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The National Library of Medicine

196324 min 50 sec74 shots

At the 1961 dedication of the National Library of Medicine building in Bethesda, Maryland, officials describe an institution that began with a $150 allowance for medical books and grew from the Surgeon General’s library into a national resource. An account of its history credits John Shaw Billings, Robert Fletcher, and Fielding H. Garrison with helping to expand and organize the collection. The film explains that the 1956 National Library of Medicine Act transferred the library from military control to the Public Health Service and established a Board of Regents to advise the Surgeon General.

Inside the new building, staff members acquire publications from around the world, catalog and classify them, repair and bind volumes, index journal articles, and answer reference questions. Machines process catalog cards and subject headings for Index Medicus, while the planned MEDLARS system promises to store information on magnetic tape and produce bibliographies on demand. Rare manuscripts and early printed books appear alongside modern medical literature in a collection that reached 1.1 million items by 1961.

Reference staff prepare bibliographies, retrieve materials from the stacks, and copy requested pages for physicians and libraries around the world. Board meetings, employee training, and the library intern program accompany a closing commitment to preserve medical literature and make it available to people working in medicine.

Provenance and rights

Original producer: United States. Public Health Service.
Collection: NLM History of Medicine / Internet Archive mirror
Original title: The National Library of Medicine
Date: 1963
Original link: Open on Internet Archive
Rights: public_domain