National Library of Medicine

National Library of Medicine is the United States' premier biomedical library and largest medical library in the world, founded in 1836 and located on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. It serves as a central resource for biomedical informatics, toxicology, clinical trials, and historical medical literature, supporting institutions such as the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the World Health Organization, and the American Medical Association. The Library administers major services and databases including PubMed, MedlinePlus, ClinicalTrials.gov, and the TOXNET legacy resources, partnering with entities like the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Board of Regents and the United States Congress for funding and policy.

History

The Library traces origins to the transfer of the private collection of Dr. John Shaw Billings and institutional consolidation under the Army Medical Museum and the United States Surgeon General's office, later formalized during the administration of the Smithsonian Institution and rechartered amid legislative action by the Thirty-third United States Congress. Landmark events include the construction of the Lister Hill Center during collaborations with Senator Lister Hill, expansion under directors such as Frank Bradway Rogers and Luther Terry, and relocation to the Bethesda campus alongside the National Institutes of Health complex. Historical collections reflect donations and acquisitions tied to figures like Florence Nightingale, William Osler, Edward Jenner, Alexander Fleming, and institutional links to the Library of Congress and the Wellcome Trust.

Collections and Resources

The Library’s holdings encompass over seven million items including journals, books, manuscripts, photographs, and audiovisual material collected from sources such as the Royal Society of Medicine, the American College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Physicians, and archives related to scientists like Louis Pasteur, Paul Ehrlich, Robert Koch, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Camillo Golgi, and Harvey Cushing. Digital initiatives provide access to digitized works from the Gutenberg Project era, historic medical books by Hippocrates and Galen, rare atlases by Andreas Vesalius and treatises by William Harvey, and specialized databases covering toxicology linked to agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Toxicology Program. Major resources include bibliographic databases like MEDLINE, consumer health portals like MedlinePlus, clinical trial registries like ClinicalTrials.gov, and sequence resources coordinated with the National Center for Biotechnology Information and archives shared with the Smithsonian Institution Libraries.

Services and Programs

The Library operates services supporting clinicians, researchers, librarians, and the public, running programs such as outreach with the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, training via the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, and disaster response collaborations with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Red Cross. It administers grant and fellowship programs linked to the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and the National Human Genome Research Institute, provides information support during public health events involving the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, and offers continuing education used by professionals at institutions like Johns Hopkins University, Harvard Medical School, Mayo Clinic, and Cleveland Clinic.

Research and Informatics

Research divisions collaborate with computational and biomedical entities such as the National Center for Biotechnology Information, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to advance initiatives in biomedical informatics, clinical decision support, and data standards including SNOMED CT, RxNorm, and LOINC. Projects have intersected with genomic efforts at the Human Genome Project, bioinformatics research at Stanford University, artificial intelligence studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and large-scale data endeavors in partnership with the National Science Foundation and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Partnerships and Outreach

The Library maintains partnerships with academic centers such as Yale School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, Columbia University Medical Center, and international organizations including the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization, and the European Bioinformatics Institute. Outreach includes collaborations with professional societies like the American Public Health Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Council for Science to support global health information access, cooperative digitization with the Wellcome Trust, and capacity building with ministries of health in countries represented at the United Nations.

Category:United States National Libraries Category:Medical libraries