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United States National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health
FOREWORD
The National Library of Medicine has a very successful 15-year history of long range planning. In 1985, the NLM Board of Regents undertook to develop a 20-year Long Range Plan to guide the Library in using its human, physical, and financial resources to fulfill its mission. Supplemental reports in the years following addressed specific topical areas, such as outreach to underserved health professionals and electronic imaging, that required a fresh look due to dramatic changes in the social and technological landscape in which the NLM operates. The Library’s planning efforts have led to major new programs—such as Outreach, the Visible Human, and Biotechnology Information. They have guided the Library in resource allocation and program direction. Of course, the Board recognizes that as time passes, the Library must maintain the flexibility to be opportunistic and take advantage of changing circumstances.

In 1999, the Board of Regents asked the Director to prepare a new Long Range Plan for the Library for the next five years. The Track Record, prepared as a first step in this process, summarized these past planning efforts, and noted specifically those recommendations that have been substantially accomplished, and those that require additional attention and/or a re-direction of program efforts. The Long Range Plan for 2000-2005, reaching as it does for a time horizon of five years hence, brings closure to the 20-year cycle begun earlier. “Long range”? Perhaps not in a literal sense, but perhaps long and realistic enough in today’s dramatically changing information technology environment, in which we encounter also a “new biology” that is fundamentally recasting the biomedical research process, and a health care delivery system that is often driven by seriously conflicting demand characteristics.

One can speculate 10 years out on what the future may bring. Such vision statements have value in stimulating thinking, and they have played a useful role in the discussions of our planning panel advisors, the NLM staff, and members of the Board of Regents in the course of developing the present Plan. We offer some of these “visionary scenarios” for the next 10 years in Appendix 1.

As with any strategic plan, it is sensible to allow for mid-course corrections as events unfold. The Board wholeheartedly endorses this Long Range Plan and is grateful to the Director and the staff of NLM for preparing it.

Enriqueta C. Bond, Ph.D.
President, Burroughs Wellcome Fund
Chair, NLM Board of Regents

 

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Last updated: 18 March 2001
First published: 18 March 2001
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