United States National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health

Fact Sheet
Technical Services Division

Functions

The Technical Services Division (TSD):

Collection Development

TSD coordinates the development and review of policies and guidelines for building and preserving NLM's collection as described in the Collection Development Manual of the National Library of Medicine. The Chief, TSD is responsible for the periodic review and revision of the Manual. New editions are published every few years to reflect shifting emphases in health care, advances in medical research, and new formats. Occasional updates of the Manual, especially those with broad policy implications, may be issued as supplements between editions.

To monitor the effectiveness of NLM's acquisitions program, the Office of the Chief, TSD oversees an ongoing program of collection assessment and evaluation. NLM coordinates its collection development policies and retention practices with those of the Library of Congress (LC) and the National Agricultural Library (NAL). From time to time collecting policy statements are issued jointly with one or both of these national libraries.

The current edition of the Collection Development Manual of the National Library of Medicine and other joint collection development policy statements issued by NLM, LC, and NAL are available at NLM's Web site. (See the Collection Development Section at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/acquisitions/mainpage.html.)

Selection and Acquisition

The Selection and Acquisition Section is responsible for the selection of modern publications including serials and monographs in all formats (e.g., print books and journals, audiovisuals, electronic publications, etc.) according to guidelines set forth in the Collection Development Manual of the National Library of Medicine and for the acquisition of modern print and nonprint biomedical monographs published world-wide in more than 60 languages. New materials are selected and ordered by NLM staff or acquired through approval plan arrangements with domestic and foreign book vendors, exchange agreements, and the Library of Congress overseas acquisitions programs.

The Section processes approximately 24,000 items annually for possible addition to NLM's collection, monitors the Library's literature budget of over eight million dollars, and participates in a variety of collection assessment efforts.

Cataloging

The Cataloging Section is responsible for review and development of cataloging policies and for descriptive and subject cataloging and classification of modern printed, audiovisual, and computer software materials acquired for NLM's collection, as well as for electronic resources. For further information, see the NLM Cataloging Section Home Page at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/cataloging/mainpge.html.

The Cataloging Section creates and maintains the bibliographic records resident in NLM's public access catalogs, LocatorPlus and the NLM Catalog.

Both catalogs:

In addition:

For further information about these Web Catalogs, see the NLM Cataloging Section Home Page at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/cataloging/biblocator.html.

NLM bibliographic records are available via ftp in MARC 21 communications format or in XML format on a subscription basis. For further information, see Leasing Data from the National Library of Medicine at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/databases/leased.html.

The Cataloging Section maintains and develops the online NLM Classification, a scheme for the shelf arrangement of medical literature in libraries. This online tool is available at http://wwwcf.nlm.nih.gov/class and is updated annually. The Section also maintains NLM's internal authority file used in the creation of bibliographic records, including over 1,276,000 name, title, and subject heading records structured in the MARC 21 format and is responsible for the assignment of NLM title abbreviations that appear in the bibliographic records for indexed serials and monographs and in NLM indexing citations.

Serial Records

The Serial Records Section is responsible for acquiring and processing biomedical and related serials, in all formats, for the NLM collection. NLM subscribes to approximately 20,500 unique serial titles, of which over 5,300 are indexed MEDLINE titles. Serials are acquired from over 150 countries, representing about 60 different languages. On an annual basis, NLM selects and orders 700-800 new serial titles. NLM utilizes the services of numerous subscription vendors as well as the Library of Congress Overseas Offices. Major activities supporting these functions include: ordering new titles, maintaining subscriptions and standing orders, processing invoices for payment, receiving serial issues, claiming missing issues and licensing and establishing access to electronic resources.

Systems

The Systems Office is responsible for managing NLM’s integrated library system, the online public catalogs, the electronic resource management system, DOCLINE Serial Holdings to support ILL, and other systems and publications that support NLM’s indexing and PubMed citation creation activities.

Systems Office staff is involved in leading the development of the NLM Digital Repository to aid in building NLM’s collection in the digital environment. The Office is also responsible for coordinating hardware and software support for the Division.

Cooperative Programs

The Technical Services Division:

For further information contact:

Chief, Technical Services Division
National Library of Medicine
8600 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD 20894

Phone: (301) 496-6133
email: custserv@nlm.nih.gov

Last reviewed: 15 May 2009
Last updated: 15 May 2009
First published: 02 March 2006
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