The book divides the profession’s history is divided into seven eras:
1. The Era of the Library of the Office of the Army Surgeon General and John Shaw Billings – 1836 – 1898
2. The Era of the Gentleman Physician Librarian – 1898 to 1945
3. The Era of the Development of the Clinical Research Infrastructure (NIH), the Rapid Expansion in Funded and Published Clinical Research and the Emergence of Medical Librarianship as a Profession – 1945 – 1962
4. The Era of the Development of the National Library of Medicine, Online digital Subject Searching (Medline) and the Creation of the National Health Science Library Infrastructure– 1962 – 1975
5. The Medline Era – A Golden Age for Medical Libraries – 1975 – 1995
6. The Era of Universal Access to Information and the Transition from Paper to Digitally Based Medical Libraries – 1995 – 2015
7. The Era of the Digital Health Sciences Library – 2015 –
Each era is reviewed through discussing the developments in the field and the factors which drove those developments. The book will provide current and future medical librarians and information specialists an understanding of the development of their profession and some insights into its future.
