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A Proposal
for a Study of the
Provision of Medical Information
in the States of
New York and New Jersey
with particular reference
to the Library of

The New York Academy of Medicine
The States of New York and New Jersey, which comprise
Region II of the Regional Medical Library System of The
National Library of Medicine, contain 15 medical schools
and other major centers of research such as The Sloan-
Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, The Roswell
Park Memorial Institute, The Rockefeller University, and
major pharmaceutical firms.About 15% of the scientists
conducting medical research in the United States are located
in Region II. The region includes a wide range of health
care delivery services which cut across every problem
encountered nation-wide, from the delivery of health care
in remote rural areas and the delivery of health care
in impoverished urban ghettos to the delivery of immensely
sophisticated, complex and advanced care.

The Library of The New York Academy of Medicine serves
aS a principal resource for books and information in the
operating network that serves the health care professionals
of the States of New York and New Jersey. The components
of that network are the Regional Medical Library (RML),
the New York State Interlibrary Loan Network (NYSILL),
the New Jersey Library Network, and the Medical Library
Center of New York (MLC).A comprehensive regional plan
that is constantly updated by the Advisory and Planning
Committee of the Regional Medical Library gives direction
to the service program and constitutes a framework for
this cooperative effort. The New York Academy of Medicine
operates RML and the Academy's Library provides the major
backup resource collection of Region II. This document
constitutes a request by The New York Academy of Medicine
for funds to conduct a major study of the effectiveness
of that network and to formulate recommendations for its.
continued improvement.

The Library of The New York Academy of Medicine contains
about 450,000 books and nearly 180,000 pamphlets and
receives over 4,000 serials on a regular basis. Information
about the holdings of the Library is available world-wide
via the printed catalogue of its collection issued in
94 folio volumes by G.K. Hall.In 1978 the Library satisifed
some 75,000 requests for use of its collection, either by
inter-library loans of books or periodicals, by inter-
library supply of photocopies, or by providing material
from its stacks to users in the library. More than 13,000
users in the library also had access to current periodicals
and works of reference held on open shelves and thousands
of reference questions were answered by mail, phone, or
to users in the library. Less than 10% of the use of the
Library is by Fellows or staff of the Academy; for example,
of 25,323 items circulated or supplied by photocopy in
1978, only 2,342 went to Fellows or staff.
The direct costs of operating the library of The New York
Academy of Medicine in 1978 were $965,000; additional costs of
$310,000 were incurred for maintenance of the physical plant
of the library and for administrative costs, such as those of
the Business Office of the Academy. The Academy received
$116,000 from NYSILL and RML for interlibrary loan services
and about $143,000 in other fees for service. About 80% of
the cost of operating the library was thus paid by the Academy
from income generated from its endowment and Fellowship dues,
whereas about 90% of the services of the library were provided
to users other than the Fellows and staff of the Academy.
Moreover, these costs take no account of the capital assets
represented by the physical plant and by the collections of
the library.

As far back as 1898, the New York Public Library's world
famous Research Library at 42nd Street decided not to collect
medical material since the Academy agreed to make its col-
lection available to the public. The Academy therefore pro-
vides the public medical reference library for the City of New
York, a support library for medicine in the New York State Li-
brary Interlibrary Loan network, a resource for the New Jersey
Library network, the back-up resource for RML (Region II), a
resource for scientists and physicians concerned with highly
technical and advanced research in Region II, and a national
resource for rare and scholarly material. The Academy seeks to
continue to be the major back-up resource for the region and is
anxious to continue to make the maximum contribution it can.
The Academy seeks to know how best to do so in the face of
steadily rising costs and increasing demands on its resources.

It is thus desirable, even urgently so, to study the past
and present operations of the libraries of the region and of
the network, to ensure maximum cooperation in the future and
to ensure maximum efficiency in the management and use of
these resources. One of the major results of the study should
be to work towards persuasive guarantees of future cooperation,
to identify areas where limited resources can be spent to max-
imum advantage, and to provide assurances to any funding
agencies that tangible benefits will result from their support.

It is proposed to conduct a professional, in-depth study,
taking at least one year, of all of the activities of the net-
work and of the current and future missions and resources of
each of its components. The study will examine the region
with respect to networking and will examine component in-
stitutions such as RML, MLC, NYSILL and NYAM with respect
to mission, management, space, staffing, acquisitions and
weeding, cooperative purchasing, bibliographic control, and
the forming and preservation of collections.
The goals of the study may be stated concisely as:

I. To provide specific options for the future
of the Academy Library in terms of what it
should collect and to whom and in what ways
it should make its collections available.
Each option should be accompanied by a
realistic estimate of the cost of that
option and by an analysis of the physical
facilities and management structure needed
to carry it out.

II. To provide, in relation to each of the
options open to the Academy, an analysis
of the effects of the choice of that option
on the needs, programs, costs and services
of The Medical Library Center, The Regional
Medical Library and all users of medical
library services in Region II.

IiI. To provide an assessment of which options
have a realistic chance of being funded,
and from what sources.

Since the proposed study will be extensive and complex
and since it touches on many component institutions, The
New York Academy of Medicine has secured the advice of
a broadly based advisory committee in planning the study.
The attached appendices, which give detailed background
information and detailed and specific plans for the conduct
of the study, were prepared by that advisory committee in
a series of meetings held in the spring of 1979. The
members of that committee are:

John. A. Humphry, Chairman. Executive Director of Forest
Press, publisher of the Dewey Decimal Classification.
Formerly Assistant Commissioner of Education for
Libraries, State of New York; formerly Chairman of
the Planning and Advisory Committee, RML (Region II),
and Chairman of the Governance Council, RML (Region II).

Whitfield J. Bell, Jr. Chief Executive Officer and Librarian,
American Philosophical Society. ‘

Gilbert J. Clausman, Librarian, NYU Medical Center;
Immediate Past President, Medical Library Association;
representing The Medical Library Center.
Doris Doran, Liaison Officer, NLM, for Region II.

Sonya W. Mirsky, Librarian, The Rockefeller University.

Ursula Poland, Librarian, Albany Medical College;
Chairman, Planning and Advisory Committee of

RML, Region II.

Joseph Post, M.D., President, The New York Academy
of Medicine.

Barbara F. Weaver and Oliver P. Gillock, New Jersey
State Library.

Proposed Budget

1. Remuneration for Project Director,
including benefits, at $45,000/year,* $68,000

2. Comprehensive user study 50,000

3. Study of the Academy Library, including
a cost analysis of its operations 100,000

4. Study of other resource libraries in the
networks, including cost analyses 68,000

5. Overhead costs, including secretarial

assistance for the Project Director 30,000
6. Contingencies 7,000
Total 323,000

. *All items are based on a period
of one year, apart from the salary
of the Project Director, who will
require 3 months to organize the
study, one year to supervise the
conduct of the study, and 3 months
to formulate and refine its
conclusions.