International programs of the National Library of Medicine

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) has a broad mission in biomedical information service. There are three major reasons for NLM, as a national institution, having an international program: first, the global nature of disease; second, the international scope of medical literature; and third, the universal goal of better communication. This paper reviews NLM's programs in relation to international medical information exchange: International MEDLARS Centers, collaboration with WHO and PAHO, NLM Special Foreign Currency Program, and development of the NLM collection.     

Exporting the American (information) revolution: the international impact of the National Library of Medicine

The National Library of Medicine has had an enormous impact on health information services all over the world. Although NLM is primarily a national institution, it has become an important international resource by responding to requests from the international community. NLM has been influential in three major ways. First, NLM has provided a model for other national and regional health information services. Second, it has been a catalyst, in that MEDLARS and other services it provides formed the nucleus of many regional networks. NLM helped such networks get started by giving advice on how to set up services and build collections and by "training the trainers" on the MEDLARS system. Third, NLM has supported national and regional operations by providing the additional training and materials needed for day-to-day service.     

Exporting the American (information) revolution: the international impact of the National Library of Medicine.

The National Library of Medicine has had an enormous impact on health information services all over the world. Although NLM is primarily a national institution, it has become an important international resource by responding to requests from the international community. NLM has been influential in three major ways. First, NLM has provided a model for other national and regional health information services. Second, it has been a catalyst, in that MEDLARS and other services it provides formed the nucleus of many regional networks. NLM helped such networks get started by giving advice on how to set up services and build collections and by "training the trainers" on the MEDLARS system. Third, NLM has supported national and regional operations by providing the additional training and materials needed for day-to-day service.     

The recurring bibliographies program of MEDLARS

Recurring bibliographies are by-products of the MEDLARS system which are prepared by the National Library of Medicine in collaboration with nonprofit scientific and professional societies and institutions and government agencies that represent a specialty area of biomedical research or practice. The sponsor generally assumes responsibility for the costs of publication and distribution. At present MEDLARS has a planned capacity of fifty such recurring bibliographies. The subject parameters and format are defined by the representatives of the sponsoring organization and the NLM Search, MeSH, and Index staffs. As citations are regularly put into the MEDLARS store, each one that qualifies for a recurring bibliography is identified and tagged by the computer with the number assigned to the pertinent RB. The MEDLARS store is searched for citations for a particular recurring bibliography according to the schedule specified by the sponsoring organization, and the output is printed from a GRACE tape.     

Goals, objectives, and competencies for reference service: a training program at the UCLA Biomedical Library

The UCLA Biomedical Library, in cooperation with the UCLA Graduate School of Library and Information Science, offers a medical library internship program for second-year library school students. Goals, objectives, competencies, and training guidelines have been developed for the reference services section of the internship, including reference desk experience, online searching, group discussions, assigned readings, and training new staff members, allows flexibility in meeting the differing interests, needs, and abilities of trainees.     

The National Library of Medicine and the American medical information system: the physician's perspective

During the past 150 years an excellent health sciences information system has been developed in the United States. Led by the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the system grew along traditional lines until after World War II, when medical researchers, educators, and practitioners produced an enormous amount of new information. To cope with this growth, the power of computers joined traditional librarianship and MEDLARS was born. In 1965 Congress passed the Medical Library Assistance Act, which enabled NLM to lead the nation's and the world's health sciences professionals into the Information Age. Much as been accomplished by NLM, yet much remains to be done to make health information available cheaply, easily, and quickly to all who need it.     

A successful cross-training experience of reference service at UCLA

This paper describes a successful cross-training and reference librarian exchange experience involving two librarians at UCLA, one based at the Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library and the other based at the College Library, which primarily serves undergraduates. The experience has increased the reference skills and expertise of both librarians by introducing them to new sets of reference tools and databases, and has broadened their network of colleagues within the UCLA Library system. The participating libraries have also benefited from the exchange, and the program is expanding to include other UCLA libraries.     

AIDS information from the National Library of Medicine

As part of a U.S government effort to combat AIDS, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) is expanding its information services in this area. In response to the Health Omnibus Program Extension Act of 1988, NLM has expanded its AIDS Bibliography, enhanced its DIRLINE file with AIDS-related organizations, and developed three new online MEDLARS (Medical Literature Retrieval and Analysis System) databases: AIDSLINE, AIDSTRIALS, and AIDSDRUGS. NLM's AIDS-related programs and services are discussed.     

