[Biomedical information networks: the experience of the United States National Library of Medicine].

A rapid and intensive flow of biomedical information is perceived increasingly as a requirement for the advancement of research, professional training, and the delivery of health services to an ever-growing human population. This article examines the concept of a network of information and cooperative services among medical libraries and national, regional and international data banks to maximize the sharing and use of the available resources. The background and record of the National Library of Medicine of the United States, which established the MEDLARS System, are described as a model for guidance. Since the end of the 19th century, when J. S. Billings, the foresighted first director of the Library, devised the first system for the indexing of medical literature, new techniques have been introduced step by step to facilitate the dissemination of biomedical information: mechanization and automatization of the placement of requests and data retrieval, telecommunications and satellite links to the fifteen data banks currently accessible to the user by direct communication through MEDLINE. For such a network to operate successfully, there must be a shift from the idea of regional or national benefit to the plane of global cooperation, through which a higher degree of self-sufficiency can be achieved. Also, relations between the various levels of the system must be based on a collaboration in which each entity pursues its own function subject to the character and multifarious scope of the common purposes. The success of BIREME in Latin America is cited as an incentive to developing countries to participate in the use and distribution of vital information through activities based on individual priorities without forgetting that what is important is not ideals and abstractions, but the human being with his needs, problems and real situation.