3 - Medical information for the consumer before the World Wide Web

Abstract

This chapter reviews the literature of professional librarianship between 1879 and 1993 to identify the dominant themes of medical information provision to the general public before the World Wide Web. The themes are organized into four dimensions: Libraries as organizations and institutions (what are the optimal library types for medical information provision? what access policies should be in place?); Librarians (what interpersonal challenges arise over medical information provision, and what roles are appropriate for the librarian providing it?); Patrons (what are their motivations for seeking medical information, and what demands does this place on staff time in libraries? will patrons self-diagnose with the information they are given? what are their expectations of the librarian who assists them?); and Content (what are the special problems of medical terminology? how does the library maintain a quality collection for different audiences? what books are “bad” versus actively harmful?). One surprising finding is that the often-expressed fear by librarians that they can be sued over provision of health information turns out to be more modern than expected, documented in the literature no earlier than 1978. However, for the most part, these challenges are timeless and have little to do with the medium or the technology involved in delivering the information. Rather, they are the result of longstanding sensitivities and fears on the part of libraries as institutions and librarians and patrons as human beings.