The National Library of Medicine and the American medical information system: the physician's perspective.

During the past 150 years an excellent health sciences information system has been developed in the United States. Led by the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the system grew along traditional lines until after World War II, when medical researchers, educators, and practitioners produced an enormous amount of new information. To cope with this growth, the power of computers joined traditional librarianship and MEDLARS was born. In 1965 Congress passed the Medical Library Assistance Act, which enabled NLM to lead the nation''s and the world''s health sciences professionals into the Information Age. Much as been accomplished by NLM, yet much remains to be done to make health information available cheaply, easily, and quickly to all who need it.     

MEDLARS II: a review

The MEDLARS II effort, as it was developed until June 1971, is reviewed in terms of the overall planning process. How MEDLARS I was approached by NLM is discussed first and its objectives used for comparison. Certain technical, managerial, and intellectual aspects are outlined as types of problems encountered in designing MEDLARS II. While improvement upon the MEDLARS I seemed to be the main reason for planning a MEDLARS II, objectives became blurred and divergent as the project went along. The complexities of creating a central computerized data base of health sciences bibliographic information and library functional activities for nationwide use were underappreciated and remain a challenge to NLM.     

The National Library of Medicine: from MEDLARS to the sesquicentennial and beyond

The two decades since the introduction of MEDLARS and the passage of the Medical Library Assistance Act have been especially eventful in the history of the National Library of Medicine. The library's collections and services have grown to keep pace with the expanding health sciences literature and the needs of health professionals. Networking has emerged as an invaluable method for disseminating biomedical information. NLM has assumed new responsibilities for information services in toxicology, pharmacology, and environmental health, and for research and development in biomedical communications. Research now being carried out by NLM has the potential for enhancing the library's archival programs and for improving information dissemination in support of health sciences research, education, and practice.     

The MEDLARS regional center at UCLA: a progress report

This paper supplements information given in earlier papers on the UCLA MEDLARS Search Station. Four major machine problem areas in the operation of a decentralized station are identified: adjustments required to run a large information retrieval type program in an academic computing facility serving many users; handicap in running time for COBOL programs; advent of the third generation of computers with attendant preparation; and need for constant current communication among all members of a decentralized network system. Statistics are given for the initial operating period, January-May 1966: 119 search requests received, 109 formulated, and 60 fully processed. Parallel searches with other MEDLARS installations, comparisons of MEDLARS and manual Index Medicus searches, and other search activities are reported.     

Gloria Werner, 1940–2021

Gloria Werner, successor to Louise M. Darling at the UCLA Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, university librarian emerita, and eighteenth editor of the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, died on March 5, 2021, in Los Angeles. Before assuming responsibility in 1990 for one of the largest academic research libraries in the US, she began her library career as a health sciences librarian and spent twenty years at the UCLA Biomedical Library, first as an intern in the NIH/NLM-funded Graduate Training Program in Medical Librarianship in 1962–1963, followed by successive posts in public services and administration, eventually succeeding Darling as biomedical librarian and associate university librarian from 1979 to 1983. Werner''s forty-year career at UCLA, honored with the UCLA University Service Award in 2013, also included appointments as associate university librarian for Technical Services. She was president of the Association of Research Libraries in 1997, served on the boards of many organizations including the Association of Academic Health Sciences Library Directors, and consulted extensively. She retired as university librarian in 2002.

