{"id":12019,"date":"2017-08-04T11:00:24","date_gmt":"2017-08-04T15:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/?p=12019"},"modified":"2023-07-07T15:44:04","modified_gmt":"2023-07-07T19:44:04","slug":"new-history-of-the-nlm-the-library-in-the-21st-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/2017\/08\/04\/new-history-of-the-nlm-the-library-in-the-21st-century\/","title":{"rendered":"A New History of NLM: The Library in the 21st Century"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jeffrey S. Reznick and Kenneth M. Koyle ~<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the final <\/em>post in a series of nine<\/a> which serializes the new book <\/em>US National Library of Medicine in the popular <\/em>Images of America series of Arcadia Publishing. A hardback version of the book is available from booksellers, and an electronic version of the complete book<\/a> and original versions of\u00a0the 170+ images<\/a>, which appear in it in black and white, are archived and freely available in NLM Digital Collections<\/a>.\u00a0 The Intramural Research Program of the US National Institutes of Health<\/a>, National Library of Medicine, supported the research, writing, and editing of this publication. We hope that you will add it to your summer reading list!<\/em><\/p>\n

Looking to the future has been a common theme in the history of the Library. When Joseph Lovell sent the latest medical journals and texts to the department\u2019s medical officers in the field, he was well aware that such publications would be essential for current and future medical professionals. Interim Surgeon General Benjamin King requested funds to build what would become the core collection of the Library, and Thomas Lawson sought to grow the collection into a legitimate library. When John Shaw Billings was posted to the Office of the US Army Surgeon General in 1865 and put in charge of its small collection of books, he soon envisioned creating the most comprehensive medical collection possible. As the collection grew, Billings realized that it needed to be \u201ccatalogued and open . . . as complete as it can be made\u201d and searchable by subject, which had never before been possible. Over the course of the following century, generations of dedicated public servants\u2014men and women from a variety of backgrounds\u2014brought the vision of John Shaw Billings to reality: the US National Library of Medicine, the largest medical library in the world. Modern leaders of the Library\u2014from Harold W. Jones to Joseph H. McNinch to Frank B. Rogers to Martin M. Cummings\u2014similarly looked forward as they engaged in the era of electronics and computers and what is known today to be the digital era, all to enable individuals across the nation and around the world to discover and easily use the Library\u2019s collection for research, education, and clinical care.<\/p>\n

\"Staff <\/a>
Library staff gather on the front steps for a photograph to mark the Library\u2019s 175th anniversary in 2011. Their predecessors stood in the same location 25 years earlier to mark the Library\u2019s sesquicentennial. The Library will mark its bicentennial in 2036. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
The 15-foot-long sculpture suspended from the ceiling of the Library\u2019s rotunda represents the atomic constituents of DNA. A complete DNA molecule on the scale of this model would be 142 miles long. This sculpture was originally displayed in a 1969 exhibition on the work of Marshall W. Nirenberg, PhD, the National Institutes of Health research biochemist who, with his colleagues Har Gobind Khorana and Robert W. Holley, received the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for breaking the genetic code, discovering how sequences of DNA\u2014known as \u201ctriplets\u201d\u2014direct the assembly of amino acids into the structural and functional proteins essential to life. Courtesy of Stephen J. Greenberg <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD, director of the Library, speaks at a public program marking the anniversary and recognizes Library staff\u2014both past and present\u2014for their public service. In the background is the Library\u2019s official 175th anniversary logo featuring the time span of its service, 1836 to 2011, and the message of \u201cInformation Innovation.\u201d <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Appointed to the directorship of the Library in 1984, Donald A.B. Lindberg became the Library\u2019s longest-serving leader to date, with a tenure of more than 30 years spanning the dawn of the 21st century. With his progressive, future-oriented leadership, grounded by his understanding and respect of history, and building on the important accomplishments of his predecessor Martin M. Cummings, Lindberg led the Library into the digital age. During his tenure, technological innovations proliferated. To name only a few beyond those detailed in the previous chapter, 1990 saw the Library embark on a collaborative effort to transfer the printed data of the massive and unique Index-Catalogue<\/em> into an online, searchable database called IndexCat, which, 23 years later, the Library released as Extensible Markup Language (XML) data for new, big-data oriented users and new uses in research, education, and clinical care; in 1994\u20131995, the Library released the Visible Human Male and the Visible Human Female\u2014modern digital anatomical atlases\u2014which stand in a long and rich tradition of printed, layered human body anatomies; in 1997, the Library launched PubMed, which simplified searching for medical information and connected users of MEDLINE to the web sites of publishers of medical journals so they could receive the full text of journal articles identified in a search; in 2000, the Library launched ClinicalTrials.gov, which has become the world\u2019s largest clinical trials database, and PubMed Central, an archive for full-text biomedical and life sciences journal articles; consumer-friendly MedlinePlus appeared in 1998, MedlinePlus en espa\u00f1ol in 2002; MedlinePlus<\/em> the magazine, in 2006; and MedlinePlus Salud<\/em> in 2009. These companion resources for patients and their families offer free and up-to-date information about diseases, conditions, and wellness issues in understandable language.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/a>
The fall 2006 edition of MedlinePlus featured a story about actress Mary Tyler Moore\u2019s fight against diabetes. Launched that same year to provide the best in reliable, up-to- date health information and the latest breakthroughs from research supported by the National Institutes of Health, this publication has featured individuals from all walks of life discussing how they have handled their health challenges. Available both in hard copy and online, the magazine complements the consumer health initiatives of the Library and exemplifies an important chapter in its long history of providing health information to the public. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"The <\/a>
In 2009, the Library launched a Spanish version of the magazine, MedlinePlus Salud. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Hand in hand with these and many other innovations were achievements of Library staff to bring the physical collections of the institution\u2014and the stories of the human condition they hold\u2014increasingly into the digital arena, to circulate freely beyond traditional reading rooms so they could be explored by people across the nation and around the world. Today, the Library preserves and makes publicly available a constantly growing collection of nearly 30 million items. The institution is a global leader in information technology and distribution, and it remains the steward of one of the largest and most treasured history of medicine collections in the world. Every day, its electronic services deliver trillions of bytes of vitally important data to millions of people. Scientists, scholars, educators, health professionals, and the general public in the United States and around the world search the Library\u2019s online resources more than a billion times each year.<\/p>\n

In the years to come, the Library\u2019s dedicated staff will continue to collect, preserve, and interpret for diverse audiences the broad and expanding scope of medical information, from material spanning the centuries\u2014books and journals, still and moving images, manuscripts and ephemera\u2014to \u201cborn digital\u201d material like web sites and social media, as well as data generated by 21st century researchers.<\/p>\n

We that the visual history shared through this series of posts inspires you to learn more about the Library, to explore its collections and resources, and to appreciate the important role it plays as it enters its third century of preserving and providing access to current medical knowledge and to the medical heritage of the nation and the world.<\/p>\n

\"Portrait<\/a>Jeffrey S. Reznick, PhD, is Chief of the History of Medicine Division<\/em> at the National Library of Medicine.<\/em><\/div>\n
\"Portrait<\/a>Kenneth M. Koyle is Deputy Chief of the History of Medicine Division at the National Library of Medicine.<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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