Page 161 - Training for librarianship; library work as a career

TRAINING FOR LIBRARIANSHIP

ore so widely scattered in journals, transac-
tions and monographs. The splendid collec-
tions which now exist in five or six of our
cities, and the unique opportunities of the
Surgeon General's Library, have done much
to give to American medicine a thoroughly
eclectic character."
In the hospital hbrary, for example, there
are medical records to be kept, analyzed, re-
corded and filed. Case histories must be
copied and abstracted, and the records them-
selves to be helpful must be cataloged by
anatomical region affected, by diagnosis and
by other important features. In the medical
as in other types of libraries, the librarian
must play the part of a walking encyclopedia
and a perpetual mine of information. Hers
is a work rarely lacking in himaan interest
and in inspirational contact. But to do her
work well, she must know. Knowledge is
disciplined thought and the Ubrarian who has
trained herself for disciplined thinking and
work will find in her field, be it great or small,
the same joys and the same rewards that
come to the executive and to the skilled assist-
ant in other branches of human activity.
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