Gloria Werner, university librarian emerita and successor to Louise M. Darling at the UCLA Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, died on March 5, 2021, in Los Angeles.Werner was born on December 12, 1940, in Seattle, Washington. She skipped grades a couple of times in the Seattle public schools and applied to Radcliffe, Pomona College, and Oberlin College—all of which accepted her. She chose to go to Oberlin and arrived in the small college town in Ohio at the age of sixteen. While at Oberlin, she was a French major with an art history minor, but she also had a continuing interest in music, particularly classical piano. She played a piano concerto with the University of Washington Symphony orchestra when she was only fourteen, and Oberlin''s well-known music conservatory allowed her to continue her piano studies. It appears that the small liberal arts college suited her as she graduated with a BA in French in three years in 1961.While at Oberlin, Gloria worked as an assistant at the Oberlin Art Library. Following graduation, she returned to Seattle and obtained her master''s in librarianship from the University of Washington in 1962. Because of her interest in libraries, she had always intended to get a library degree. Though art history was perhaps her greatest love, it would have required at least a master''s or PhD and many more years of education to become an art curator or museum director, which was something she was uninterested in pursuing at the time. In 1962, she was honored with the University of Washington School of Librarianship Award for Most Outstanding Student [1].Before assuming responsibility for one of the largest academic research libraries in the US, Gloria began her career at the UCLA Biomedical Library. She was fond of saying that despite not having attended UCLA, she was born and raised professionally there [2]. Before library school graduation, she was offered a job at Seattle Public Library, which had the largest art history collection in the area and where she had completed an internship. Even though she had no science in her academic background and had already been offered a job at Seattle Public Library, University of Washington Library School Dean Dorothy Bevis was instrumental in convincing her to apply for an internship at the UCLA Biomedical Library. After being accepted and completing the NIH/NLM-funded Graduate Training Program in Medical Librarianship Internship in 1963, she was hired as a reference librarian by Director Louise M. Darling. Gloria also celebrated a momentous event in 1963 when she married Newton Davis Werner, a Los Angeles native who had recently completed his PhD in chemistry.From 1963 to 1979, she assumed increasingly responsible positions in the UCLA Biomedical Library including head of reference and assistant/associate biomedical librarian for public services (Figure 1). She took a year off in 1967–1968 to work in London as librarian of the Wellcome Historical Medical Library, while her husband was completing a Fulbright Fellowship. In 1979, she succeeded Louise Darling as director of the Biomedical Library (later named the Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library by action of the UC Board of Regents), and as director the Pacific Southwest Regional Medical Library Service and Cancer Information Center. As director, Gloria added computer-assisted instruction and audiovisual services, implemented the transition from bibliographic searching by librarians to end user searching, and oversaw the physical expansion of the library. She was also designated an assistant dean of the UCLA Medical School.Open in a separate windowFigure 1Gloria Werner (left) with Louise Darling (right), 1972In 1983, Gloria was persuaded to take on the position of associate university librarian for technical services for the UCLA Library system. In this role, she oversaw the development of the UCLA Library''s online information system, ORION, based in part on the continuation of automation efforts initiated by the Biomedical Library. She served in that capacity until 1990 when she was appointed university librarian. Her accomplishments in this position included renovating the historic Powell Library built originally as the main university library, establishing the College Library Instructional Computing Commons, managing the transition from print to electronic resources in many disciplines, reducing multiple campus library locations, and managing successive University of California budgetary shortfall issues. She also became active during this time in the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), serving as ARL President (1996–1997), as a member of the Research Collections Committee, and as a participant in ARL''s Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) program.Werner was associated for ten years with publication of the Medical Library Association''s journal, then titled Bulletin of the Medical Library Association (BMLA). In 1973, Robert F. Lewis, biomedical librarian at UC San Diego, was appointed to the first of two three-year terms as editor. He chose Gloria to lead the editorial committee of the journal and then, a year later, to serve as associate editor during his two terms as editor. During their tenure, the publication type called “brief communications” became part of the journal, and the editorial committee and peer review process were strengthened under Gloria''s guidance. When Lewis stepped down in 1979, Werner, who was the choice of the editorial selection committee, became the eighteenth editor of BMLA. The editorial selection committee recommended her reappointment in 1983, but she had to decline due to her new position in the UCLA library system [3]. Werner''s successor as editor praised her for “her encouragement of authors” and for “developing a peer review system that is among the best in scientific publishing” [4].Though she was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and arrived serendipitously at UCLA, Gloria stayed the course and contributed significantly to the development of the UCLA library system over her forty-year career. In 2013, she was honored with the UCLA University Service Award. The arc of her career spanned from MEDLARS and other batch process retrieval systems to online catalogs and digital libraries. She served on the boards of many organizations including the Association of Academic Health Sciences Library Directors and consulted extensively. She was tempted only once to return to Seattle when the University of Washington offered her the university librarian position.When Gloria retired as UCLA university librarian in 2002, she continued to treasure her ties to UCLA as well as her love of music, art, and travel. She and her husband Newton were avid art collectors and donated generously to the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts in the Hammer Museum. Gloria served on the Docent Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and was active in many other organizations. Music continued to be an integral part of her life as a season ticket holder of the Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Ojai Music Festival. Gloria is survived by her son, Adam, daughter-in-law, Tammy, and grandson, Noah.     

