Developments in health sciences libraries since 1974: from physical entity to the virtual library

Special attention must be given to the leadership and the contributions made by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to health sciences libraries and to the world of biomedical communications throughout the years. The role of the NLM will be included as appropriate in various issues discussed as well as in a section devoted solely to it.

The Online Revolution

When MEDLINE was introduced by the National Library of Medicine in October of 1971, no one could have predicted the revolutionary impact it would have on access to health sciences information. Today the most remote comer of the world, with a telephone line, can access a multitude of databases. The decade of the 1970s was one of rapid growth in the online industry; new vendors emerged, databases were developed, timesharing and new communication methods reduced access costs, and search and retrieval systems were improved.

Initially, MEDLINE was made available through the Regional Medical Libraries. In 1981, there were more than 1,800 users of the twenty MEDLARS databases. By 1991, 60,000 access codes had been assigned to access the now more than forty databases (Lindberg, 1992, p. 1). Additionally, commercial vendors such as DIALOG Information Services and Bibliographic Retrieval Services (BRS) offered hundreds of databases in many subjects.

For the health sciences librarian, proliferating online information resources created a whole new role - that as a search intermediary. To some, online searching provided increased visibility and respect for librarians as professionals. In the early 1980s another revolution occurred with the introduction of user-friendly systems which allowed the end-user to perform database searches with little or no training. Even though the NLM did not introduce its own system for end-users, GRATEFUL MED, until 1986, the phenomenon had become widespread through such commercial systems as BRS AFTERDARK, Dialog's Knowledge Index, BRS Colleague, and Paperchase, an NLM grant-developed system.

As libraries became more automated internally, and as librarians became more sophisticated in the use of computers to deliver services, the idea of mounting bibliographic databases locally emerged. In 1984, the NLM announced the availability of MEDLINE subsets which could be licensed for local use with either commercial or locally developed retrieval software. Early models of local systems were the mini-MEDLINE system developed at Georgetown University (Broering, 1985) and MaryMED, developed at the University of Maryland at Baltimore.

By the late 1980s more than forty such local systems existed in health sciences libraries. Another milestone was reached in 1987 when the NLM licensed MEDLINE to commercial vendors for distribution on CD-ROM products. This increased the end-user searching population even more. What has all this meant for libraries? There were, and still are, many debates about whether end-user searching would eliminate the need for librarians. As the number of mediated searches tumbled, librarians feared for their livelihood. Looking back on this debate of only a few years, one can say that their fears were unfounded. What has occurred is an enormous increase in the need for education and training of the end-user. The database search intermediary has now become the consultant, the teacher, and even the navigator through the maze of databases and networking. The need for the librarian to take on this new role is further supported by the movement of many medical schools from traditional lecture to problem-based learning curricula.