The provision of bio-medical literature: the present position and future possibilities.

WITH the reduction in private purchase of bio-medical journals and books, consequent upon the steady growth of the amount of this literature and the continued increase in the price of books and journals, the practitioner must rely more and more on lilbraries for his needs to be met. Libraries supplying bio-medical literature fall into five broad groups: the larger medical libraries, the commercial subscription libraries, the National Lending Library for Science and Technology, the public library system, and medical libraries in non-teaching hospitals. Viewing the United Kingdom as a whole, it can be clearly seen that the service which can be given by the larger medical libraries varies considerably from one part of the country to another. There are more medical libraries in London than in any other large city in the world, but, apart from Central Scotland and Merseyside, few other districts contain more than one large medical library, while extensive areas have none. Many of the larger libraries are for reference only or allow only a restricted section of the medical public to borrow directly from them, although most are prepared to lend to other medical and scientific libraries. The largest medical library in the country, that of the Royal Society of Medicine, cannot by its rules lend to anyone not a Fellow of the Society and the library of the British Medical Association is similarly restricted in its 'loan service. In this connexion it should be noted that borrowing from these two libraries is also restricted to members of the organisations concerned for their personal use only: for a member to borrow a work from either library for the benefit of a non-member is a breach of the regulations on which books are lent. The Royal Society of 'Medicine will supply photocopies and microfilms of items in its collection. The service given by the commercial subscription libraries such as Lewis's or Ferrier's is too well known to need comment here, except to note that the service is restricted to English language books and does not extend to journals. and Technology is the largest scientific library in the country. It currently subscribes to some twenty-two thousand journals and eventually wili take twenty-six thousand journals, which is the present estimate of the total number of scientific journals in existence. Its coverage of bio-medical journals is virtually complete from 1963 onwards, though it is less rich in material published before …