Should the size or growth of a medical library be restricted? / by Charles Perry Fisher.

  • Fisher, Charles Perry, 1857-1940.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Should the size or growth of a medical library be restricted? / by Charles Perry Fisher. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    as actively as possible, and with the view of increasing it with the utmost rapidity. With such libraries, hospitals, and especially medical organizations, could follow the lines most profitable for them and so bring about a concentration of effort in all the libraries. Dr. Edwin H. Brigham, of Boston, thought it advisable to discard books on the collateral sciences where they were to be found in other libraries in the same locality. He believed there should be as many large libraries as possible, and that old and curious books should be saved. Mr. a. T. Huntington, of Brooklyn, believed that no set rule could be laid down covering the points brought out in the paper under discussion. In localities where there were enough physicians and sufficient interest to build up and maintain a large medical library, such a collection should be made as large and com- plete as possible. There were many small communities, however, where the number of physicians and others who might be inter- ested in the support of such an institution was so limited that it would be a financial impossibility to maintain a medical library of any great size. In such cases he believed it the best policy to maintain a good, up-to-date working library, sending such old material as might be weeded out from time to time to the nearest large medical library that was liberal enough to loan its books on demand. In the larger centers he believed every effort should be made to build up as large a collection as possible, irrespective of what the resources of the Library of the Surgeon-General’s Office at Washington might be. Advantageous though it is to have such a collection as that at Washington to borrow from, it would be better still if the physicians in each large city had the same books on the shelves of their own local medical library. Mrs. Grace W. Myers, of Boston, stated that from its very nature the hospital library must be somewhat restricted, especially so where there was also a large independent medical library in the same community. KAGLE PRESS. BROOKLYN-NEW YORK