医学図書館のサービス 現在と将来 ユーザーの視点から

Abstract

Medical libraries are changing in order to meet user's needs in future. They are meeting current user's needs and at the same time adjusting to emerging technologies and integrating them into library services. Most importantly, information infrastructure is now experiencing enormous changes by the exploration of the Internet and local network services. The librarians are now able to pass the information to the large groups of users in short time. Indeed, this improvement of medical library service has been necessitated by the fact that the medical knowledge of the late twentieth century has expanded rapidly. The services the librarians provide are assessment of the information needs of a divese array of medical professional, management and computation of resources into the institution's information system, and helping users master the basic skills of information handling. In fact, increasing emphasis on electronic information sources has resulted in new roles for medical librarians as leaders in establishing medical libararies as key access points for biomedical information. In the near future, librarians will be using telecommunications systems and teleconference systems for distance learning, and tele-health care systems for information delivery to remote clinical settings. Medical libraries being the part of computerized health information network will link academic health centres, hospitals, clinics to the information infrastructure. Medical librarians can form effective information infrastructure collaborating with other information association nationally and globally. Their expertise in envisioning, planning, organizing, manipulating, and facilitating the use of electronic information systems would make them key members of health care and research teams.