 |
|
| Long Range Plan 2000-2005 | |
Printer-friendly VersionGOAL 1 - ORGANIZE HEALTH-RELATED INFORMATION AND PROVIDE ACCESS TO IT
OBJECTIVE
1.2 -
PROVIDE
ACCESS TO BIOMEDICAL INFORMATION
FINDINGS
The Library has made good
use of evolving communications technology to improve how health
professionals and others gain access to biomedical information. First
Grateful Med, and later Internet Grateful Med and PubMed, introduced
health professionals and other end-users to easy searching of MEDLINE
and other NLM databases. The introduction of free access in 1997 made
NLM’s databases available to anyone with an Internet connection.
Internet Grateful Med and now PubMed use information from the Unified
Medical Language System (UMLS) Metathesaurus to improve retrieval for
MEDLINE users. Over the past decade, NLM developed a suite of health
services research databases as part of a new legislatively mandated
health services research information program. Special efforts were made
to enhance the content and usability of NLM’s environmental health and
toxicology databases.
To provide access to original or full-text materials, the Library inaugurated DOCLINE in the mid eighties to electronically route interlibrary loan requests based on the journal holdings of NN/LM members. Since the early nineties “Loansome Doc” has allowed individual MEDLINE users to participate in the interlibrary loan system by entering requests for articles at their terminals. Both systems are currently being upgraded as part of NLM’s System Reinvention effort, which has also led to the implementation of Relais, a system that uses scanning and electronic communications technology to allow NLM to fill interlibrary loan requests much more quickly and efficiently.
In the arena of electronic access to full-text documents, the Library has provided online access to the full-text of clinical practice guidelines since the early nineties. Links between PubMed/MEDLINE and over 1100 journal publisher Web sites now permit users to get the text of many articles referenced in the database electronically. NLM now provides links to evaluated health information for the consumer that is published on the Web in MedlinePlus, introduced late in 1998.
PROGRAM PLANS
DEFINING THE RESEARCH PUBLICATION OF THE FUTURE
- Manage the development of NIH’s “PubMed Central” to broaden and ensure long-term access to electronic scientific reports, selected textbooks, and other materials in the life sciences, including multimedia data as an integral part of publication where appropriate.
- Address fundamental issues of electronic publication such as the structure, creation and optimal use of digital documents, navigational tools needed to search them, and necessary user interfaces.
- Work with publishers of biomedical journals to develop guidelines concerning the conversion of content currently provided in print issues to electronic formats, to provide more access to full-text journals on line, via easy links from MEDLINE citations and abstracts, and to standardize practices among science and medical publishers in licensing, URL addressing, and electronic backfile archiving.
DATABASE SEARCHING
- Continue to improve NLM’s retrieval interfaces to serve the needs of the general public, health professionals, biomedical, clinical, and health services researchers, and librarians and other information professionals.
- Expand scope, linking capabilities, functionality, and customization features of PubMed and Entrez (NLM’s molecular biology search and retrieval system that provides users with integrated access to sequence, mapping, taxonomy, and structural data) so that different categories of users can easily retrieve appropriate information from NLM’s large and comprehensive databases.
- Enhance PubMed and Entrez through links to supporting material in electronic textbooks.
- Develop an NLM Gateway that provides simple integrated access to all of NLM’s databases and Web-based information for the unsophisticated searcher.
- Continue to improve the usability of NLM’s toxicology and environmental health databases (including those containing information related to occupational safety and health). Explore potential implementation of gateways to external sources of toxicology information.
- Enhance features that allow network applications (as opposed to human beings at workstations) to access and retrieve information from NLM databases.
DOCUMENT DELIVERY
- Enhance DOCLINE to support billing for interlibrary loan services within the NN/LM.
- Work with other NN/LM
libraries and other organizations to develop better mechanisms for
individual health professionals and members of the public to request
and gain affordable access to single articles in biomedical
journals.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
- Continue to analyze use, seek out customer comments and feedback, and use this input to improve NLM products and services.
MANAGEMENT AND EVALUATION OF NLM COMPUTER SYSTEMS
- Identify, develop, and utilize state-of-the-art methods, techniques, policies and procedures to safeguard NLM’s systems, services, and information from threats such as unauthorized use of facilities and computer systems.
- Develop new measurement strategies and metrics to evaluate NLM’s computer-based services and their accessibility to users via the Internet and the World Wide Web. This includes, for example, end-to- end performance testing of NLM applications on the current Internet and the Next Generation Internet, and valid means for assessing frequency and utility of use of MedlinePlus.
Last updated: 18 March 2001
First published: 18 March 2001
Metadata| Permanence level: Permanent: Stable Content