42 U.S.C. § 286 — National Library of Medicine

(a) Purpose and establishment. This section creates the National Library of Medicine. Its job is to help medicine and related sciences move forward, and to spread scientific and medical information that matters to public health. (b) Functions. Subject to subsection (d), the Secretary runs the Library and must: (1) collect and preserve books, magazines, pictures, films, recordings, and other materials about medicine; (2) organize those materials with catalogs, indexes, and bibliographies; (3) publish and share those catalogs, indexes, and bibliographies; (4) make Library materials available through loans, copies, or other means the Secretary decides fit; (5) provide help with research and reference questions; (6) advertise these services so people know about them; (7) promote computers and telecommunications so health professionals — including those in rural areas — can get biomedical information more easily for care and research; and (8) do other things the Secretary decides are appropriate, as long as the Library's resources allow. (c) Exchange, destruction, or disposal of materials not needed. The Secretary may trade, destroy, or otherwise get rid of books, periodicals, films, and other materials the Library no longer needs to keep. (d) Availability of publications, materials, facilities, or services; prescription of rules. After getting advice from the Board of Regents, the Secretary may write rules for how the Library will: (A) provide copies of its publications or materials, (B) make its research facilities available, or (C) make its reference and other services available, to public and private groups and individuals. These rules may offer such things (A) free, as a public service; (B) through a loan, exchange, or fee; or (C) under contract with a public or nonprofit group. (e) Regional medical libraries; establishment. The Secretary, advised by the Board of Regents, may set up a regional medical library as a branch of the Library if three things are all true: (1) no adequate regional medical library already serves that area; (2) under the criteria used for section 286b–6, that area needs one; and (3) no existing medical library in that area could, with financial help under section 286b–6, feasibly grow into an adequate regional library. (f) Acceptance and administration of gifts; memorials. The Library may accept and manage gifts under the same rules as section 238 of this title. The Board of Regents recommends to the Secretary how the Library should honor donors with suitable memorials. (g) "Medicine" and "medical" defined. In this part of the law — except in section 286a — "medicine" and "medical" cover preventive and therapeutic medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, hospital care, nursing, public health, the basic sciences tied to those fields, and other related study, research, or activity.