The mission of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM®) is to advance the progress of medicine and improve the public health by providing all U.S. health professionals equal access to biomedical information and by improving the public's access to information to enable them to make informed decisions about their health. The Program is coordinated by the National Library of Medicine and carried out through a nationwide network of health science libraries, public Libraries, and information centers.

Under contract with NLM, Regional Medical Libraries continue their efforts strengthen the Network to reach under served health professionals in rural and inner city areas, public health professionals, and special populations. NN/LM members work with a variety of intermediaries, including health care providers, public health professionals, public librarians, educators, community organizations, health advocacy groups, faith-based organizations, and self-help groups, to reach members of the public.

The Regional Medical Library for the New England Region is the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts. The New England Region of 565 members includes 16 Resource Libraries, 391 hospital and academic libraries, and 156 public libraries.

The University of Massachusetts Medical School’s Lamar Soutter Library, as the National Network of Libraries of Medicine New England Region (NER) develops mission-responsive programs built upon the following principles:

• A participatory approach to reformulating the Regional Advisory Council that reflects upon the dynamic forces in health care to develop programs that work towards changing the role and perceptions of the health information provider
• Leveraging the limited resources of Network members, library associations, health care agencies, and other collaborators to provide a continuum of activities that achieve common programmatic goals
• A theme-based funding structure for projects that employ innovative practices in outreach that address our thematic focused areas: Escience, Health Information Technology/Electronic Medical Record; Healthcare Workforce; Health Literacy; and Healthy Communities
• A flexible design of training opportunities that employ in-person and distance-based instructional sessions for librarians, health care professionals, and consumers
• Continuous monitoring, tracking, and evaluation of progress using the logic model and process map methodologies that help measure successful goals towards meeting outcomes.

The Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT serves as the National Library of Medicine Training Center (formerly known as the National Training Center and Clearinghouse) for the nation, providing training on NLM systems throughout the U.S.

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1. The existing network structure will continue to be enhanced to include multi-type libraries, especially public libraries and community college libraries that support health-related collections;

2. Health professionals, consumers, public librarians, and other representatives from the user groups served by NER will be involved in the planning and advisory components of the Regional Network;

3. A decentralized approach to planning, utilizing committees and working groups, involving as many network members as possible, from all levels of the Regional Network will be employed;

4. A well-designed, multi-faceted approach to creating meaningful linkages between unaffiliated health professionals, consumers, community-based organizations, public health departments and libraries will be developed;

5. Subcontracts and awards for outreach projects with health sciences libraries partnered with public health departments, public libraries and community-based organizations will be implemented in order to distribute funding and accomplish mission-goals objectives throughout the region;

6. Electronic methods of document delivery and other information services will be encouraged in order to demonstrate the benefits of information technology through statewide projects involving small hospital libraries and larger academic libraries using a variety of technologies;

7. The continuing education and training of health care providers, health sciences librarians, and public librarians will be supported by designing and offering a variety of courses that support NLM resources and products.

For more information about specific network programs in the New England Region, call the Regional Medical Library at 1-800-338-7657.