Fact Sheet The National Library of
Medicine
The National Library of Medicine (NLM), on the campus of the National
Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, is the world's largest medical
library. The Library collects materials in all areas of biomedicine and
health care, as well as works on biomedical aspects of technology, the
humanities, and the physical, life, and social sciences. The collections
stand at more than 7 million items--books, journals, technical reports,
manuscripts, microfilms, photographs and images. Housed within the Library
is one of the world's finest medical history collections of old and rare
medical works. The Library's collection may be consulted in the reading
room or requested on interlibrary loan. NLM is a national resource for all
U.S. health science libraries through a National Network of Libraries of
Medicine®.
For more than 100 years, the Library has published the Index Medicus®,
a monthly subject/author guide to articles in 4000 journals. This
information, and much more, is today available in the database MEDLINE®,
the major component of PubMed®, freely accessible via the World Wide Web.
MEDLINE has more than 15 million journal article references and abstracts
going back to the early fifties. Other databases provide information on
monographs (books), audiovisual materials, and on such specialized
subjects as toxicology, environmental health, and molecular biology.
Through the Web at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/ some 500
million searches of MEDLINE are done each year by health professionals,
scientists, librarians, and the public. There are increasing links between
article references and full text, and a new service called PubMed Central
allows free access to a central repository of journal articles. The NLM
has created a special Web site, MEDLINEplus, to
link the general public to many sources of consumer health
information.
Research and Development: R and D is carried out by the Lister
Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications (LHNCBC) and the
National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). The LHNCBC explores
the uses of computer, communication, and audiovisual technologies to
improve the organization, dissemination, and utilization of biomedical
information. Currently the Center is applying modern communications
technologies to health care-related projects involving, for example,
telemedicine, testbed networks, virtual reality, and a Unified Medical
Language System. The Visible Human Project® has created, in complete
anatomical detail, 3-dimensional representations of the male and female
human body, resulting in a large digital image library. "Profiles in Science"
is the Center's Web site that provides access to the laboratory notes,
photographs, and correspondence of notable American scientists.
Established by Congress in 1988, the National Center for Biotechnology
Information has assumed a leadership role in developing information
services for biotechnology--the task of storing and making accessible the
staggering amounts of data about the human genome resulting from genetic
research at the NIH and laboratories around the nation. NCBI is a
recognized leader in basic research in computational molecular biology,
and is also responsible for developing innovative computer solutions for
the management and dissemination of the rapidly growing volume of genome
information. NCBI distributes GenBank®, a collection of all known DNA
sequences, and also provides access to the assembled Human Genome data.
Both are accessible at http://www.ncbi.nih.gov/.
Toxicology and Environmental Health Program (TEHIP): TEHIP,
established at NLM in 1967, is charged with setting up computer databases
from the literature and from files of governmental and nongovernmental
organizations. TEHIP has implemented the TOXNET® (Toxicology Data Network)
system of data banks useful in chemical emergency response and other
applications aimed at the general public, such as Tox Town and the
Household Products Database. These resources are searchable without charge
on the Web.
Grant Programs: The Extramural Programs Division provides grants
to support research in medical informatics, health information science,
and biotechnology information, as well as for research training in these
areas. Network planning and development grants support computer and
communication systems in health institutions and the study of new
opportunities with high-speed computer networks in the health sciences.
Health science library resource grants assist in improving information
access and services for health professionals. Research and publications in
the history of medicine and the life sciences are also supported.
Annual Statistical Profile of NLM: (September 30, 2003)
Staff (full-time equivalents) - 694; Appropriation (FY 2002) - $318.3
million; Articles indexed (all databases) - 526,000; Circulation requests
- 654,000; Collection (book and nonbook items) - 7,497,000; Journals
indexed (for MEDLINE) - 4,700; Serial titles received - 20,500; Titles
cataloged - 19,900.
For Visitors: Metrorail--NLM is 300 yards south of the Medical
Center stop on the Red Line.
Address: 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894; Phone
toll-free: 888-346-3656.
Tours: Mon. through Fri. at 1:30 p.m. (begin in Visitors Center,
lobby of Bldg. 38A, Lister Hill Center). For group tours: Call (301)
496-6308.
Reading Room Hours: (Main Reading Room) (Winter) Mon., Tues.,
Wed., Fri: 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.; Thurs.: 8:30 a.m. - 9:00 p.m. (reference
assistance available until 8:00 p.m.); Sat.: 8:30 a.m. - 12.30 p.m.
(Summer ) Mon. through Fri.: 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.; Sat.: 8:30 a.m. -
12.30 p.m. History of Medicine Division Hours: Mon. through Fri.: 8:30
a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Holiday Hours: For a listing of holiday hours for the Reading
Room, visit http://www.nlm.nih.gov/about/holiday.html
For more information about NLM programs, contact the Office of
Communications and Public Liaison (see address above); E-mail: mailto:%20publicinfo@nlm.nih.gov.
World-Wide Web site: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/
First published: 01 January 1975 Last updated: 29 January 2004 Date Archived: 03 March 2004 Metadata | Permanence level: Permanent: Stable Content Replaced by
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