BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS that were arranged in order by LC call number (they contained the book card and spine label) were pulled, and the shelf list card, the book card, the spine label, and the information written on the inside back cover of the book were checked against each other to catch any discrepancies in the call number or accession number. Finally the spine label was attached to the book, and the book pocket was pasted in place. Since book cards for noncirculating reference books (marked with a red "X") were not needed, these book cards were destroyed. The book cards for circulating books should have remained in the pocket at this point but the purchase of the electric imprinter (necessary for the circulation system) had to be postponed so we decided to remove the cards and insert them at a later date. The newly labeled books were now put on the shelf. The first shelf was cleared out by putting the volumes on a book cart; another cart was used to transport the books back and forth from the work area to the shelves. By shifting the unprocessed books once a day, it was possible to keep things in fairly reasonable order during the six-day transition. CONCLUSION

REFERENCE 1. STANGL, PETER. A low-cost, efficient, machineassisted manual circulation system. Spec. Libr. 66: 421-425, Sept. 1975.

Library Service to Physicians in Washington State BY KAY F. DENFELD, Librarian WSMA Library Service Health Sciences Library University of Washington

Seattle, Washington THE Washington State Medical Association, in cooperation with the University of Washington, began offering full library services to WSMA members statewide in August 1975. The service was initiated on a trial basis and is now in its second year. A full-time reference librarian and a half-time clerical assistant were employed by WSMA and stationed at the Health Sciences Library at the University of Washington to utilize its collection, photocopy, and MEDLINE facilities. The service was patterned after the successful King County Medical Society Library Service, which entered a contractual arrangement with the university in 1971, placing a librarian and assistant at the Health Sciences Library when the society decided to discontinue operation of its inde-

This system was developed over the first six weeks of the project. Some of the steps may seem redundant, but the old files-card catalog, accession list, and shelf list-had to remain current throughout the changeover; new books acquired during this period were processed by both pendent library. Cooperative and contractual agreements such methods. I had not foreseen the necessity of crossreferencing the old and new systems so we had to as the King County Medical Society Library backtrack a few times at the beginning. It was Service arrangement exist between other AMA easier and less monotonous to work groups of 100 society libraries and local institutions. Crawford volumes through the procedure at one time. Also, [1] reported fourteen medical society libraries it spread the cost of duplicating the cards over a that had developed cooperative programs between 1964 and 1969. One of these was the Pennsylvania period of nine months. The total cost (not including labor) of the re- Medical Society in LeMoyne, Pennsylvania, which classification and recataloging project was ap- had a cooperative agreement with Pennsylvania proximately $750. The duplication of the cards State University in Hershey. No report was was the major expense, $500. CATLINE was used located in the literature, however, of a state at nonprime-time hours to cut the cost of obtain- association that had no existing library program ing the cataloging information to $200. Supplies but initiated a cooperative agreement with a local were about $50. I estimate that the cost of the new institution. circulation system will be $500 and look forward An information booth including a MEDLINE to implementing it in the next few months. demonstration was displayed at the September Our biggest concern, disruption of the collec- 1975 annual meeting of the WSMA. Information tion and inconvenience for its users, was alleviated on "How to Use the WSMA Library Service" was by using this procedure. I heartily recommend it also mailed to the membership. News notes anto other small hospital libraries. nouncing the service and its progress were Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 65(3)July 1977

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published in the WSMA Medical Memo throughout the year. Member physicians make information requests by letter or by telephone using the MEDCON toll-free line. MEDCON is a telephone consultation service that connects physicians in Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, and Alaska with specialists at the University of Washington hospitals. It is funded through a grant from the Washington Emergency Medical Services Program of the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services. MEDCON will also connect WSMA physicians with the library service. Physician members in King, Spokane, and Pierce counties are encouraged to contact their respective society library services, except for MEDLINE requests for Spokane and Pierce County society members. WSMA supplies photocopies for items not available in Spokane and Pierce county, so it acts as a backup service. WSMA Library Service also provides all MEDLINE services for Spokane and Pierce members. Definition of the relationship between the WSMA Library Service and the library services provided by King, Pierce, and Spokane County Medical societies is under consideration at present. In its first year the library service has been used by 612 individual requesters. A total of 833 reference questions has been answered, including 27 brief reference answers, 281 manual literature searches, 502 MEDLINE, 20 SDILINE, and 3 searches of other data bases. A total of 5,075 requests for photocopy for 580 individual requesters has been completed. The service provided 33,637 photocopy sheets. Processing time for reference questions consisted of both the time involved in researching the question, preparing a bibliography, or running a MEDLINE search, and the time involved in photocopying pertinent material generated by the original request. The following were provided within three calendar days: 96% of brief reference answers; 73% of manual literature searches; 69 %of MEDLINE searches; 72% of article requests. Since its inception the library service has enclosed postcard questionnaires with each literature search and the first photocopy request. As of July 31, 1976, 706 postcards had been mailed out, and 469 postcards had been returned. Of those responding, 95% reported receiving the information needed, and 93% reported that the informa-

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tion arrived within a reasonable time. Sixty-six percent said that their information requests were for patient care. Initially, the Medical Education Committee of the association allocated a budget of $25,000 for the trial. A quota system of 100 photocopy sheets per year per member with a charge of $0.10/page beyond 100 was initiated in July 1976, because there were several heavy users, and budgetary restrictions necessitated a limit. There was no charge for MEDLINE or other data bases. Future funding alternatives are under study. REFERENCE 1. CRAWFORD, S. Health sciences libraries of professional societies, voluntary health organizations, and foundations. Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 60(suppl.): 38-45, Apr. 1972.

Intraschool Cross-Indexing System to Encourage Sharing of Departmental Collections BY JAMES F. CRAIG, ED.D., Chairman Department ofEducational and Instructional Resources SUZANNE F. GREFSHEIM, Media Specialist Independent Learning Center Department of Educational and Instructional Resources

Baltimore College of Dental Surgery Dental School University of Maryland Baltimore, Maryland

ON the University of Maryland at Baltimore campus the schools of dentistry, medicine, pharmacy, nursing, and social work and community planning are served by a centralized Health Sciences Library. Because the traditional course of study in the dental curriculum, as in most health sciences curricula, allows little free time for independent, self-motivated reading, dental students seldom get an opportunity to use the facilities at the Health Sciences Library. As in some other health science institutions, state funds are also provided to individual departments within each school for the acquisition of monograph and Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 65(3)July 1977

Library service to physicians in Washington State.

BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS that were arranged in order by LC call number (they contained the book card and spine label) were pulled, and the shelf list card...
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