Medical libraries in hospitals.

THE Sheffield Regional Hospital Board acting on the recommendation of its Medical Committee considered that it was necessary to establish an adequate library service for medical and dental staff in the Regional Hospitals and decided, in September 1963, to set up a Working Party to examine the whole question and make recommendations. Each of the five main clinical areas in the Region was asked to nominate a consultant who was interested in the problem; a psychiatrist was included to represent the special problems of psychiatric hospitals; two senior professional librarians (one from a local authority and the other from a Medical School) and the Senior Administrative Medical Officer of the Board completed the membership; a Principal Assistant Secretary of the Board was appointed as Secretary. In anticipation of the Working Party's requirements, the administration circulated a detailed questionnaire to all Management Committees in the Region in order to determine precisely what library service existed and to estimate the scale of current expenditure on the service. The review showed that although a few hospitals had a reasonable library, generally speaking the existing library service was either totally inadequate or completely absent. Some 214 hospitals were reviewed and it was found that only 12 hospitals (including 6 psychiatric) in the Region had allocated a separate room for a library although in the hospitals reviewed there are a number which are too small to justify a library as such. The expenditure on books and journals demonstrated the varying enthusiasm between Groups as the following figures show: Highest.Annual expenditure in the Region. Lowest Annual expenditure in the Region. Groups controlling General Hospitals £697 £38 Groups controlling Psychiatric iHospitals £335 £30 The Working Party considered that this state of affairs was sufficiently urgent to justify the issue of an Interim Report and as the result of that Report, in October 1964, a letter was addressed by the Board to all Management Committees encouraging them to make more generous provision in their forecast estimates for medical libraries. It was also suggested to them that to stimulate local enthusiasm, active Library SubCommittees should be formed with representation from all grades of staff including General Practitioners. The Working Party continued its study of the subject. All available literature was examined but apart from some studies published by the Medical Library Association of the United States of America, very little appeared to have been written on the subject. Certain …