Skip Navigation Bar

Fact Sheet
Information Resources on NLM's Web Site


The home page of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), the world's largest medical library and the creator of MEDLINE®, provides information about Library programs; services; links to NLM online services; specialized NLM Web databases; and multimedia features such as the Visible Human Project® and Profiles in ScienceTM. The following lists the major NLM electronic information resources. More information is available on NLM's Home Page at: //www.nlm.nih.gov

PubMed® - Provides access, free of charge, to the MEDLINE database containing more than 15 million references to articles published in 5000 journals in the fields of medicine and the life sciences. PubMed has an easy-to-use search interface, a "related articles" feature, access to publisher and other web sites for the full-text of articles, a citation matching tool for citation verification, a custom interface for doing clinical searches with built-in methodology filters, and links to molecular biology databases. A MeSH® database is also available for helping create and refine a search. Available at: //www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query

MedlinePlus® - NLM's web site for quality, up-to-date, and totally private (no registration required) consumer health information. Health Topics are the core of MedlinePlus. The Health Topics link to health information from NIH and other sources; clinical trials; and relevant MEDLINE searches. Also included are: drug information from the U.S. Pharmacopeia; the adam.com medical encyclopedia; dictionaries for easy-to-read medical definitions; directories of libraries, hospitals, doctors/dentists and other health professionals and facilities; and the Publications on the web section for textbooks, newsletters, and health news sources. Available at: MedlinePlus, (//medlineplus.gov/)

LocatorPlus - NLM's online catalog providing information about the Library's holdings of monographs, journals, and audiovisuals. Available at: //locatorplus.gov

ClinicalTrials.gov - Provides patients, family members, health care professionals, and members of the public easy access to information on clinical research studies for a wide range of diseases and conditions. It currently contains over 23,000 clinical studies sponsored primarily by NIH. Abstracts of the Clinical Study Protocols include a summary of the purpose of the study, recruiting status, criteria for patient participation, location of the trial, and specific contact information. Available at: ClinicalTrials.gov (//clinicaltrials.gov/)

TOXNET® - An integrated collection of toxicology and environmental health databases, including the Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB, focusing on the toxicology of potentially hazardous chemicals), TOXLINE (containing references to the world's toxicology literature), and ChemIDplus (a chemical dictionary and structure database). TOXNET is available at //toxnet.nlm.nih.gov

Haz-Map -  Links jobs and hazardous tasks with occupational diseases and their symptoms. It is part of the National Library of Medicine's (NLM) TOXNET system. Haz-Map helps to identify the potential for exposure to chemicals and biological agents related to industrial processes and other activities such as hobbies. Haz-Map is available at //hazmap.nlm.nih.gov

Tox Town -  An interactive guide to toxic chemicals in everyday locations, providing information about how the environment can impact human health, non-technical descriptions of chemicals, links to chemical information, and Internet resources on environmental health topics. It uses color, graphics, sounds and animation. It is a companion to the extensive information in the TOXNET collection of databases. Tox Town is available at //toxtown.nlm.nih.gov. Tox Town also offers some resources in Spanish at //toxtown.nlm.nih.gov/espanol  

Loansome Doc - A feature available for placing an electronic order for a full-text copy of documents found in MEDLINE. Registration is required and local fees may apply. More information is available at: //www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/loansome_doc.html

Images from the History of Medicine is a database of nearly 60,000 portraits, photographs, fine prints, caricatures, genre scenes, and graphic art that illustrate the social and historical aspects of medicine from the Middle Ages to the present. Subjects range from medieval astrology to 19th century slum conditions to World War I hospitals to the international fight against drug abuse and AIDS. Available at:  https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/ihm/index.html 

Profiles in Science provides access to the archival collections of pioneering biomedical scientists of the 20th century. The collections have been donated to NLM and contain published and unpublished items, including books, journal volumes, pamphlets, diaries, letters, manuscripts, photographs, audiotapes, video clips, and other materials. Available at: //www.profiles.nlm.nih.gov

Specialized NLM Servers

The Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications (LHNCBC) server (//lhncbc.nlm.nih.gov/) provides information about Center research projects, including digital library research, automated indexing techniques, thesaurus research, natural language processing, image processing, database design, expert systems, and computer-based learning. The site links to Internet Grateful Med, Genetics Home Reference, Turning the Pages Online, HSTAT, Profiles in Science, the Unified Medical Language System Knowledge Source Server, the Visible Human data, and more.

The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) server (//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) provides access to GenBank®, an international DNA sequence database produced, maintained, and distributed by NCBI. Thirty-plus related molecular biology databases and analysis services developed by NCBI are also available. These include resources for DNA and protein sequences, mapping information, 3-D structure data, gene expression information, the biomedical literature, and services related specifically to the tracking and consolidation of data from the Human Genome Project. Major services include Entrez, BLAST, Gene Map of the Human Genome, Molecular Modelling Database, OMIM, PubMed, and PubMed Central.

The Division of Specialized Information Services (SIS) web site (//sis.nlm.nih.gov/) includes links to databases, tutorials, publications, selected external resources, and access to DIRLINE®  (//dirline.nlm.nih.gov/), a directory of organizations and other resources in health and biomedicine. The toxicology/environmental (TEHIP) (//sis.nlm.nih.gov/Tox/ToxMain.html) health site provides links to resources such as TOXNET and its databases, to Haz-Map, a database on hazardous chemicals and occupational diseases, to self-guided tutorials (//sis.nlm.nih.gov/Tox/ToxTutor.html) on toxicology, and to evaluated links to Internet resources (//sis.nlm.nih.gov/Tox/ToxSpecial.html) on current issues such as chemical warfare agents and environmental justice. TOXMAP uses U.S. maps to show the site of certain toxic chemicals in the environment. The HIV/AIDS site (//sis.nlm.nih.gov/HIV/HIVMain.html) provides information on HIV/AIDS treatment, drugs, clinical trials, journal articles, books, audiovisuals, and related web links. AIDSinfo (//aidsinfo.nih.gov/) provides treatment guidelines, clinical trials, drug, and vaccine information. Arctic Health (//arctichealth.nlm.nih.gov/) belongs to a series of targeted web sites designed to increase public awareness of the health concerns of diverse segments of the U.S. population. WISER (Wireless System for Emergency Responders) assists first responders in hazardous materials incidents.

HSTAT

HSTAT (Health Services/Technology Assessment Text) (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books?term="hstatcollect"[Filter]) is a free, electronic resource that provides access to the full text of clinical practice guidelines, technology assessments, and other documents useful in health care decision making.

Anonymous ftp servers

NLM distributes many publications and software programs via anonymous ftp (ftp://nlmpubs.nlm.nih.gov/). The publications server provides documents in several formats.

NCBI also has an anonymous ftp site (ftp://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/). Through this service, NCBI makes available GenBank and other molecular biology databases, submission software, Entrez software, and documentation.

For further information, contact NLM program areas by using the NLM Customer Service E-Mail Form: Contact NLM

For More Information:


Call the NLM Toll Free Number:
1-888-FINDNLM
(1-888-346-3656)
Web site: www.nlm.nih.gov

OR

Call your Regional Library:
1-800-338-7657
Web site for National Network of Libraries of Medicine: www.nnlm.nlm.nih.gov


A complete list of NLM Fact Sheets is available at:
(alphabetical list) http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/factsheets.html
(subject list): http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/factsubj.html

Or write to:

FACT SHEETS
Office of Communications and Public Liaison
National Library of Medicine
8600 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, Maryland 20894

Phone: (301) 496-6308
Fax: (301) 496-4450
email: publicinfo@nlm.nih.gov