The National Library of Medicine and Drug Information. Part 2: An Evolving Future

Abstract

Drug Information. Part 2: An Evolving Future* The National Library of Medicine (NLM) began in 1836 as a small collection of books in the office of the Army Surgeon General. Today, the NLM is the world> largest medical library, providing access to its vast collection of seven million items onsite and through the World Wide Web. Historical interest in drug information dates to 1967 when Congress provided finds for a Drug Literature Program at the NLM. Drug information is now dispersed among a number of NLM bibliographic and factual databases that offer an away of clinical, research, and tawicdogical drug data. Target audiences for drug information include consumers, pa-tients, healthcare practitioners, clinical researchers, and scientists. Drug development and medical publishing have both accelerated to such an extent that it is virtually impossible for healthcare practitioners and researchers to keep apprised of cuwent information. h e to wide utilization for posting medically-related data, the Internet is discussed in terms of its impact on medical library responsibilities, drug information and efforts to evaluate Web-based health information, and how resultant imperatives indicate a need to create new drug-related databases including an lnternet portal to drug information.

Reducing Call Volume at Medical Information Centers by Switching to a Web-Based Self-Service Facility—What to Consider? Providing Customers With Digital Medical Information on the Internet

“…8 Only a couple of years further on, studies indicated that between 20,000 and 50,000 health care and medical websites were in existence, and that 80% of physicians accessed medical information via the Internet, 86% of whom were looking for drug information. 9…”

Pharmaceutical information: A 30‐year perspective on the literature

“…The new type of tertiary resource, which has proliferated with the internet, is the annotated list of sources, often packaged as a portal. These have been created in a number of formats: Public internet portals for pharmaceutical information, such as PharmWeb, the Virtual Library of Pharmacy, and Martindale's Virtual Pharmacy Center (De Manuele, 1998; Snow, 2008) Public internet portals for more general scientific information, including pharmaceuticals, such as the U.K. BIOME portal (Gray, 1999; MacKay, 2005) Portals created by information producers to integrate their pharmaceutically relevant sources and services, including both commercial providers, such as Thomson Pharma (Felter, 2005; Plosker, 2006), and public bodies, such as the U.S. National Library of Medicine (Knoben, Phillips, Snyder, & Szezur, 2004) In‐house proprietary portals and intranets, integrating internal sources and services (e.g., Little & Millington, 2001; Srodin & Strupczewski, 2002) …”

“…Portals created by information producers to integrate their pharmaceutically relevant sources and services, including both commercial providers, such as Thomson Pharma (Felter, 2005; Plosker, 2006), and public bodies, such as the U.S. National Library of Medicine (Knoben, Phillips, Snyder, & Szezur, 2004)…”

“…Communication of information at this stage is facilitated by the usual infrastructure of scientific libraries and information services. For the pharmaceutical domain specifically, these include: Specialist pharmaceutical libraries (e.g., Bador, Locher, & Gallezot, 1991; Knoben, Phillips, & Szczur, 2004; Knoben, Phillips, Snyder, & Szczur, 2004; Lapidus, 2003; Ottlik, 1992; Strickland‐Hodge, Jepson, & Reid, 1989, chapters 2.1 and 2.2), including those in industry (e.g., Dieckmann & Whittall, 1998; Haygarth‐Jackson, 1977; Sandori, 1992; Schulte, 1986; Sherwell, 1997b). Such libraries are increasingly wholly digital in nature. Specialist library networks, which may include both academic and industrial libraries (e.g., Williams, Bliven, & Ladner, 1987).…”

“…Specialist pharmaceutical libraries (e.g., Bador, Locher, & Gallezot, 1991; Knoben, Phillips, & Szczur, 2004; Knoben, Phillips, Snyder, & Szczur, 2004; Lapidus, 2003; Ottlik, 1992; Strickland‐Hodge, Jepson, & Reid, 1989, chapters 2.1 and 2.2), including those in industry (e.g., Dieckmann & Whittall, 1998; Haygarth‐Jackson, 1977; Sandori, 1992; Schulte, 1986; Sherwell, 1997b). Such libraries are increasingly wholly digital in nature.…”