The program of the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine

The planning of the Countway Library took place in an atmosphere of community interest and support. Architectural planning was effective and harmonious. The building functions well. The program of the Library is briefly described. Serials records, involving 17,000 titles, have been mechanized. A rare books program has been initiated. Since building occupancy, the Library has substituted copy service for the lending of periodicals. For an experimental period, the copy service was cost free. The Aesculapian Room, for non-medical recreational reading, has had the generous support of the Aesculapian Club. Plans for regional library service in New England are based upon an historic commitment of the Boston Medical Library. A MEDLARS regional search center and a national Vision Information Center have been established in the Countway.     

The National Library of Medicine: from MEDLARS to the sesquicentennial and beyond.

The two decades since the introduction of MEDLARS and the passage of the Medical Library Assistance Act have been especially eventful in the history of the National Library of Medicine. The library''s collections and services have grown to keep pace with the expanding health sciences literature and the needs of health professionals. Networking has emerged as an invaluable method for disseminating biomedical information. NLM has assumed new responsibilities for information services in toxicology, pharmacology, and environmental health, and for research and development in biomedical communications. Research now being carried out by NLM has the potential for enhancing the library''s archival programs and for improving information dissemination in support of health sciences research, education, and practice.     

The NLM current catalog

When the National Library of Medicine acquired a computer to augment its publication program, the intent was to present in one medium an index to journal articles and a catalog of books and new serial titles. The computer programs designed for indexing were unsatisfactory for cataloging, however; so two publications were issued, the Index Medicus and the NLM Current Catalog.The Current Catalog features separate name and subject sections, added volumes, and technical reports.The Express Cataloging Service was one of the first attempts to increase the speed and coverage of the Catalog. Shared cataloging with the Library of Congress, the Countway Library at Harvard, and the Upstate Medical Library in Syracuse, New York, have also contributed to the efforts toward improving this library service. An additional shared cataloging program, this time with the National Medical Audiovisual Center, is expected to be implemented shortly.     

Testing the new technology: MEDLINE on CD-ROM in an academic health sciences library.

The UCLA Biomedical Library tested a six-month portion of the MEDLINE database on compact disc to determine its potential application in a large, university health sciences library environment. Patron response to the system, previous search experience, and actual search strategies were recorded. Although the overwhelming user response was positive in spite of little previous experience with online searching, results show underutilization of the system because of both software and hardware problems. The implications of this test underline the important role libraries must take in guaranteeing that new reference tools like CD-ROM be made genuinely user-friendly.     

Development of a medical specialty recurring bibliography--Index of Rheumatology

The Index of Rheumatology is a newly-developed, recurring bibliography produced by the Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System (MEDLARS) of the National Library of Medicine. It is published semimonthly by the American Rheumatism Association. This report describes preliminary testing of MEDLARS output, modification of MEDLARS Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), and the computer formulation for retrieval of the bibliographic citations comprising the Index.     

Revision of the Wayne State University Medical Library subject catalog using the 1966 Medical Subject Heading system

Wayne State University Medical Library (WSUML) revised its monograph subject catalog in 1961 utilizing the 1960 edition of MeSH as an authority list. With the introduction of MEDLARS in 1963 by NLM, all topical subheadings were omitted from MeSH. Inasmuch as this omission could not accommodate the needs of WSUML, the 1960 edition of MeSH was retained as a guideline.In January 1966, when MeSH resumed the incorporation of topical subheadings, WSUML was faced with a decision whether to continue the current policy or to adopt the form as presented in the latest edition of MeSH. This report describes the methodology employed in adopting a new policy, the findings which resulted from the change, and an evaluation of this reorganization.