Medical Libraries

The quality of health care as provided throughout the United States depends in part, as has long been the practice for cultures with robust standards for health care, on the availability of the past knowledge compiled from the study and practice of medical care. A key component of the ability to deliver sophisticated and accessible medical information is derived from the maintenance of medical libraries with the ability to meet the information needs of any one whose life may be impacted by available standards of medical practice. Potential users of a medical library can range from physicians, medical students, researchers on new health care tools and procedures, patients and consumers. The services that can be delivered by medical libraries must thus be adjusted to fit the needs of such potential clients. The setting for a medical library can also be provided through a number of different kinds of institutions, including medical schools, health care facilities such as hospitals, the headquarters for associations dealing with different sections of the medical field or health care, and the private buildings of businesses involved in the health industry. For some of these institutions, the possession of a functioning medical library may be a required prerequisite for the granting of certification necessary for professional functions. Other businesses are not dependent on the presence of medical libraries but in practice and as advised often have them.

In both the United States and Canada, general medical library standards have been created for enforcing the requirement that every kind of medical care instruction facility offer some kind of medical library, of a size and capacity appropriate to the students and educators it serves. The general regulations created for accrediting medical libraries are created by organizations such the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), and typically include provisions for training in the use of digital tools for retrieving information and the presence of staff who can help users access information. It is common, though not required, for medical libraries to have the use of the service “MEDLINE,” which gives access to digitized information from journals and reference works. Practices in this regard have been greatly impacted since the start of the Internet era by the use of free Internet search engines.

One of the most significant presences in the world of medical libraries belongs to that of the United States National Library of Medicine, which contains the single most extensive collection of biomedical information as well as widely based health information databases. The United States National Library of Medicine enjoys particular respect as a medical library service for the access it maintains to its archive of information through an array of different databases and a highly optimized search engine function. When compared to the medical library systems of comparable stature in the world of health care, which include institutions based out of such countries as Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, the United States National Library of Medicine is usually felt by informed health care observers to be preeminent.