The best library in the world: the National Library of Medicine by Malcolm Brantz Director, The Learning Resource Center Arapahoe Community College Littleton, Colorado The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is the second-oldest national library in the United States. The library was established in 1836 as a collection of materials used by the Army's Surgeon General. By 1865, John Shaw Billings, an Army surgeon, was placed in charge of the Library. Billings published the first Catalogue for the "Library of the Surgeon General's Office" in 1866 and within 30 years, it was the largest medical library in the world. The library has been housed in a bank building, theatre and combination museum and library building. In 1956, the name was changed to the "National Library of Medicine" (NLM) and in 1962 it moved to Bethesda, Maryland, its current site. While the Library of Congress does a wonderful job of acquiring and processing all types of materials, including medical books, journals and non-print materials, NLM does even more. NLM supplies a number of additional impressive products to the world's medical community. By the way, being the "best" library in the world is my personal opinion. I worked in the medical library field for 20 years and was a member of a contract writing team that won the Northeast Regional Library contract in 1989. I do think one can make a good case NLM is the best library in the world based on the record of achievements. A few of the major achievements: a. Medical collection of more than 6,000,000 books, videos, etc. housed at the facility. b. This library subscribes to 23,000 medical/health serial publications which are published both in the US and abroad. c. Publishes the Medline Index for 4,000 of the most important health and scientific journals. The index has grown to 11 million published articles dating back to 1966. No, these are not full text, but references to the articles. d. Provides Medline Index to the American public over the Internet free of charge. Medline receives over 250 million searches each year from health care providers and consumers. In these days of HMOs and less care, it's to everybody's advantage to see what is being published for physicians about medical conditions. We call this an "informed consumer." e. Provides a clinical trial indexing service for new medicines and new medical procedures. NLM provides up-to-date information on 5,000 federal and private ongoing research studies. f. Indexes over 9,000 brand name and generic prescriptions and over-the-counter drugs for public awareness. g. Developed a strategic plan to reduce the disparities in health care delivery due to racial and ethnic issues in the United States. h. Telemedicine (using satellite, cable, phone lines, etc.) to provide greater resources to physicians and patients (especially in rural areas) through network connections. i. Provided the general indexing for the Human Genome (mapping the DNA) project and also indexing the mapping of the human cancer cell. j. Grant programs has funds to award grants in wide spread topics including the development of large automated hospital information systems. k. Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications conducts research and development of new formats for transmitting information. For example, funded the Visible Human Project at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. A male and female cadaver were sectioned and photographed to create a 3-D human anatomy for teaching and research. The above is only a sampling of the types of projects conducted by the NLM. NLM has more than 575 staff, $215 million dollar budget and eight regional library contracts to provide support services. These facts and figures about NLM can become numbing. A personal experience may help clarify the important role that NLM plays within the health science community. It was 1976 when I had been working as the audiovisual librarian for the University of Connecticut Health Center; we published a printed list of health science audiovisuals. It started as a modest list but quickly grew to over 10,000 records describing videos, slides sets, audiocassettes, etc. By 1981 our Health Sciences Audiovisuals Resource List consisted of three volumes, cost $12 to print. We sold the "reference tool" both nationally and internationally for $47 and generated over a 1,000 sales per year. In 1982, the National Library of Medicine announced the establishment of the AVLine project. AVLine provided standardized bibliographic and critical review information for doctors, nurses, and the general public that was extensive, accurate and timely information. This information is currently part of the LOCATORplus database that includes books and other materials. NLM now owns over 60,000 audiovisuals that are available for loan. I stopped publishing our Health Sciences Audiovisuals Resource List in 1982 since (1) we couldn't compete with the National Library of Medicine; (2) as a state university, we did not have a mandate to publish a national reference tool; and (3) NLM did a better job. The role of the three special national libraries is to work within their respective disciplines and support people in that field with services and products that solve specific problems and furthers advances by researchers. NLM has been very successful in this role with our medical research and care group. For example, the mapping the Human Genome was a "big science" project. More than 10,000 researchers through the world participated in this effort. The organization and publication of the results helped to speed the use of DNA mapping by others. NLM was instrumental in supporting this vast effort. The library is involved with mapping of the human cancer cell. The National Library of Medicine is a national treasure. It has achieved a unique role of providing services to a professional community and extending those services to the entire population. I suggest you visit NLM at http://nlm.nih.gov for more information. PS: NLM had marketers with a good sense of humor back in the 80s. Software used to help people search the main Medline database was called "Grateful Med." A network to photocopy articles and loan them to doctors at hospitals was called "Loansome Doc." The library published a newsletter called Gratefully Yours. In the next issue, we'll look at the National Agriculture Library located in Beltsville, Maryland. |
