National Library of Medicine

Written by: Genevieve Hammang

Edited by: Michelle Sosa

Entrance to the NLM.

While this blog is dedicated to featuring a wide range of special library topics, from zoology to punk history, a significant portion of existing special libraries are medical libraries. Of these, the largest medical library in the world is the US National Library of Medicine (NLM). 

Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM was established nearly two centuries ago in 1836. Its mission is to acquire, organize, and preserve scholarly biomedical literature across the globe. The collection currently includes books, journals, manuscripts, images, and multimedia on genomic, chemical, toxicological, and environmental data, as well as drug information, clinical trial results, health data standards, software, and consumer health information. The scope and depth of this collection has solidified the NLM’s reputation as a leader in computational health informatics. 

Importantly, this collection is also open to the public in both physical and digital formats. As a result, the NLM’s services are among the most visited websites hosted by the U.S. federal government. 

Steven Sherry, PhD, acting director of the NIH.

The NLM is made up of six different divisions. The Division of Library Operations (LO) in particular is responsible for acquisition, organization, and preservation of the NLM collection. It contains a huge variety of biomedical literature, such as the History of Medicine, which includes historical materials spanning the 11th to 21st centuries. Additionally, the LO creates controlled vocabularies and classification schemes for medical libraries, such as the MeSH, UMLS, and RxNorm. 

The remaining divisions either support or contribute to this collection. For example, the Intramural Research Program is responsible for conducting biomedical and data science research. The Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications (LHNCBC) is likewise responsible for improving health through advancing health data science and informatics research. The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) specializes as a national resource for molecular biology information; it contains datasets on the complete genetic material for over three million types of cells. The Office of Computer and Communication Systems (OCCS) is responsible for providing information technology support for the NLM. Finally, the Extramural Programs Division offers grants to outside organizations and individuals pursuing biomedical informatics and data science research.

Entrance to the NIH, the parent organization of which the NLM is a part. 

While the NLM has undergone many name and organizational changes over the years, it is currently a major component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Consequently, it has been hugely impacted by the severe funding cuts and bureaucratic restrictions introduced by the Trump administration at the beginning of 2025. Among these have been a hiring freeze, a cut of grant funding, and an indefinite travel ban, each of which has resulted in a cascade of delayed meetings, biomedical research, and professional growth for individual scholars. While many of these changes were initially temporary, the Supreme Court upheld the cancellation of the NIH’s grants on August 22, ensuring that their legacy will be long-lived. 

At this point, it is impossible to know what the specific impact of this interference will be. However, there is no doubt that it will be massive. A loss of grant funding may affect certain divisions of the NLM sooner than others, but it is also indicative of more challenges to come. As a result, it’s difficult to say how much of the NLM will even be available in the future. This makes it all the more important to take full advantage of its existing collection as soon as possible.