Martin M. Cummings

Computerized Bibliographic Services for Biomedicine Library-based automated storage, retrieval, and publication of literature citations is feasible

By its development of improved media for dissemination of information, the National Library of Medicine is fostering a greater awareness and a better understanding of research and development efforts in behalf of public health and clinical medicine, and a more rapid translation of research into clinical application. The librarys transformation from a passive repository of information to an active ally of the researcher, teacher, and clinician has led to increased use of medical library facilities and has stimulated thinking through better communication of published information. The librarys success in using automation for bibliographic control of medical literature suggests that other disciplines that have not already developed automated techniques of literature-reference retrieval might profitably do so.

Medical information services: For public good or private profit?

Abstract The extent to which Federal agencies may properly engage in information dissemination activities is currently an issue of debate within the public and private sectors. Related to this is the question of how Federal agencies should price their information products and services. These issues, although they involve information activities in many spheres, are discussed with specific reference to the policies and practices of the National Library of Medicine.

A LIBRARY‐BASED COMPUTER SYSTEM FOR INDEXING, STORING AND RETRIEVING LITERATURE IN THE CARDIOVASCULAR FIELD

Medical bibliography has been a valuable tool of the physician and scientist since the sixteenth century. William Harvey’s classical publication of 1628 “De Motu Cordis”’ marks the beginning of cardiovascular physiology, and contains no less than 79 references to previous work on anatomy and physiology of the heart. These include 30 citations of Galen, 16 of Aristotle and one of Hippocrates. Today, scientific publications contain an average of nearly 14 references per article,’ many of the citations referring to the author’s own previous work. In part, this reflects a diminution of scholarship among contemporary scientists; in large measure it results from the “information overload” which has made it impossible for the working scientists to keep informed of published findings now being reported annually in more than 50,000 scientific journals published in forty languages throughout the world. This does not include the vast number of books and monographs which are also printed each year. In seeking to contend with this problem, the National Library of Medicine has established MEDLARS, an acronym for (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System) which represents an advanced development in the storage and retrieval of scientific information through the use of computer processes. In order to understand this system, its power and its limitations, it is necessary to have a perspective of the needs and circumstances surrounding its development.