The best library in the world: the National Library of Medicine by Malcolm Brantz Director, The Learning Resource Center Arapahoe Community College Littleton, Colorado The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is the second-oldest national library in the United States. The library was established in 1836 as a collection of materials used by the Army's Surgeon General. By 1865, John Shaw Billings, an Army surgeon, was placed in charge of the Library. Billings published the first Catalogue for the "Library of the Surgeon General's Office" in 1866 and within 30 years, it was the largest medical library in the world. The library has been housed in a bank building, theatre and combination museum and library building. In 1956, the name was changed to the "National Library of Medicine" (NLM) and in 1962 it moved to Bethesda, Maryland, its current site. While the Library of Congress does a wonderful job of acquiring and processing all types of materials, including medical books, journals and non-print materials, NLM does even more. NLM supplies a number of additional impressive products to the world's medical community. By the way, being the "best" library in the world is my personal opinion. I worked in the medical library field for 20 years and was a member of a contract writing team that won the Northeast Regional Library contract in 1989. I do think one can make a good case NLM is the best library in the world based on the record of achievements. A few of the major achievements: a. Medical collection of more than 6,000,000 books, videos, etc. housed at the facility. b. This library subscribes to 23,000 medical/health serial publications which are published both in the US and abroad. c. Publishes the Medline Index for 4,000 of the most important health and scientific journals. The index has grown to 11 million published articles dating back to 1966. No, these are not full text, but references to the articles. d. Provides Medline Index to the American public over the Internet free of charge. Medline receives over 250 million searches each year from health care providers and consumers. In these days of HMOs and less care, it's to everybody's advantage to see what is being published for physicians about medical conditions. We call this an "informed consumer." e. Provides a clinical trial indexing service for new medicines and new medical procedures. NLM provides up-to-date information on 5,000 federal and private ongoing research studies. f. Indexes over 9,000 brand name and generic prescriptions and over-the-counter drugs for public awareness. g. Developed a strategic plan to reduce the disparities in health care delivery due to racial and ethnic issues in the United States. h. Telemedicine (using satellite, cable, phone lines, etc.) to provide greater resources to physicians and patients (especially in rural areas) through network connections. i. Provided the general indexing for the Human Genome (mapping the DNA) project and also indexing the mapping of the human cancer cell. j. Grant programs has funds to award grants in wide spread topics including the development of large automated hospital information systems. k. Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications conducts research and development of new formats for transmitting information. For example, funded the Visible Human Project at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. A male and female cadaver were sectioned and photographed to create a 3-D human anatomy for teaching and research. The above is only a sampling of the types of projects conducted by the NLM. NLM has more than 575 staff, $215 million dollar budget and eight regional library contracts to provide support services. These facts and figures about NLM can become numbing. A personal experience may help clarify the important role that NLM plays within the health science community. It was 1976 when I had been working as the audiovisual librarian for the University of Connecticut Health Center; we published a printed list of health science audiovisuals. It started as a modest list but quickly grew to over 10,000 records describing videos, slides sets, audiocassettes, etc. By 1981 our Health Sciences Audiovisuals Resource List consisted of three volumes, cost $12 to print. We sold the "reference tool" both nationally and internationally for $47 and generated over a 1,000 sales per year. In 1982, the National Library of Medicine announced the establishment of the AVLine project. AVLine provided standardized bibliographic and critical review information for doctors, nurses, and the general public that was extensive, accurate and timely information. This information is currently part of the LOCATORplus database that includes books and other materials. NLM now owns over 60,000 audiovisuals that are available for loan. I stopped publishing our Health Sciences Audiovisuals Resource List in 1982 since (1) we couldn't compete with the National Library of Medicine; (2) as a state university, we did not have a mandate to publish a national reference tool; and (3) NLM did a better job. The role of the three special national libraries is to work within their respective disciplines and support people in that field with services and products that solve specific problems and furthers advances by researchers. NLM has been very successful in this role with our medical research and care group. For example, the mapping the Human Genome was a "big science" project. More than 10,000 researchers through the world participated in this effort. The organization and publication of the results helped to speed the use of DNA mapping by others. NLM was instrumental in supporting this vast effort. The library is involved with mapping of the human cancer cell. The National Library of Medicine is a national treasure. It has achieved a unique role of providing services to a professional community and extending those services to the entire population. I suggest you visit NLM at http://nlm.nih.gov for more information. PS: NLM had marketers with a good sense of humor back in the 80s. Software used to help people search the main Medline database was called "Grateful Med." A network to photocopy articles and loan them to doctors at hospitals was called "Loansome Doc." The library published a newsletter called Gratefully Yours. In the next issue, we'll look at the National Agriculture Library located in Beltsville, Maryland. |
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