US National Library of Medicine NLM

History and Founding

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) traces its origins to 1836, when the U.S. government first provided funds for medical books in the office of the Surgeon General of the Army. The collection grew steadily through the Civil War era, receiving an infusion of medical literature from temporary Army hospitals after 1865. Under the leadership of John Shaw Billings (1865-1895), the Surgeon General's Library was transformed into a national resource of biomedical literature. In 1956, legislation signed by President Eisenhower transferred the library to the Public Health Service and renamed it the National Library of Medicine. The NLM moved to its current location on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1962. As of December 2025, Stephen J. Sherry serves as Acting Director.

Collections and Holdings

The NLM is the world's largest biomedical library, holding more than 7 million books, journals, technical reports, manuscripts, microfilms, photographs, and images on medicine and related sciences, including some of the world's oldest and rarest works. Historical materials span ten centuries and nearly every part of the globe, including over 600,000 printed works (including 580 incunabula printed before 1501), manuscripts from the 11th to the 21st centuries, and audiovisual materials including historical films, photographs, and sound recordings. The History of Medicine Division collects, preserves, and interprets the world's richest collection of historical biomedical materials. Key digital resources include NLM Digital Collections, PubMed Central (full-text life sciences journal archive), and the blog Circulating Now.

Digital Resources

The NLM produces and maintains major biomedical databases accessed by millions worldwide, including MEDLINE/PubMed (indexing 16+ million articles from 4,900+ journals), ClinicalTrials.gov, MedlinePlus, and GenBank. PubMed has been freely accessible since 1997.

Access and Usage

The NLM reading room and special collections are available to on-site visitors during regular hours. The majority of the NLM's databases and digital collections are freely accessible online. The NLM coordinates a National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM) of over 8,100 member libraries across the United States.