The place of the hospital library consortium in the National Biomedical Communications Network

The National Library of Medicine has issued a policy statement outlining expectations of more self-sufficiency at the Basic Unit level than was required during earlier programs under the Medical Library Assistance Act. A consortium of hospital libraries is presented as one viable alternative for meeting NLM's expectations that hospital libraries serve the primary and most immediate information needs of their own constituencies. The Biomedical Communications Network is reviewed so that hospital administrators and librarians will have a more thorough understanding of the system which they should now enter as contributors rather than as recipients only. A Network configuration illustrating the interaction of Basic Units functioning in consortia relationships is presented, and general areas for sharing are discussed.