[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 163 (Friday, August 21, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 51724-51725]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-18346]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

National Institutes of Health


Request for Information, Strategic Opportunities and Challenges 
for the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health

AGENCY: National Institutes of Health, Health and Human Services (HHS).

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to 
solicit public comment to assist and guide the National Library of 
Medicine (NLM) in identifying new, and updating ongoing, efforts to 
implement the NLM Strategic Plan 2017-2027: A Platform for Biomedical 
Discovery and Data-Powered Health.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before (5:00 p.m. ET) October 
19, 2020 to ensure consideration.

ADDRESSES: Comments to this RFI must be submitted electronically using 
the web-based form at: https://rfi.grants.nih.gov/?s=5f15a5e3104800009c001082.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Leigh Samsel, MS, NLM Planning and 
Evaluation Officer, Office of Strategic Initiatives, National Library 
of Medicine, 8600 Rockville Pike, Building 38, Rm 2S-14, Bethesda, MD 
20894, [email protected], 301-451-0162. Inquiries should be sent to 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

    The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is one of the 27 Institutes 
and Centers of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the world's 
largest biomedical library. Like other NIH Institutes and Centers, NLM 
supports and conducts research and research training relevant to its 
mission; for NLM, this includes information science, informatics, data 
analytics, and data science to advance computational biology and 
computational health science. Research is conducted intramurally in the 
NLM National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and Lister 
Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications (LHNCBC) and is 
supported extramurally through the Division of Extramural Programs.
    As a national library, NLM is steward of a world-renowned 
collection of medical materials spanning ten centuries and originating 
from nearly every part of the globe, and it supports, promotes, and 
advances open science and scholarship through development and 
stewardship of integrated standards, tools, platforms, practices, 
policies, and resources that make biomedical information (including 
literature, research data, software tools, etc.) findable, accessible, 
interoperable, and reusable to the world. Library functions are 
conducted by the Division of Library Operations, and are also 
integrated with the world-class digital platforms, resources, assets, 
and expertise of NCBI and LHNCBC.
    This notice is in accordance with the 21st Century Cures Act, NIH 
Institutes are required to regularly update their strategic plans. The 
current NLM Strategic Plan for 2017--2027: A Platform for Biomedical 
Discovery and Data-Powered Health, was written in 2016 with input from 
many diverse stakeholder communities. Since then, many dozens of 
initiatives, projects, and other activities have been conducted to 
address the objectives of the Plan. Also, since then, significant 
changes have taken place in NLM mission-space in terms of science, 
technology, public health, library functions, scholarly communication, 
stakeholder perspectives, policies, workforce, and more. These include 
an urgent focus on understanding a novel coronavirus and the disease it 
causes; an increased prominence of artificial intelligence in 
biomedical research and library functions; new policies reflecting the 
embrace of open science by governments, funders, publishers, 
scientists, and the public at large; issuance of the NIH Strategic Plan 
for Data Science; an accelerating use of social media and preprints by 
researchers to disseminate their findings; and an increasing need for 
data-savvy scientists and a data-ready public to make the most of 
digital assets to improve biomedical understanding and health.

Information Requested

    NLM is requesting public comment on major opportunities or 
challenges relevant to the NLM mission that have arisen or become more 
important in the last five years and that have implications for the 
future of NLM in its capacity both as an institution conducting and 
supporting research and as a national library providing biomedical 
information products, services, training, capacity-building, and other 
resources to the world. This information will be used to guide NLM's 
continuing implementation of its strategic plan. Response to this RFI 
is voluntary. Respondents are free to address any or all topics listed 
below and are encouraged for each topic

[[Page 51725]]

addressed to describe the opportunity or challenge and how NLM might 
address it.
    1. Major opportunities or challenges that have emerged over the 
last five years and that have implications for the future of NLM in the 
area of:
    a. Science (including clinical health sciences, biomedical science, 
information science, informatics, data analytics, data science, etc.)
    b. Technology (including biotechnology, platforms, hardware, 
software, algorithms, processes, systems, etc.)
    c. Public health, consumer health, and outreach (including epidemic 
disease surveillance, culturally competent engagement, optimizing the 
experience of resource users, etc.)
    d. Library functions (including collection development, access, 
preservation, indexing, library metadata, service agreements with other 
libraries, etc.)
    e. Modes of scholarly communication (including researchers' use of 
social media, preprints, living papers, changes in the roles and 
practices of publishers, data-driven approaches to studying historical 
medical texts, images, and datasets, etc.)
    f. Perspectives, practices, and policies (including those related 
to open science, the need for diversity, equity, and inclusion in 
research, algorithmic bias, expectations of reproducibility of 
research, etc.)
    g. Workforce needs (including data science competencies, effective 
strategies for recruitment and retention of underrepresented 
minorities, opportunities for training and continuing education for 
middle- and late-career researchers and librarians, etc.)
    2. Major opportunities or challenges that have emerged in the last 
five years and that have implications for the future of NLM in other 
areas or areas not well captured above.
    3. Opportunities or challenges on the horizon over the next five 
years that fall within the purview of the NLM's mission.

Submitting a Response

    For consideration, your comments must be received on or before 
(5:00 p.m. ET) October 19, 2020 to ensure consideration. Please 
include: (1) The name, (2) organizational affiliation of the commenter, 
and (3) the role the commenter plays at that organization (e.g., 
librarian, healthcare provider, scientist, student, etc.). Comments to 
this RFI must be submitted electronically using the web-based form at: 
https://rfi.grants.nih.gov/?s=5f15a5e3104800009c001082.
    NLM will use the information submitted in response to this RFI at 
its discretion and will neither provide responses to nor acknowledge 
receipt of the submissions. The information provided will be analyzed 
and may be shared publicly or appear in reports without the name or 
affiliation of the commenter. No proprietary, classified, confidential, 
or sensitive information should be included in your response. The 
Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical 
information in any resultant summaries of the state-of-the-science or 
solicitation(s). This RFI is for information and planning purposes only 
and shall not be construed as a solicitation, grant, or cooperative 
agreement, or as an obligation on the part of the Federal Government, 
the NIH, or individual NIH Institutes and Centers to provide support 
for any ideas identified in response to it.
    The Government will not pay for the preparation of any information 
submitted or for the Government's use of such information. No basis for 
claims against the U.S. Government shall arise as a result of a 
response to this request for information or from the Government's use 
of such information.

    Dated: August 17, 2020.
Todd D. Danielson,
Associate Director for Administrative Management and Executive Officer, 
National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.
[FR Doc. 2020-18346 Filed 8-20-20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4140-01-P