National Library of Medicine

The National Library of Medicine (NLM), on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, has been a center of information innovation since its founding in 1836. The world’s largest biomedical library, NLM maintains and makes available a vast print collection and produces electronic information resources on a wide range of topics that are searched billions of times each year by millions of people around the globe. It also supports and conducts research, development, and training in biomedical informatics and health information technology. In addition, the Library coordinates a 6,000-member National Network of Libraries of Medicine that promotes and provides access to health information in communities across the United States.

NLM's History of Medicine Division collects, preserves, makes available, and interprets for diverse audiences one of the world's richest collections of historical material related to human health and disease. Our collections include:

- A rapidly-growing digital collection of books, audiovisuals, still images, manuscripts, and oral histories.

- Manuscripts dating as far back as the 11th century.

- Over 600,000 printed works, including 580 incunabula (Western books printed before 1501), some 57,000 16th-18th century books, and over 400,000 titles published between 1801 and 1913.

- Modern manuscripts, including the personal papers of such figures as Joshua Lederberg, Marshall Nirenberg, Luther Terry, and C. Everett Koop.

- Organizational archives from such groups as the Medical Library Association and the American College of Nurse-Midwives.

- Over 15,000 historical audiovisuals.

- Over 150,000 historical prints and photographs.

The Library celebrates its historical collections through its award-winning Exhibition Program. The program develops and presents exhibitions and multidisciplinary educational tools that make the National Library of Medicine’s historical collections available to audiences around the world. Through interactive exhibitions and special displays onsite, traveling banner shows that tour the country, and online K-12 and higher education resources, the Exhibition Program advances public awareness about medicine, science, and history. Exhibitions and special displays focus on a variety of topics including the history of forensic medicine; U.S. Civil War doctors, nurses, and disabled veterans; African-American academic surgeons; the history of women physicians; and the story of Frankenstein as it relates to medical ethics.

The Library also celebrates its historical collections through Hidden Treasure, a spectacular, 240-page, full-color book with 450 images and over 80 essays by distinguished scholars, artists, collectors, journalists, and physicians. Download a free copy of Hidden Treasure from NLM’s Digital Collections.

The Image database, Images from the History of Medicine (IHM) , is an online picture database of nearly 70,000 images from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) History of Medicine Division's Prints and Photographs Collection. IHM includes portraits, photographs, caricatures, genre scenes, posters, and graphic art illustrating the social and historical aspects of medicine dated from the 15th to 21st century.

Newly acquired posters and other materials are continually being added to the IHM. In addition, existing records are regularly reviewed and upgraded, with new records and edits made available in the IHM.

Circulating Now, a blog from NLM's History of Medicine Division, encourages greater exploration and discovery of one of the world's largest and most treasured history of medicine collections.

Why Circulating Now? For over 175 years the NLM's historical collections have circulated to generations within the reading rooms of its various locations in and around Washington, DC. Now, these collections—as part of the trillions of bytes of data produced and delivered by the world's largest biomedical library—circulate daily to millions of people around the world. Circulating Now sustains the tradition and commitment of the NLM, and libraries everywhere, to provide knowledge and expertise freely and to inspire people and enrich lives. Circulating Now also conveys the vitality of medical history in our 21st-century world: its relevance and importance for research, teaching, and learning about the human condition. And Circulating Now evokes the living quality of the NLM's historical collections and the stories they offer about the experience of health and disease here in the United States and around the world.

Circulating Now will bring the NLM's diverse historical collections to life in new and exciting ways for researchers, educators, students, and anyone else who is interested in the history of medicine. Whether you are familiar with NLM's historical collections, or you are discovering them for the first time, Circulating Now will be an exciting and engaging resource to bookmark, share, and discuss with other readers.