Press Release: NLM Wins Vice President's Hammer Award

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NLM Wins Vice President's Hammer Award

Award Given to Government Agencies that Show Innovation

(BETHESDA, Md.)-The National Library of Medicine has been awarded the prestigious Hammer Award for a series of radical improvements in its information services, including making its popular MEDLINE database of journal article references and abstracts free and easier for the general public to use.

The Library's Systems Reinvention Team, operating under a relaxed set of administrative strictures, set out to invent a better "mousetrap," and succeeded. They placed more medical information online, improved its format, and created a sophisticated integrated library system that reduced processing time dramatically. According to Team Leader Kent A. Smith, the Library's Deputy Director, the reinvention program involved the efforts of hundreds of Library staff in all divisions. As direct spin-offs of basic reinvention activities, the team also put environmental health and hazardous substance information on the Web, made the Visible Humans available, and introduced "Profiles In Science," a Web-based file containing the laboratory notebooks and personal papers of the some of the 20th century's greatest scientists.

The Team's approach was based on several strategies: the Internet would be used for delivering services; commercially available software would be used whenever practical; industry standards would be adhered to so that NLM's services would interoperate smoothly with other information systems; and, through forms and surveys, NLM's users would have a say in the design of the services they receive.

In the case of MEDLINE, NLM also made one additional improvement: the registration and search fee were removed. In the words of Donald A.B. Lindberg, M.D., the Library's Director, "The increased results in usage were dramatic. Before the systems reinvention, NLM recorded 7 million searches of MEDLINE in one year (FY 1997). The current rate is about 18 million searches every month, or 215 million searches per year."

The Hammer Award is from the Vice President of the United States. He recognizes Government teams who show real innovation either by (1) putting customers first, (2) empowering employees, (3) cutting red tape, or (4) achieving results American citizens care about. The Award is the Vice President's answer to yesterday's government and its $400 hammer. The Hammer Award consists of a $6 hammer, festooned with a ribbon and mounted in an aluminum frame.

The Award was presented to Dr. Lindberg on September 29 at a meeting of the Library's Board of Regents by Tenley E. Albright, M.D., former Chair of the Board. Dr. Albright submitted the Library as a candidate for the Hammer Award.

The National Library of Medicine is a component of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. It is the world's largest medical library with holdings of more than 5 million books, journals, and other materials. Its treasures span the centuries, from the text of an 11th century Islamic medical manuscript to the immense image files of the "Visible Humans." Information about all NLM programs and services is on the World Wide Web at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/.

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Last updated: 29 April 2004
First published: 27 September 1999
Permanence level: Permanent: Stable Content