Free Medline, and PubMED - announcement

[Bob Mehnert]

NIH Press Release
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
National Library of Medicine
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE
Thursday, June 26, 1997
Bob Mehnert / Kathy Gardner
(301) 496-6308

   Vice President Gore to Launch Free Access to World's Largest Source
   of Published Medical Information on World Wide Web Consumers and
   Health Professionals Worldwide to Have Fingertip Access to
   Cutting-Edge Research
   (Bethesda, MD -- June 26, 1997)

   -- The National Library of Medicine, a part of the National
   Institutes of Health, will today launch a new service to provide all
   Americans free access to MEDLINE -- the world's most extensive
   collection of published medical information -- over the World Wide
   Web.

   Prior to this announcement, users have had to register and pay to
   search MEDLINE and other NLM databases. This free service will be
   demonstrated by Vice President Albert Gore at a press briefing to be
   hosted by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) on Thursday, June 26, 1997 at
   10:30 a.m. in Room 192 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, United
   States Senate. In announcing the new free service, Health and Human
   Services Secretary Donna Shalala said, "American citizens now have at
   their fingertips both the scientific information gathered by the
   National Library of Medicine, as represented in MEDLINE, and the
   extensive consumer health information in Healthfinder, the service
   for the public that we announced in April. We are committed to using
   the new technology, including the World Wide Web and the Internet, to
   provide health information to the public."

   The web address for the National Library of Medicine is:

           http://www.nlm.nih.gov.

   On June 26, this site will display free MEDLINE.

   Press will also be invited to view a demonstration of "PubMed" -- a
   new free NLM online service that will allow the public to establish
   direct web links between MEDLINE abstracts and the publishers of the
   full- text articles. This new service is the result of a
   collaboration between the NLM and major science publishers such as
   the New England Journal of Medicine, Science, Journal of Biological
   Chemistry, and The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.