A Guide to the Human Genome Project: Technologies, People, and Institutions

There are many scientific reports and full-length books dealing with the Human Genome Project in all its facets; this simple, concise guide is intended for those who need a broad overview and a quick reference. The information presented here is drawn from such journals as Cell, FASEB Journal, and Science; from official publications, in particular Human Genome News, the Office of Technology Assessment\u27s Mapping Our Genes, and the Department of Energy\u27s program reports; and from several secondary sources, including the prepublication draft of Gene Quest, by Robert Mullan Cook-Deegan, an insider\u27s historical account, and the exploration of techniques in Exons, Introns, and Talking Genes, by Christopher Wills. The report focuses almost entirely on the genome project in the United States. We have shortened and simplified whenever possibly, providing citations and a bibliography for those who would like more detailed information. We begin by exploring the origins of the genome project and the questions and criticisms it has provoked in the scientific community. Then we explore important techniques; the isntitutions connected with the prokect, including designated genome centers, important suppliers of resources, and corporations; systems of communication; and the ethical, legal, and social issues raised by the project. After two appendixes—lists of key personnel and of the disease associated with each chromosome—the report closes with a bibliography, a glossary (including a list of acronyms), and a timeline

An historical overview of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, 1985–2015

The National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM), established as the Regional Medical Library Program in 1965, has a rich and remarkable history. The network’s first twenty years were documented in a detailed 1987 history by Alison Bunting, AHIP, FMLA. This article traces the major trends in the network’s development since then: reconceiving the Regional Medical Library staff as a “field force” for developing, marketing, and distributing a growing number of National Library of Medicine (NLM) products and services; subsequent expansion of outreach to health professionals who are unaffiliated with academic medical centers, particularly those in public health; the advent of the Internet during the 1990s, which brought the migration of NLM and NNLM resources and services to the World Wide Web, and a mandate to encourage and facilitate Internet connectivity in the network; and the further expansion of the NLM and NNLM mission to include providing consumer health resources to satisfy growing public demand. The concluding section discusses the many challenges that NNLM staff faced as they transformed the network from a system that served mainly academic medical researchers to a larger, denser organization that offers health information resources to everyone.  This article has been approved for the Medical Library Association’s Independent Reading Program