Libraries without Limits: Changing Needs - Changing Roles

the long version

The slogan `Information professionals make the difference' was chosen to highlight the 10th anniversary of the European Association for Health Information and Libraries (EAHIL) in 1997. To what effect, under which circumstances, and how medical librarians in Europe play an active role in medical information management and education is reflected in the collection of papers presented during the 6th European Conference of Medical and Health Libraries in Utrecht, The Netherlands, 22-27 June, 1998, entitled: Libraries without Limits: Changing Needs - Changing Roles. Medical libraries are confronted with the international aspects of copyright and licence agreements, and cope with a fast-growing demand for high quality medical information in order to bring evidence-based medicine into practice. Medical librarians also serve the public, especially in those countries where consumer health information is in the forefront of health care policy. The importance of pharmaceutical information is well understood; the need for information transfer from (basic) research into (clinical) practice is not restricted to medicine, but is nonetheless important in veterinary sciences. In all fields in which members of EAHIL are working the commercial interest and political value of information is recognized. With the exponential growth of medical, health and health-care related information available or accessible on the Internet, librarians play a crucial role in information dissemination. Information services, especially in medicine, are no longer local activities, but are knitted into the global web. The Minister of Health, Welfare and Sports of The Netherlands, Mrs Els Borst-Eilers, gives many arguments why doctors need to be better informed. The papers of Lois Ann Colaianni (USA), Derek Law (UK), Charles Oppenheim (UK), Bas Savenije (NL) and many others will prove to the reader that the library provides a perfect paradigm for the management of networked resources.