The hospital library committee: its composition and tasks

Since a sizeable hospital must have a library, it must have a library committee. Like all hospital committees, this one is to help maintain standards of medical care and to mediate between staff and administration. Unlike others, it clusters around one elected member (the chairman) and one employee (the librarian). A dynamic librarian can, and should, influence and inspire the committee's deliberations; and must be able to depend upon the support of the physician members of the committee.     

Analysis of recorded biomedical book and journal use in the Yale Medical Library. II. Subject and user relations

Cancelled charge slips collected over a one-year period supply the data for this analysis of circulation in the Yale Medical Library. Full-time teaching faculty are the heaviest users of journal literature, and students, of monograph literature. Faculties of Medical School departments are compared in terms of their use of material in individual subjects. Subject literatures are analyzed in terms of groups of users borrowing from them. The extent to which journal titles used by medical students are also used by Medical School faculty is examined. One of the products of the study is a rank list of journal titles used in the Library. Results are presented in several tables.     

Reply to the Comments

First, I am pleased to note the broad area of agreement amongthe four of us. We concur fully that polls are useful, powerful,and play an important role in contemporary politics. My threeresponders also acknowledge the significance of alternativeways in which citizens can express their opinions and, furthermore,that public opinion is more diverse and nuanced than any dichotomoussplit between the pros and cons on a particular issue recordedat a particular time might suggest. Sir Robert chides me explicitly, and Gary Langer by implication,for failing