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- Are all historical digitized resources available in the NLM Digital Collections?
- What type of software was used to build the Digital Collections?
- Do the resources have permanent URLs?
- Are the resources copyrighted?
- Do I need to download any plug-ins to view the resources?
Are all historical digitized resources available in the NLM Digital Collections?
The NLM Digital Collections include Print Materials, Still Images, Films and Videos, and Maps from the History of Medicine Division. You may access additional Digital Collections and resources at Online Exhibitions and Digital Projects.
What type of software was used to build the Digital Collections?
The NLM Digital Collections repository was built using software developed by NLM, open source software, and commercial plug-ins for the front-end access and back-end storage. The software includes:
- Fedora Repository Software
- Blacklight, a "front-end" for Fedora, developed by the University of Virginia Library
- Universal Viewer, a IIIF-compliant Book Viewer
- VideoJS, a HTML5 Video Player
- serverless-iiif, a IIIF-compliant AWS Serverless Application
- OpenSeaDragon, a IIIF-compliant Image Viewer
See Development of a Digital Repository for NLM Digitized Collections and Born-Digital Resources for additional information on the development of functional requirements and the selection of digital repository software for this project.
Do the resources have permanent URLs?
Every resource has a permanent URL which includes the NLM Unique Identifier (NLM UID). The base of the permanent URL is "https://resource.nlm.nih.gov/" and the NLM UI is appended to the end of the URL. For example, the link for the video "Dental health (1945)" is https://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101306230. The permanent URLs will always redirect to the URL of the object's Resource Record page.
Are the resources copyrighted?
All content in Digital Collections is freely available to view using the built-in Book Viewer, Image Viewer and Video Player. Unless otherwise indicated, all content is in the public domain. Additional information about copyright and fair use of NLM materials is available at NLM Copyright Information and Historical Collections Copyright Information.
Do I need to download any plug-ins to view the resources?
Generally, our resources should be viewable through your browser without plug-ins. If accessing legacy software in the collection, you may wish to download DOSBox or other DOS emulator software.
Some users have experienced blank pages while viewing our PDFs in a web browser. If you are using Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge and your PDFs are blank, there are a few options you can try to correct the issue.
Option 1. Add the Adobe Acrobat extension to your browser (Chrome, Edge).
Option 2. Although the pages look blank, you can download the open PDF from the browser and save it to your hard drive. Open the file with the Adobe Acrobat application or other PDF software to verify that the pages are not blank. To save the PDF from the Edge browser, click on the "disk" icon to save to your Downloads folder determined by your browser.
To save the PDF from the Chrome browser, click on the "download" icon to save to your Downloads folder determined by your browser.
Option 3. From the Resource Record page, use the blue "Download" button under the preview image. Right-click on the "Book (PDF)" link (see Figure 1) and click on "Save link as…" (see Figure 2) to save the PDF to your hard drive. Open the file with the Adobe Acrobat application or other PDF software to verify that the pages are not blank.
Figure 1: Click on Download button, select Book (PDF) from the dropdown menu.
Figure 2: Right-click on Book (PDF) and select "Save file as…" to save PDF to your hard drive.
Main Help | Book Viewer | Video Player | Image Viewer | PDF Viewer | Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) | Web Service