The Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, recently appointed Sandra Martin, director of Wayne State University's Shiffman Medical Library to the Board of Regents of the National Library of Medicine (NLM).  The appointment runs through August 2018.

"The Wayne State Libraries are proud that the NLM and the Secretary of Health and Human Services have recognized Sandra Martin's deep knowledge and expertise in medical librarianship," said Sandra Yee, dean of the Wayne State University Libraries.

"We are pleased that through Sandra's leadership on the board, the Wayne State Libraries will make a significant contribution to the health information available to the nation's citizens."

A life-long Detroiter, Martin received her bachelor's and master's degrees from Wayne State University.  Prior to her position as director of Shiffman Medical Library, she served as the assistant director of Shiffman and supervisor of library and A/V services at Harper Hospital in Detroit. Throughout her career Martin has held committee positions at local, state, regional and national levels, including the Medical Library Association, Association of Academic Health Science Libraries and the National Library of Medicine.  

The NLM Board of Regents meets three times per year to advise, consult with and make recommendations to the HHS Secretary, the director of the NIH and the director of the NLM. The Board provides input on matters regarding library materials collected, services provided and research conducted by the NLM, including research and development done at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, which maintains PubMed, MedlinePlus, genome databases and many other resources heavily used by scientists throughout the world. The Board also reviews and makes recommendations about grant applications, bioinformatics training programs and contracts funded by the  Library.

Part of the National Institutes of Health, the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland, is the world's largest biomedical library. As a developer of electronic information services, it delivers trillions of bytes of data to millions of users every day.

The Wayne State University Library System consists of the university's six libraries: The David Adamany Undergraduate Library, the Purdy/Kresge Library, the Shiffman Medical Library, the Arthur Neef Law Library, the Science and Engineering Library, and the Reuther Library and the School for Library and Information Science.

Wayne State University is a premier urban research institution offering more than 370 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to nearly 28,000 students.