Information on a global scale: the National Library of Medicine

• Published in: The Lancet (British edition) Vol. 384; no. 9937; pp. 21 - 22
• Main Author: Fee, Elizabeth
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 05.07.2014; Elsevier Limited
• Subjects: Billings John Shaw; District of Columbia; History, 19th Century; History, 20th Century; History, 21st Century; Humans; Information Dissemination - history; Information Dissemination - methods; Information Services - history; Information Services - organization & administration; Information Storage and Retrieval - history; Information Storage and Retrieval - methods; Information Storage and Retrieval - statistics & numerical data; Information Storage and Retrieval - trends; Internal Medicine; John Shaw Billings; Librarians; Library collections; Medical Subject Headings - history; Medicine; MEDLARS; MEDLINE; National Library of Medicine (U.S.) - economics; National Library of Medicine (U.S.) - history; National Library of Medicine (U.S.) - organization & administration; National Library of Medicine (U.S.) - trends; PubMed; United States
• ISSN: 0140-6736; 1474-547X; 1474-547X
• DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(14)61118-1

The National Library of Medicine, the largest medical library in the world, began in 1818 as the US Army Medical Library, in Washington, DC, essentially a shelf of books in the office of Joseph Lovell, then Surgeon General and the head of the Army Medical Department. The Government said that the National Library of Medicine had the right to copy any document that reported research paid for with public funds (as is a large portion of research in the USA), but the publisher wanted a 5 cents fee for every page copied.