Eve-Marie Lacroix, MS

Originally trained in chemistry and mathematics, Eve-Marie Lacroix went on to earn a masterís in science information from Illinois Institute of Technology in 1972. After a decade with Notre Dame University and then with Miles Laboratories in Indiana, she moved to the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information, a component of the National Research Council of Canada. There she became Head of Information Services before moving to the National Library of Medicine (NLM) in 1985. She is now Chief of the NLMís Public Services Division. Eve-Marie Lacroix has directed the development and ongoing maintenance of major applications that have improved access to health information for researchers, health professionals, patients, and the general public around the world. She leads the multidisciplinary team that developed and continues to maintain and expand MEDLINEplus, the NLMís comprehensive consumer health Web information service. Launched in 1998, MEDLINEplus now contains more than 600 health topic pages that organize approximately 15,000 Web resources. MEDLINEplus now serves approximately 20 million page views to more than two million unique users each month. Ms. Lacroixís leadership of the development of MEDLINEplus typifies her general approach to launching, maintaining, and continuously improving high-volume production information services. This approach involves initial and ongoing study of user behavior and preferences through a combination of Web log analysis, focus groups, usability testing, user surveys, and direct user feedback. She has managed the development of many other ëëbehind the scenesíí systems that enhance delivery of health information every day. These include DOCLINE, NLMís automated document request and routing system, which handles approximately three million interlibrary loan requests annually. She also directed the implementation of the Loansome Doc extension that allows individual users to route document requests to a library willing to serve them. The work of Eve-Marie Lacroix has had a profound effect on the NLM, the public, and the health of the nation.