page_title: Library of the Surgeon General's Office
section_title: The 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Library of the Surgeon General's Office / History / The 20th century
caption_attribution_description: English: A handwritten subject card from the Library’s old card catalog recalls the precomputer days when information had to be created, classified, and sorted by hand.
context_page_description: The Library of the Surgeon General's Office, later called the Army Medical Library, was the institutional medical literature repository of the U.S. Army Surgeon General from 1836 to 1956 when it was transformed into the National Library of Medicine.
context_section_description: In 1922, the library was renamed the "Army Medical Library" (AML). In 1927, using funds from the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, Index Medicus merged with the Quarterly Cumulative Index forming the Quarterly Cumulative Index Medicus. From 1937 until 1942, the library ran a program, "Medicofilm," which provided microfilm access to medical literature to patrons. In 1941 the library published The Current List of Medical Literature a "rapid finding aid" to all current articles and microfilm copies in the library's possession.
   
  The AML administration opposed a proposed reorganization and created the Association of Honorary Consultants to the Army Medical Library as a lobbying group to keep the facility within the U.S. Army. Chauncey Leake headed the group and important contributions were made by Michael DeBakey, Joseph McNinch and Harold W. Jones. A transfer to the Public Health Service (PHS) was strongly opposed, with one alternative being incorporation under the Smithsonian Institution. In 1952, the facility was renamed the "Armed Forces Medical Library".
  On 13 March 1956, Senators Lister Hill and John F. Kennedy submitted Bill S.3430 to Congress, which promoted "the progress of medicine and advanced national health and welfare by creating the National Library of Medicine". On 3 August 1956 President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the legislation which transformed the "Armed Forces Medical Library" into the "National Library of Medicine". The Library collection was thus transferred from the control of the United States Department of Defense to that of the PHS of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
  Several collections of the library's papers are held at the National Library of Medicine.
caption: A handwritten subject card from the Library's old card catalog recalls the precomputer days when information had to be created, classified, and sorted by hand. HMD Prints & Photos, PP059772.7.
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