Circulating Now
Free things like air,
Vital things like blood,
Living things like ideas…
Circulate.
For over 175 years the National Library of Medicine’s historical collections have circulated to generations within the reading rooms of its current and previous 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, including scientists, health professionals, scholars, educators, students, and the general public.
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 conveys the vitality of medical history in our 21st-century world: its relevance and importance for research, teaching, and learning about the human condition.
Circulating Now evokes the living quality of the NLM’s historical collections and the stories they offer about the experience of health and disease across ten centuries and around the world.
Established on July 1, 2013, Circulating Now is managed by:
Elizabeth A. Mullen
Managing Editor
Jeffrey S. Reznick
Senior Historian
Editorial Board
Lindsay Franz
Erika Mills
Christie Moffatt
Ben Richardson
Krista Stracka
Collection Photography
Tory Detweiler
Krista Stracka
About the History of Medicine at the National Library of Medicine
- Terabytes of born-digital content, including web sites, blogs, and social media
- Manuscripts dating from the 11th to the 21st centuries, including the earliest anatomical drawings and the papers of Nobel Prize winning researchers, U.S. Surgeons General, and leaders in the fields of medicine and public health
- 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
- Organizational archives from such groups as the Medical Library Association and the American College of Nurse-Midwives
- Over 10,000 audiovisuals
- Over 150,000 prints and photographs
The Library also interprets its historical collections through two free and richly-illustrated books.
You can also discover our collections via NLM Digital Collections a rapidly growing resource including born-digital materials, books, serials, audiovisuals, still images and graphic materials, manuscripts, and oral histories.
As our division embraces the future as a steward of the past, we warmly welcome you to explore all we offer, visit NLM, and conduct research in our world-renowned collections.
To learn more about the History of Medicine at the National Library of Medicine visit: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd