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The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the
United States federal government The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct ...
, is the world's largest
medical library A health or medical library is designed to assist physicians, health professionals, students, patients, consumers, medical researchers, and information specialists in finding health and scientific information to improve, update, assess, or evalua ...
. Located in
Bethesda, Maryland Bethesda () is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. Located just northwest of Washington, D.C., it is a major business and government center of the Washington metropolitan region ...
, the NLM is an institute within the
National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...
. Its collections include more than seven million
book A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, ...
s,
journal A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: *Bullet journal, a method of personal organization *Diary, a record of personal secretive thoughts and as open book to personal therapy or used to feel connected to onesel ...
s,
technical report A technical report (also scientific report) is a document that describes the process, progress, or results of technical or scientific research or the state of a technical or scientific research problem. It might also include recommendations and ...
s,
manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...
s,
microfilm A microform is a scaled-down reproduction of a document, typically either photographic film or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original d ...
s,
photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, or more generically referred to as an ''image'' or ''picture'') is an image created by light falling on a photosensitivity, photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor. Th ...
s, and images on medicine and related sciences, including some of the world's oldest and rarest works. the acting director of the NLM was Stephen Sherry.


History

The precursor of the National Library of Medicine, established in 1836, was the
Library of the Surgeon General's Office The Library of the Surgeon General's Office, later called the Army Medical Library, was the institutional medical literature repository of the U.S. Army Surgeon General from 1836 to 1956 when it was transformed into the National Library of Medi ...
, a part of the office of the
Surgeon General of the United States Army The Surgeon General of the United States Army is the senior-most officer of the U.S. Army Medical Department (AMEDD). By policy, the Surgeon General (TSG) serves as Commanding General, U.S. Army Medical Command (MEDCOM) as well as head of the ...
. The
Armed Forces Institute of Pathology The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) (1862 – September 15, 2011) was a U.S. government institution concerned with diagnostic consultation, education, and research in the medical specialty of pathology. Overview It was founded in ...
and its Medical Museum were founded in 1862 as the Army 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 in
Ford's Theatre Ford's Theatre is a theater located in Washington, D.C., which opened in 1863. The theater is best known for being the site of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. On the night of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth entered the theater box where ...
after production there was stopped, following the assassination of President
Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...
. In 1956, the library collection was transferred from the control of the
U.S. Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, t ...
to the
Public Health Service The United States Public Health Service (USPHS or PHS) is a collection of agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services which manages public health, containing nine out of the department's twelve operating divisions. The Assistant Se ...
of the
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a Cabinet of the United States, cabinet-level United States federal executive departments, executive branch department of the federal government of the United States, US federal ...
and renamed the National Library of Medicine, through the instrumentality of
Frank Bradway Rogers Frank Bradway Rogers (December 31, 1914 – July 27, 1987) was an American medical doctor and librarian who was instrumental in changing the Army Medical Library into the National Library of Medicine. He helped develop an electronic system of st ...
, who was the director from 1956 to 1963. The library moved to its current quarters in
Bethesda, Maryland Bethesda () is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. Located just northwest of Washington, D.C., it is a major business and government center of the Washington metropolitan region ...
, on the campus of the National Institutes of Health, in 1962.


Directors

Directors from 1945 to present


Publications and informational resources

Since 1879, the National Library of Medicine has published the
Index Medicus ''Index Medicus'' (''IM'') was a comprehensive bibliographic index of life science, biomedical science, and medical research articles, published from 1879 to 2004. Medical history experts have said of ''Index Medicus'' that it is “America's ...
, 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 accessible
PubMed PubMed is an openly accessible, free database which includes primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institute ...
, among the more than fifteen million
MEDLINE MEDLINE (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online, or MEDLARS Online) is a bibliographic database of life sciences and biomedical information. It includes bibliographic information for articles from academic journals covering medic ...
journal article references and abstracts going back to the 1960s and 1.5 million references going back to the 1950s. The National Library of Medicine runs the
National Center for Biotechnology Information The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is part of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), a branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is approved and funded by the government of the United States. The NCBI is lo ...
, which houses
biological database Biological databases are libraries of biological sciences, collected from scientific experiments, published literature, high-throughput experiment technology, and computational analysis. They contain information from research areas including geno ...
s (PubMed among them) that are freely accessible on the Internet through the
Entrez The Entrez () Global Query Cross-Database Search System is a federated search engine, or web portal that allows users to search many discrete health sciences databases at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) website. The NCB ...
search engine and Lister Hill National Center For Biomedical Communications. As the United States National Release Center for
SNOMED CT SNOMED CT or SNOMED Clinical Terms is a systematically organized computer-processable collection of medical terms providing codes, terms, synonyms and definitions used in clinical documentation and reporting. SNOMED CT is considered to be the mo ...
, NLM provides SNOMED CT data and resources to licensees of the NLM UMLS Metathesaurus. NLM maintains
ClinicalTrials.gov ClinicalTrials.gov is a clinical trials registry, registry of clinical trials. It is run by the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health, and holds registrations from over 444,000 trials from 221 cou ...
registry for human interventional and observational studies. Additionally NLM runs ChemIDplus, which is a
chemical database A chemical database is a database specifically designed to store chemical information. This information is about chemical and crystal structures, spectra, reactions and syntheses, and thermophysical data. Types of chemical databases Bioactiv ...
of over 400,000
chemical A chemical substance is a unique form of matter with constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Chemical substances may take the form of a single element or chemical compounds. If two or more chemical substances can be combin ...
s complete with names, synonyms, and
structures A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...
. It includes links to NLM and other databases and resources, including links to federal, state and international agencies.


