National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Library of Medicine to Partner on Research, Education, and Career Initiatives

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) today announced a new collaboration with the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to develop initiatives that bring together scholars, scientists, librarians, doctors and cultural heritage professionals from the humanities and biomedical communities in order to share expertise and develop new research agendas.

Representatives from the NLM and NEH signed a memorandum of understanding that outlines their partnership and recognizes their shared interest in advancing health and medical education, training and information dissemination for research, teaching and learning by the humanities and biomedical communities.

As initial efforts, the partners will work together to:

• Explore areas of mutual interest for research, particularly in the fields of digital humanities and history of medicine;

• Develop and participate in curricula and courses, training and internship opportunities, and other educational initiatives; and

• Develop initiatives to increase access to careers in medicine and health, with a particular interest in reaching students who are under-represented in the fields

About the partner institutions:

The National Endowment for the Humanities is an executive-branch, independent grant-making agency of the United States of America dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities and in those social sciences that use humanistic methods. NEH accomplishes this mission by providing grants for high-quality humanities projects to cultural institutions, such as museums, archives, libraries, colleges, universities, public television and radio stations, and to individual scholars.

Since its founding in 1836, the National Library of Medicine has played a pivotal role in translating biomedical research into practice. NLM, part of the National Institutes of Health, is the world’s largest medical library with more than 17 million items in its collection. A leader in information innovation, it is the developer of electronic information services used by scientists, health professionals and the public around the world. NLM makes its information services known and available with the help of the National Network of Libraries ofMedicine, which consists of 5,600 member institutions, including eight Regional Medical Libraries. NLM conducts and supports research that applies computer and information science to meet the information needs of clinicians, public health administrators, biomedical researchers and consumers.