[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 6]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 7993]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO SHELDON KOTZIN

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, May 30, 2012

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 
distinguished service of a dedicated federal employee--Sheldon Kotzin, 
the Associate Director for Library Operations at the National Library 
of Medicine (NLM), a component of the National Institutes of Health 
(NIH). For the past 43 years, Mr. Kotzin has provided outstanding 
service to NLM, the largest medical library in the world, a hub of 
national and international scientific medical communication, and a 
respected leader in information innovation. When he retires on June 29, 
2012, Mr. Kotzin will have left his imprint not only on NLM but on 
generations of its employees, librarians, users and stakeholders, 
information professionals in the United States and around the globe, 
journal publishers, and countless others whom he has advised, assisted, 
and mentored, and with whom he has collaborated.
  After earning his Master of Library Science degree from Indiana 
University in 1968, Mr. Kotzin came to NLM as a Library Associate. Over 
the years, he has served as Head of the Catalog Maintenance Unit in the 
Technical Services Division; Head of the Collection Access Section in 
the Public Services Division (then Loan and Stack); and Coordinator of 
the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (then the Regional 
Medical Library Network). Mr. Kotzin became Chief of the Bibliographic 
Services Division in 1981 and assumed his post as Associate Director 
for Library Operations in 2006.
  Since 1998, Mr. Kotzin has been Executive Editor of the widely-used 
MEDLINE database, which provides the bibliographic information of 
esteemed international biomedical journals from around the world, and 
Administrator of the Literature Selection Technical Review Committee, 
the body that reviews and recommends journals for indexing in MEDLINE. 
In addition, Mr. Kotzin served as NLM's representative to the 
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, a group of clinical 
journal editors that establishes the standards for the submission of 
journal articles and comments on ethical principles related to 
publication in biomedical journals. Mr. Kotzin has chaired the Janet 
Doe Lecture Jury and the Joseph Leiter Lectureship Committee for the 
Medical Library Association, which elected him a Fellow in 2007.
  Mr. Kotzin's work has had an enormous influence on journal 
publishers, NLM users, and countless others. His leadership and 
tireless efforts have had a significant impact on the development of 
federal information policies that ensure broad public access to 
electronic government health information resources.
  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to represent Sheldon Kotzin in the U.S. 
Congress and ask my colleagues to join me in extending to him our 
gratitude and appreciation for his years of service to our country and 
his contributions to international scientific medical communication.

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