Contributed Paper Abstract
Outreach: Service Beyond our Borders
Thomas Williams, Director; and Ellen Sayed, Head, Document Delivery, University of South Alabama College of Medicine, Mobile, Alabama
The Biomedical Library at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine was founded in the mid-seventies. Since that time it has been relocated to its own building and has expanded to a modern, highly automated, mid-size academic medical library, which includes the campus library, and two branch libraries. In 1996 the library began its outreach program. The USA Biomedical Library is a Resource Library in the NN/LM network. For that reason the decision was made to do all that was possible to expand services to the surrounding communities. Thus, SouthMED, our outreach, cost-recovery-based network was established. SouthMED has grown to include hospitals, law firms, and others with legitimate needs for medical information. Later in 1996 and early 1997, with an increasing number of requests from foreign libraries, it was decided to formalize some of these interlibrary interchanges by offering membership in our network. The first foreign library to join was La Biblioteca de Medicina in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1997. Since that time this arrangement has worked out very well with expanded services for the users of the Biblioteca and extra $thousands in our library coffers. Negotiations are under way to include a library consortium in the Ukraine. Additionally, the USA Biomed Library is participating in the sister library initiative via the International Cooperation Section of MLA. This paper will describe these relationships and the means by which information is electronically exchanged, including Ariel, Prospero, etc.
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