Toxicology and environmental health

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.Toxicology and Environmental Health Program
". ''National Library of Medicine''. Retrieved July 11, 2007. The program has implemented several information systems for chemical emergency response and public education, such as the
Toxicology Data Network The Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB) was a toxicology database on the U.S. National Library of Medicine's (NLM) Toxicology Data Network (TOXNET). It focused on the toxicology of potentially hazardous chemicals, and included information on hu ...
,
TOXMAP TOXMAP was a geographic information system (GIS) from the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) that was deprecated on December 16, 2019. The application used maps of the United States to help users explore data from the United States E ...
,
Tox Town Thymocyte selection-associated high mobility group box protein TOX is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''TOX'' gene. TOX drives T-cell exhaustion and plays a role in innate lymphoid cell development. Structure The TOX gene encodes a ...
,
Wireless Information System for Emergency Responders Wireless Information System for Emergency Responders (WISER) is a system to assist first responders in identification of hazardous materials during a response. The system was created by the United States National Library of Medicine. The system ...
, Toxmystery, and the Household Products Database. These resources are accessible without charge on the internet.


Radiation exposure

The United States National Library of Medicine Radiation Emergency Management SystemRadiation Emergency Management System
". ''National Library of Medicine''.
provides: * Guidance for health care providers, primarily physicians, about clinical diagnosis and treatment of radiation injury during radiological and nuclear emergencies * Just-in-time, evidence-based, usable information with sufficient background and context to make complex issues understandable to those without formal radiation medicine expertise * Web-based information that may be downloaded in advance, so that it would be available during an emergency if the Internet were not accessible Radiation Emergency Management System is produced by the
United States Department of Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the US federal government created to protect the health of the US people and providing essential human services. Its motto is ...
, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, Office of Planning and Emergency Operations, in cooperation with the
National Library of Medicine The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. I ...
, Division of Specialized Information Services, with subject matter experts from the
National Cancer Institute The National Cancer Institute (NCI) coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ...
, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the National public health institutes, national public health agency of the United States. It is a Federal agencies of the United States, United States federal agency under the United S ...
, and many U.S. and international consultants.


Extramural division

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 exhibition Against the Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health was launched.


National Center for Biotechnology Information division

National Center for Biotechnology Information The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is part of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), a branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is approved and funded by the government of the United States. The NCBI is lo ...
is an intramural division within National Library of Medicine that creates public databases in molecular biology, conducts research in
computational biology Computational biology refers to the use of techniques in computer science, data analysis, mathematical modeling and Computer simulation, computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer sci ...
, 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.


See also

*
JournalReview.org JournalReview.org was an online interdisciplinary journal club.National Library of Medicine classification system *
PubMed PubMed is an openly accessible, free database which includes primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institute ...


References


Further reading

* * * * *


External links

*
''A Brief History of NLM''

Clinical Trials
research information
HIV Info
treatment and clinical trial information
History of Medicine Division: Finding Aids
a discovery service {{DEFAULTSORT:United States National Library Of Medicine Medical libraries
Medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...
Library of Medicine Libraries in Maryland Bibliographic database providers Buildings and structures in Bethesda, Maryland
National Library of Medicine The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. I ...
Libraries established in 1836 1830s establishments in Washington, D.C. 1836 establishments in the United States Library buildings completed in 1962 1962 establishments in Maryland Research libraries in the United States Chemical databases