This report attempts to relate the first year's experience of the Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan Regional Medical Library (KOMRML). Ten academic institutions in Kentucky, Ohio, and Michigan (KOM) are supporting an agreement signed on May 1, 1968 to form an organization with the general objective to work toward making the resources of each of the…

During 1970 it became increasingly clear that with limited funds from the National Library of Medicine (NLM), some mechanism would have to be found to control the ever-increasing interlibrary loan (ILL) workload of the Kentucky-Ohio-Michigan Regional Medical Library (KOMRML). It was obvious that NLM could not completely support the document…

Recounts the difficulties of bringing together state and regional programs in a nationwide system. (Author)

The Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan Regional Medical Library (KOMRML), a service organization made up of the libraries of ten academic institutions, has within a year created an identifiable organization. A questionnarie was sent to 440 participants in this organization to determine: (1) if it was one that was causing constructive changes, and (2) if the…

Three health science library organizations are briefly discussed. The organizations are: (1) Metropolitan Detroit Medical Library Group, (2) Health Science Librarians of Northwest Ohio, and (3) Medical Library Association of Northern Ohio. This paper provides a perspective in which to report the efforts the three groups have made to improve…

The second year of the Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan Regional Medical Library (KOMRL) might be characterized as one in which there was operational stability, but continuous confusion of purpose and direction. Although the administrative structure remained unaltered and the number of papers produced and the meetings held were considerable, the program…

It was determined that the further development of the Regional Medical Library Program required a more direct relationship with institutions than could be gained through announcements and direct mailings. Thus, since several libraries had shown some success in upgrading of libraries through the employment of medical library consultants, it was…

The first step in the services to be developed by the Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan Regional Medical Library (KOMRML), established under the Medical Library Assistance Act of 1965, is that of improving the document delivery service now provided by the 10 biomedical resource libraries which make up KOMRML. The study reported here was undertaken to…

The current trend in biomedical information systems is to decentralization. Starting with the Medical Library Assistance Act of 1965, various plans of organization have been tried for improving the national diffusion of medical information. In 1968 the John Crerar Library became the Midwest Regional Medical Library, serving as an intermediary…

The viability of organizational change depends on the gradual institutionalization of innovations. There has been a history of planned social change in medical library organization. Stress was being felt in that library agencies could not meet user expectations. With the Medical Library Assistance Act, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) was…

The Regional Medical Library (RML) is a federal program created to aid in the equalization of access to information for the health professionals of the nation. The purpose of this paper is to relate the sequence of events in the establishment of the Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan Regional Medical Library (KOMRML) and how they influence the present…

Standardized policies and procedures for interlibrary loan and resource sharing in the Southeastern/Atlantic Region of the Regional Medical Library (RML) Network are presented in this policy statement. RML network institutions, which are divided into categories based on their ability and willingness to assume responsibility for interlibrary…

The service receiving first priority in the new regional medical library (RML) program is that of document delivery. Since this is a federally sponsored program, monitoring devices must be established to determine if the program is accomplishing the aim of improving access to medical information. In this paper, two perspectives are used on which…