National Central Library

Public libraries in both the United Kingdom and the United States vary in the extent of their holdings of scientific material, but usually have access to a much greater stock of material than can be found on their own shelves. In the United Kingdom their activities are co-ordinated through a series of regional arrangements which culminate in the National Central Library. 

During the first quarter of the twentieth century, there were efforts to establish workshops in various archives and libraries through individual enterprise. One such endeavor was made by the Central Library in Barcelona, which sent selected technicians to the Vatican Library in Rome for training. Later, a small restoration laboratory was started in the Central Library, which, for the time, was one of the most advanced in the country (3). It remained active for some thirty-five years the operation ceased when its personnel were transferred to other duties. During the same era, the National Library in Madrid established a career field never heard of before Paper Restorer. The position was filled by a self-taught mender of engravings, documents, and maps, who on retirement was not replaced. 

The techniques used by the Central Library were relatively sophisticated for the time local librarians were given short indoctrination courses in those techniques and learned how to make simple repairs on books. However, in the majority of Spain s libraries, bookbinders, if they were available, doubled as restorers in archives, people did paste-and-paper repairs in addition to regular duties. No one, not even at the Central Library, was available to confront the broader problems of deterioration facing the custodians of the nation s records on paper and parchment. 

In 1949, a member of the Pontifical University in Comillas conducted a survey of facilities dedicated to the pathology of the book (6). The conclusion was simple enough Spain had no center capable of studying the discipline comprehensively. The report mentioned the many good intentions, only partially realized, of a dedicated few to establish such a capability it recommended strongly an entity of established prestige such as the Central Library or the National Library to initiate and sponsor a national center. Nothing came of the idea. 

Producers. The producers of databases are sometimes called database publishers because they make pubHc their databases. Some producers pubhsh hardcopy counterparts to databases and so are pubHshers in the traditional sense others pubHsh data only in electronic form. Database producers are responsible both for the deterrnination of content and for database production. Most producers offer their databases for lease or Hcense to private organisations or database vendors. Vendors offer database search services to the marketplace on a fee basis. An increasing number of producer/vendors such as Mead Data Central, U.S. National Library of Medicine, and DRI/McGraw-HiU. (formerly Data Resources), offer search services (batch or online) from their own databases as well as from the databases of other products. 

Paper conservation, as known today, is new to Spain. Until a few years ago, custodians of the nations records on paper and parchment could only despair at the deterioration taking place. The restorers—craftsmen, in reality—scarcely were trained to tackle the broad problem. The pleas and warnings of those who wanted something done went unheeded. Here and there individual authorities sought professional help from abroad, but results proved minimal. In 1969, a dramatic change took place. Conservation was raised from the empirical to the scientific level. The breakthrough a law that provided for a centralized agency to restore the nations archival and library materials, determine the causes of deterioration, and train personnel to carry out these tasks. 

FIGURE 3.3. The central role of women In the U.S. Sanitary Commission is depioted in this photo of a U.S.S.C. depot near Brandy Station, Virginia. Image oourtesy of the National Library of Medicine, History of Medicine Division. 

ConGen/HK to DoS, Implications for US Policy of Latest Developments in Communist China, 18 July 1962, Box 15, Thomson Files, Kennedy Presidential Library (JFKL), p. 6 ConGen/HK to DoS, Trends and Prospects in Communist China Implications for US Policy, I February 1963, Box 3863, Central Foreign Policy Files (CFCP) (1963), Record Group (RG) 59, National Archives (NA). 

MEDLARS stands for Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System. It was set up by the US National Library of Medicine (NLM) and became fully operational in January 1964. The indexing and searching operations have now been decentralised (see below for a list of National MEDLARS Centres), but central processing is still controlled by NLM. 

CNS Central nervous system National Library of Medicine Gateway... 

PubMed Central (PMC) http //www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/ (accessed June 24, 2010). PubMed Central is a freely available digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature, developed aud mauaged by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBl), a division of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the US. National Institutes of Health (NIH). 

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