A History of Medical Libraries and Medical Librarianship

The authors of this book in fifty years of marriage have observed and been part of the evolution of medical libraries and librarianship, academia, and health related research and education. Having gotten married as undergraduates, they have made this professional journey together supporting and learning from each other’s experiences. This is the third book they have coauthored. Michael Reed Kronenfeld, MLS, MBA, AHIP, FMLA is University Librarian Emeritus, A.T. Still University of the Health Sciences. Since receiving his MLS in 1975 he has worked as the archivist/processor of the papers of Senator Lister Hill, as the Director of the Library and the Educational Resources Center at a state health department, as the Library Director and web master for a public teaching hospital and, for his last 17 years before retirement, as the University Librarian for a medical university, retiring in March of 2019. He has been an active member of the Medical Library Association throughout his career. In his forty-four years in the profession, he has been interested in and published on the history of the medical library profession and on the impact of technology in driving this history. Jennie Jacobs Kronenfeld, Ph.D., is Professor Emerita in Sociology, SSFD, Arizona State University. Her research areas are medical sociology and aging and the life course with special focus on health policy, health care utilization and health behavior. She serves as editor of the research annual, Research in the Sociology of Health Care, published by Emerald Press. She is coeditor of Health. She has served as Chair of the Medical Sociology Section, American Sociological Association (ASA). She is currently the secretary-treasurer of the Retirement Network, ASA. She is a past President of Sociologists for Women in Society.

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1 – The Era of the Library of the Office of the Army Surgeon General and John Shaw Billings – 1836 – 1898

Chapter 2 - The Era of the Gentleman Physician Librarian – 1898 to 1945

Chapter 3 - The Era of the Development of the Clinical Research Infrastructure (NIH), the Rapid Expansion in Funded and Published Clinical Research and the Emergence of Medical Librarianship as a Profession – 1945 – 1962

Chapter 4 - The Era of the Development of the National Library of Medicine, Online digital Subject Searching (Medline) and the Creation of the Health Science Library Infrastructure– 1962 – 1975

Chapter 5 - The Medline Era – A Golden Age for Medical Libraries – 1975 – 1995

Chapter 6 - The Era of Universal Access to Information and the Transition from Paper to Digitally Based Medical Libraries – 1995 – 2015

Chapter 7 - The Era of the Digital Health Sciences Library – 2015 –

Bibliography