The Parkinson's Disease Information and Research Center

Abstract

T HE SPECIALIZED information center is an example of a trend in science librarianship which will become, increasingly, a topic of discussion and interest to those persons who hope to facilitate and enlarge channels of communication between scientist and scientist and between scientist and layman. To cope with the avalanche of biomedical literature, to serve the needs of neurologists engaged in clinical practice and research, and to implement the services of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness, Public Health Service, decided early in 1963 to establish a national network of specialized neurological information centers supported by contract funds. The first center to be organized as part of this network was the Parkinson's Disease Information and Research Center at Columbia University Medical Library, housed within the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. As the Institute visualized these neurological information centers, they would be based in large university biomedical libraries attached to teaching hospitals where neurological research is in progress. The centers would collect, store, retrieve, and disseminate information about their particular subject areas. They would also provide comprehensive library service, search, screen, and analyze literature, standardize and 'define nomenclature, store and retrieve information by using automated methods, and prepare the results of research for publication. The service woul(d be on a national and, when possible, an international scale. Critical reviews would be published and symposiums would be held. These objectives would be accomplished by the collaboration of scientists and librarians. The Institute divided neurological research into the following five subject groups: (a) basic sciences covering neurological research, including anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, chemistry, and pathology, (b) clinical neurological difficulties, (c) vision and diseases of the eye, (d) speech, hearing, and disorders of communication, and (e) other neurological difficulties. The Parkinson information center relates to the first and second areas because research in the laboratory and treatment in the clinic deal with disorders of the motor area of the brain. The Brain Information Service at the University of California at Los Angeles covers brain physiology and thus may eventually relate to all the subject areas. The Vision Information Center at Harvard University covers the third area, and the Information Center on Hearing, Speech, and Disorders of Human Communication at Johns Hopkins University covers the fourth. The fifth area remains to be defined and developed in the future. The packaged information products of the Mr. Waddell is head of the information services section of the Parkinson's Disease Information and Research Center, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York City.