DOCLINE Celebrates 40 Years

Before we turn the page on our calendars, let’s recognize DOCLINE's 40th anniversary this year, and celebrate four decades of cooperation, problem-solving, and shared purpose among health sciences libraries. What began as a pioneering system has evolved into a trusted network powered by the dedication of its users who trust NLM, and NIH, for providing important biomedical information for important decisions in research and healthcare.

DOCLINE is the National Library of Medicine's interlibrary loan (ILL) fully automated request routing system that provides efficient document delivery service among libraries in the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM).  

In 1985, with the input of major medical libraries, NLM built and began to evolve DOCLINE for automatically routing requests for needed items to libraries that held the material (read more in this article). In the early 1990s, over 300 Canadian health sciences libraries also joined the DOCLINE network.

In FY24, the DOCLINE request system fill rate was 92.9% from 523,025 requests.

While multiple interlibrary loan platforms exist, DOCLINE is the only system purpose-built to support the national biomedical information infrastructure. Users of DOCLINE value it for its reliability, equity, and service to public health readiness.

DOCLINE functions as a shared national infrastructure for biomedical knowledge access that provides a single, trusted backbone connecting thousands of health sciences libraries. It enables standardized, predictable workflows across institutions, and reduces systemic friction and duplication that arise from fragmented platforms. 

DOCLINE ensures equity of access and guarantees that small, rural, and unaffiliated libraries have equal access to health information. Libraries can participate without dependence on regional wealth or vendor pricing. In other words, DOCLINE is a national safety net for clinicians, researchers, and patients to obtain biomedical information at the time of need. DOCLINE has repeatedly demonstrated value during public health emergencies, hospital surges, and rapidly changing clinical information needs.

Beginning in September 2025, DOCLINE began further development to become NLM’s ILL fulfillment system (which receives about 300 request per day), in addition to being a request routing system. As a trusted public resource which builds trust in the NLM and the NIH, we and many libraries and their communities thank DOCLINE for 40 years of keeping biomedical and health information moving to biomedical researchers and practitioners who need it.

Learn more about DOCLINE from this Musings from the Mezzanine post on the occasion of DOCLINE’s 35^th anniversary.