MEDLARS II: a review

The MEDLARS II effort, as it was developed until June 1971, is reviewed in terms of the overall planning process. How MEDLARS I was approached by NLM is discussed first and its objectives used for comparison. Certain technical, managerial, and intellectual aspects are outlined as types of problems encountered in designing MEDLARS II. While improvement upon the MEDLARS I seemed to be the main reason for planning a MEDLARS II, objectives became blurred and divergent as the project went along. The complexities of creating a central computerized data base of health sciences bibliographic information and library functional activities for nationwide use were underappreciated and remain a challenge to NLM.