"LOCATORplus is a big step forward for library users," Dr. Lindberg added. For example, users can search by author, subject, title, conference name, keyword and many other specific fields, then e-mail the results to themselves. New receipts of both serial and monograph material are displayed along with information about material that is on order or available electronically. Hotlinks to online journals are available from many records. Direct access to a variety of other resources is available from LOCATORplus including MEDLINE, MEDLINEplus, Images of the History of Medicine, TOXNET, HSTAT, and other U.S. medical library catalogs.

LOCATORplus is part of NLM's new integrated library system (ILS) that is being used for acquisitions, serials control, cataloging, collection management, circulation and preservation. It is the online catalog NLM provides its on-site patrons, and it also serves as the retrieval engine for the Library's cataloging records, replacing existing online access methods, such as Locator, CATLINE, AVLINE and SERLINE. "The Library now has a firm base for its many literature-based operations," said Pamela André, director of the National Agricultural Library and a member of NLM's Board of Regents.

"The system brings together a number of previously disparate databases, along with information formerly available only to staff, using state-of-art information retrieval technology," said librarian Dianne McCutcheon, who coordinated the NLM team that implemented LOCATORplus. "We want librarians, physicians, scientists, scholars, and students to discover the wealth of research materials available to them. In some cases we are the only library in the U.S. to own a book or journal."

Beginning today, NLM's LOCATORplus can be found at: www.nlm.nih.gov/locatorplus/. The site is updated daily.

The National Library of Medicine, a part of the National Institutes of Health, has more than 5.3 million books, journals, artworks, and other materials in its collection.