Happy 35th Birthday, MEDLINE®!
I usually try to avoid posting on topics that other bloggers on medical librarianship have covered, but it seems wrong not to mention this.
Today is MEDLINE’s 35th anniversary, and this item from the NLM Technical Bulletin compares “MEDLINE and what was happening in 1971 with events today.”
When people kvetch about federal income taxes, I (after griping along with them) sometimes mention MEDLINE, PubMed, and the NLM as wonderful uses for my tax dollars.
When the new version of Dr. Who came out a couple years ago (perhaps only Michael Sauers will appreciate the comparison), I joined a discussion board about the new series that was populated mostly with citizens of Great Britain. Halfway through the season and loving it, I decided to take a moment to thank the people of Great Britain for maintaining the BBC with their tax dollars to the benefit of anglophones worldwide. Many received this thank-you with surprised (and gracious) responses- most hadn’t ever considered that the taxes they paid benefited the entire English-speaking world.
Along the same lines, the existence of MEDLINE, its maintenance, and its free availability of through PubMed are paid for by citizens of the United States, and benefit the entire world. In these politically difficult times, it is great to have the NLM making me so very proud of something my government does with my tax dollars.
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