The Medical Library Association (MLA) has responded to the National Library of Medicine's Request for Information (RFI) on Evolving the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM). The association's comments recommend that NLM and NNLM
- continue developing and funding initiatives that expand librarian's data science knowledge and expertise;
- partnerships and memberships continue to include hospitals and clinical organizations;
- engage hospital libraries and encourage hospitals to have libraries to promote a conduit to efficient information dissemination and training;
- consider addressing the relationship between humans and animals (One Health), and within that context, veterinarians who often have no information resources;
- reintroduce the original Train the Trainer programs to support needs of health sciences librarians new to the profession;
- add a new Data Office and coordinate the education and training component of this office in partnership with MLA; and that
- provide each Regional medical Library with equitable allocation of grant funds to increase the number of outreach opportunities to historically under-represented populations
MLA's comments can be found here.
MLA thanks the following members for their work in developing these comments:
- Sandra Bandy, Chair, Joint MLA/AAHSL Legislative Task Force
- Marianne Burke, AHIP, Data Caucus, Hospital Libraries Caucus, Research Caucus, Translational Sciences Collaboration Caucus
- Julia Esparza, MLA, AHIP, President, MLA
- Heather Moberly, AHIP, Veterinary Medical and Animal Health Librarians Caucus
- Ophelia Morey, Consumer and Patient Health Information Caucus, Health Disparities Caucus, Public Health/Health Administration Caucus, Research Caucus
- Priscilla L. Stephenson, AHIP, Consumer and Patient Health Information Caucus, Federal Libraries Caucus, Hospital Libraries Caucus
- Sarah Wade, AHIP, Nursing and Allied Health Resources Caucus
- Shirley Zhao, Chair, MLA Scholarly Communications Committee, Data Caucus, Medical Informatics Caucus, Research Caucus
