From the Introduction to the Plan by the Director of NLM, Patricia Flatley Brennan, RN, PhD:
Over 750 NLM staff members, hundreds of national and international librarians, informatics professionals, biomedical scientists, data scientists, clinicians, public health specialists, and other stakeholders advised us as we charted a pathway towards our third century, and for this I am grateful. We consider the environment around us:
We consider the environment around us:
• First and foremost is the promise of data-driven discovery. Data-driven discovery requires sophisticated library and information science to open the door to thrilling new prospects for improving the public health, as well as informatics and data science to deliver insights and solutions.
• Second, clinical care is rapidly migrating from hospital to home. This migration challenges NLM to reach into these places where health occurs, not just where care is delivered, which are less formal and less well controlled.
• Third, the spirit of open science suffuses the discovery landscape. Governmental and scientific forces are aligning under a philosophy that innovation is accelerated if data flow freely, that the results of government sponsored research should be open to the public as quickly as possible, and that linking scientists, citizens, and industry yields social benefits.
• Fourth, the very nature of libraries is changing. Libraries continue to be essential places for knowledge repositories and community gathering, yet the advent of self-directed search, e-publishing and consolidation of hospital library services challenges librarians and libraries to devise new services and solutions.
From the Executive Summary:
To become a platform for biomedical discovery and data-powered health, NLM must collect and integrate an expanding set of information resources and enable them to be analyzed by tools emerging from the informatics and data science research front. It must establish pathways for dissemination and engagement across a broad range of users to drive information to the right place at the right time. It must expand training initiatives for informatics and data science research, and for technical support that will drive and shape the future of biomedical discovery. It must accelerate its investments in research in informatics and data science and align its research, development, and resource priorities toward achieving three goals, with an organizational structure that optimizes implementation . Source: A Platform for Biomedical Discovery and Data-Powered Health: National Library of Medicine Strategic Plan 2017-2027
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
Over 750 NLM staff members, hundreds of national and international librarians, informatics professionals, biomedical scientists, data scientists, clinicians, public health specialists, and other stakeholders advised us as we charted a pathway towards our third century, and for this I am grateful. We consider the environment around us:
