New roles for librarians are emerging as a result of rapid changes in information technology. The literature is replete with controversy about nonprofessionals staffing the reference desk, yet such changes in staffing may provide the time librarians need to do other tasks. This paper describes a research project that examined reference desk staffing in academic medical school libraries and its ...

INTRODUCTION The extent to which health sciences librarians are engaged in research is a little-studied question. This study assesses the research activities and attitudes of Medical Library Association (MLA) members, including the influence of work affiliation. METHODS An online survey was designed using a combination of multiple-choice and open-ended questions and distributed to MLA members...

Economic and political factors have had far-reaching effects on hospital libraries in the last decade, but quantitative evidence of these changes is not readily available. Through periodic evaluation surveys within its multistate region, the Pacific Southwest Regional Medical Library Service, the Regional Medical Library for Region 7 of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (formerly th...

databases associated with the Human Genome Project. Collaboration for resource sharing through library automation between Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine and activities at the Upjohn Pharmaceutical Library are described. Iain Milne, of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh Library, describes the use of automation at that institution and, in one cogent st...

OBJECTIVE Centralized exchanges of scientific materials existed by the late nineteenth century, but they did not include medical publications. North American medical leaders therefore formed an association of institutions to run their own exchange: the Medical Library Association (MLA). After providing background to the exchange concept and the importance of institutional members for MLA, this ...