A survey of patient access to hospital and medical school libraries

The American Medical Association (AMA) Library and Information Management Division conducted a survey of 481 randomly selected hospital and medical center libraries. Data were obtained from 307 libraries (63.8%). The tabulated results showed that 58.1% of responding libraries allow patient access without restrictions. Another 19.9% allow patient access with restrictions, such as physician approval (13.4%) or various other limitations (6.5%). Many of the surveyed librarians (67%) said their institutions have separate nontechnical libraries for patients. Medical library access was strongly or somewhat supported by 89.6% of the respondents; 6.1% were somewhat opposed, and 4.3% were strongly opposed to patient access. Approximately 10% of the libraries surveyed provided no patient education forum. The AMA trustees used the results of the survey in deciding whether to encourage hospitals and medical schools to make their libraries accessible for use by patients and their families.