 189 years ago (1836)[1] (as theLibrary of the Office of the Surgeon General of the Army)[2] |
| Reference to legal mandate | Public Law 941 – August 3, 1956, an amendment to Title III of thePublic Health Service Act |
| Branch of | National Institutes of Health |
| Collection | |
| Items collected | books, journals, manuscripts, images, and multimedia; genomic, chemical, toxicological, and environmental data; drug information; clinical trials data; health data standards; software; and consumer health information |
| Size | 27.8 million (2015) |
| Criteria for collection | Acquiring, organizing, and preserving the world's scholarly biomedical literature |
| Access and use | |
| Access requirements | Open to the public |
| Circulation | 309,817 (2015) |
| Other information | |
| Budget | US$341,119,000[3] |
| Director | Stephen Sherry (Acting)[4] |
| Employees | 1,741 |
| Website | nlm.nih.gov |
TheUnited States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by theUnited States federal government, is the world's largestmedical library.[5]
Located inBethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within theNational Institutes of Health. Its collections include more than seven millionbooks,journals,technical reports,manuscripts,microfilms,photographs, and images on medicine and related sciences, including some of the world's oldest and rarest works.
As of October 2023[update], the acting director of the NLM wasStephen Sherry.[4]
The precursor of the National Library of Medicine, established in 1836, was theLibrary of the Surgeon General's Office, a part of the office of theSurgeon General of the United States Army. TheArmed Forces Institute of Pathology and its Medical Museum were founded in 1862 as theArmy Medical Museum. Throughout their history the Library of the Surgeon General's Office and the Army Medical Museum often shared quarters. From 1866 to 1887, they were housed inFord's Theatre after production there was stopped, following the assassination of PresidentAbraham Lincoln.[citation needed]
In 1956, the library collection was transferred from the control of theU.S. Department of Defense to thePublic Health Service of theDepartment of Health, Education, and Welfare and renamed the National Library of Medicine, through the instrumentality ofFrank Bradway Rogers, who was the director from 1956 to 1963. The library moved to its current quarters inBethesda, Maryland, on the campus of the National Institutes of Health, in 1962.[citation needed]
Directors from 1945 to present[6]
| No. | Portrait | Director | Took office | Left office | Refs. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | Leon Lloyd Gardner | 1945 | 1946 | |
| 2 |  | Joseph Hamilton McNinch | 1946 | 1949 | |
| 3 |  | Frank Bradway Rogers | 1949 | August 31, 1963 | [7] |
| 4 |  | Martin Marc Cummings | January 1, 1964 | September 30, 1984 | [8][9] |
| 5 |  | Donald A. B. Lindberg | October 11, 1984 | March 31, 2015 | [10][11][12] |
| – | .jpg) | Betsy Humphreys (acting) | April 1, 2015 | September 11, 2016 | |
| 6 |  | Patricia Flatley Brennan | September 12, 2016 | September 30, 2023 | [13][14] |
| – | Stephen Sherry (Acting) | October 1, 2023 | Present | [15][16] |
Since 1879, the National Library of Medicine has published theIndex Medicus, a monthly guide to articles, in nearly five thousand selected journals. The last issue of Index Medicus was printed in December 2004, but this information is offered in the freely accessiblePubMed, among the more than fifteen millionMEDLINE journal article references and abstracts going back to the 1960s and 1.5 million references going back to the 1950s.[17]
In 1986 Director Lindberg'sGrateful Med project, named after theGrateful Dead band, facilitated direct access to the NLM MEDLINE database by making it significantly more affordable for all health professionals.[18]
The National Library of Medicine runs theNational Center for Biotechnology Information, which housesbiological databases (PubMed among them) that are freely accessible on the Internet through theEntrez search engine[19] andLister Hill National Center For Biomedical Communications.[20] As the United States National Release Center forSNOMED CT, NLM provides SNOMED CT data and resources to licensees of the NLMUMLS Metathesaurus.[21] NLM maintainsClinicalTrials.gov registry for human interventional and observational studies. Additionally NLM runs ChemIDplus, which is achemical database of over 400,000chemicals complete with names, synonyms, andstructures. It includes links to NLM and other databases and resources, including links to federal, state and international agencies.[22]
The Toxicology and Environmental Health Program was established at the National Library of Medicine in 1967 and is charged with developing computer databases compiled from the medical literature and from the files of governmental and nongovernmental organizations.[23] The program has implemented several information systems for chemical emergency response and public education, such as theToxicology Data Network,TOXMAP,Tox Town,Wireless Information System for Emergency Responders, Toxmystery, and theHousehold Products Database. These resources are accessible without charge on the internet.[citation needed]
The United States National Library of Medicine Radiation Emergency Management System[24] provides:
Radiation Emergency Management System is produced by theUnited States Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, Office of Planning and Emergency Operations, in cooperation with theNational Library of Medicine, Division of Specialized Information Services, with subject matter experts from theNational Cancer Institute, theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention, and many U.S. and international consultants.[24]
The Extramural Division provides grants to support research in medical information science and to support planning and development of computer and communications systems in medical institutions. Research, publications, and exhibitions on the history of medicine and the life sciences also are supported by the History of Medicine Division. In April 2008 the current exhibitionAgainst the Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health was launched.[citation needed]
National Center for Biotechnology Information is an intramural division within National Library of Medicine that creates public databases in molecular biology, conducts research incomputational biology, develops software tools for analyzing molecular and genomic data, and disseminates biomedical information, all for the better understanding of processes affecting human health and disease.[citation needed]
The Library was first founded as the Library of the Army Surgeon General's office in 1836 and was established as the National Library of Medicine under Public Health Service administration in 1956.
