Simultaneous remote search: a technique of providing MEDLARS Services to remote locations.

IN 1979 THE administration of Tucson Medical Center (TMC) encouraged the library staff to explore the possibility of assisting rural Arizona hospitals in developing medical library services. One of the greatest obstacles encountered in establishing effective rural hospital libraries was the absence of trained reference personnel to provide on-site service. Another considerable problem was the delay in document delivery using normal interlibrary loan techniques. In an effort to improve reference service to rural hospitals, the TMC library staff developed a new on-line computer information retrieval technique, which we have named Simultaneous Remote Search. Using Simultaneous Remote Search, Tucson Medical Center can provide faster reference and interlibrary loan services to remote hospitals. Immediate access to the MEDLARS data bases can be provided to any facility in Arizona or elsewhere in the United States as long as the facility has access to an ASCII-compatible terminal. Any hospital, however remote, can now provide to its users the most sophisticated level of medical library service presently available, at reasonable cost, without hiring specialized personnel.