The NHSIA has announced the launch of an updated version of the National Electronic Library for Health, which will feature a new search engine, news feeds and extra content such as eBooks. The new website, www.library.nhs.uk, will become live on 17 November, and functionality will gradually be transferred from the older NeLH website, nelh.nhs.uk, over the coming year. Its main aim is will be provide a full search of all NHS library documents for clinical decision support. Colin Davies, deputy director of the North West Health Care Libaries Unity, which part-funded the software, said: "We in the North West, like a number of other regions in England, had recognised the need to join up the library collections and information resources within our area, and had begun projects to look at making this possible. “The national single search environment solution will provide a framework that each area can use to join up its local resources, plus it will put our local resources in the same place as national resources provided by the National electronic Library for Health and National Core Content programmes." The collated information, NHS-based news and information sources will include the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), the NHS Centre for Research and Disseminations (CRD), and Health Technology Assessments (HTA). Mental Health eBooks will also be trialled on the new website. These will be provided by National Core Content, which serves healthcare bibliographic databases and journals. The NLH is also aiming to further organise the library service by introducing schemes such as professional development for librarians and co-ordinating which documents are of interest locally, nationally or to specialist communities. Alison Turner, NLH programme manager, said: “The development of the National Library for Health signals an exciting new era for health libraries." The software behind the search engine was supplied by Fretwell Downing Informatics and was funded by the North West Health Care Libraries Unit (HCLU) and the NeLH.
