Page 151 - Training for librarianship; library work as a career

TRAINING FOR LIBRARIANSHIP :

never completed ; the library, like the labora-
tory, is indispensable to his work, and both
contribute in no small degree to his success.
The number of medical libraries in the
world in 1914 was 312; in the United States
alone there were in 1917 no less than 174, or
more than half the total number in existence.
Medical libraries are broadly of two kinds
First, general medical libraries, such as the
academy medical or the local, district or
county medical society libraries, and, second,
working libraries, generally in connection
with hospitals, dispensaries, medical colleges,
laboratories and sanatoria. The first of
these are more for the medical student, the
general practitioner or for the specialist ; the
second are more specifically for the use of the
staff, attendants and nurses.
Because of the new discoveries, new experi-
ments and better knowledge medical litera-
ture is continually growing in quantity, but
at the same time is constantly becoming
obsolete, A quarter of a century ago John
S. Billings, one of America's great library
organizers, and undoubtedly its greatest
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