Present at the creation: the founding and formative years of the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries

Abstract

The Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) was founded in 1978 with the goal of strengthening academic health sciences libraries and increasing their participation nationally in efforts to improve medical education. A primary objective of the organization was to achieve a formal relationship with the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) through membership in the Council of Academic Societies (CAS). Initial steps in establishing AAHSL are examined, including its efforts to join CAS. The author pays tribute to AAHSL's founders, in particular Gerald Oppenheimer, without whose vision and leadership AAHSL would not have been formed.

INTRODUCTION

We are addressing you today on a matter which we believe will be of considerable importance to you and to academic health sciences libraries generally. [1]

These were the opening words of a letter written by Gerald Oppenheimer and addressed to the directors of the 106 libraries of schools that were members and associate members of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Written in October 1977, the letter sought approval for the establishment of a separate organization for academic medical libraries, the organization known today as the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL).

BACKGROUND

The 1960s saw extraordinary attention focused on the academic medical library. In 1962, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) commissioned Harold Bloomquist, assistant librarian at Harvard University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, to survey the libraries of the eighty-six medical schools and schools of basic medical sciences approved by the American Medical Association. Bloomquist's report concluded that medical libraries had not kept pace with the changes in medical education or the exponential growth in biomedical literature; it called for leadership, aid, and money to provide the services, physical facilities, collections, and staff needed by academic medical libraries to fulfill their role [2].

At the same time as the Bloomquist survey, a joint committee of the AAMC and the Medical Library Association (MLA) was attempting to develop guidelines for academic health sciences libraries. In the introduction to the Guidelines, published in 1965, Committee Chair Estelle Brodman, Ph.D., wrote:

A medical school library is a major educational resource . . . it must be developed as part of the total academic planning . . . Individually, regionally, and nationally, medical schools must work together toward better means of transmitting information to students as well as to research workers . . . The challenge in medical school libraries today is primarily the challenge to educators to work with their librarians as equals on a problem of vital concern to both. [3]

One response to these concerns was the Medical Library Assistance Act passed by Congress in 1965. Under the administration of NLM, the act brought about unprecedented growth and development of medical library services, including the greatest period of expansion in the history of medical school libraries [4].

It was against this background that the directors of medical school libraries sought to come together and organize as a distinct group. As early as 1966, David Kronick, Ph.D., of the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio, David Bishop at the University of Arizona at the time, and Robert Divett of University of New Mexico Medical School had convened a group known as the Council of Developing Medical School Libraries [5]. The goal of the council was to identify common problems and serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas and experience. The group's first meeting was held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in August 1966 and attracted librarians representing new medical schools in Arizona, California, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Texas. Other medical librarians joined the council as well; however, by 1974, the group had apparently ceased meeting.

An organization of academic medical library directors had also been established in Canada. The Association of Canadian Medical Colleges, the Canadian counterpart of the AAMC, included a Special Resource Committee on Medical School Libraries. This committee consisted of the sixteen directors of medical school libraries in Canada, as well as several ex officio members representing federal libraries. The group provided a useful forum for the exchange of information, especially through the collection and dissemination of annual statistics about its members [6]. Similarly, a dental school library group had been created in the American Association of Dental Schools. However, this was not a directors' group, and the group did not have an independent existence, with little activity apart from its annual meeting in conjunction with the American Association of Dental Schools. MLA provided another venue for academic medical library advocacy, but the organization was, at that time, largely focused on hospital library concerns. MLA's Medical School Libraries Group was an informal organization, whose meetings for the most part consisted of social functions. The existing structures clearly did not meet the needs of the academic medical library directors [7].

THE BEGINNING

In May 1977, Oppenheimer convened a meeting of what came to be known as the Organizing Committee of AAHSL in conjunction with the annual meeting of MLA in Seattle. The group at that time consisted of Oppenheimer, director of the Health Science Library at the University of Washington; Glenn Brudvig, director of the Bio-medical Library at the University of Minnesota; Samuel Hitt, director of the Health Sciences Library at the University of North Carolina; and Peter Stangl, director of the Biomedical Library at Stanford University. Oppenheimer had approached these directors because each of their deans was a member of the AAMC Executive Council. Because the goal was to establish an organization of academic health sciences libraries with a defined connection to the AAMC, Oppenheimer believed that this would strengthen these efforts and assist in moving the agenda forward.

Each director in this group wrote separately to his dean requesting that the Executive Council consider the creation of a Medical School Librarians Section in the AAMC. The new organization, they argued, would be of value to both medical schools and to their libraries. It would provide a voice for academic medical libraries and create a formal channel of communication between the AAMC and these libraries; it would foster closer cooperation toward achieving common goals and objectives; and it would identify problems of interest to both groups. Unlike MLA, which concerned itself with matters relating to the profession as a whole, the new association would provide a cohesive and programmatic structure in which academic medical libraries could relate to the institutions they served.

The individual deans responded positively and agreed to raise the issue at the next meeting of the Executive Council. The council, however, did not react favorably to the proposal. While the deans recognized the legitimate concerns of the medical school library directors, they felt that MLA might be a better forum to meet these concerns. John A. D. Cooper, M.D., president of the AAMC, wrote: “Given the limited resources of the AAMC and the feeling of some of our members that we should cut back our support for certain subcouncil organizations, it was felt that the establishment of an additional group was not appropriate” [8]. It was suggested instead that medical school libraries form a disciplinary society and apply for membership in the AAMC's Council of Academic Societies (CAS). Robert L. Van Citters, M.D., dean of the University of Washington School of Medicine encouraged Oppenheimer in this approach. “I am sure that this is not what you had in mind . . . but after having reflected on it a bit, it strikes me that it would serve most of the needs of your group” [9].

Oppenheimer immediately initiated pursuit of this alternative route. He contacted Robert G. Petersdorf, M.D., professor and chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Washington and, at that time, the immediate past president of CAS as well as the incoming president of the AAMC, to enlist his support for the new group's membership on CAS. He also approached August G. Swanson, M.D., director, Department of Academic Affairs of the AAMC, for his endorsement.

Before they could seek membership in CAS, the academic health sciences library directors would have to organize as a distinct society, and the organization would have to obtain 501(C)(3) tax status as defined by the IRS. The first step, therefore, was to gain the support of academic medical library directors to form the new organization. To this end, the Organizing Committee sent out a letter in October 1977 to the 106 directors of academic health sciences libraries whose institutions were members of the AAMC, seeking consensus in favor of the proposal.

Responses were immediate and enthusiastic. “Right On! I am with you all the way on this plan to have a disciplinary society apply for membership in AAMC's Council of Academic Societies,” wrote Charles W. Sargent, Ph.D., director, Education Resources Division, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center [10]. “This is the most important step taken by medical school libraries in this decade,” noted W. D. Postell, Jr., director of the Rudolph Matas Medical Library at Tulane University [11]. “We have needed this for a long time,” stated Tom Basler, Ph.D., director of the Library at the Medical College of Georgia [12], and Louise Darling, librarian at the Biomedical Library UCLA wrote, “it sounds as if an organization of this kind has a chance to be really useful. . . . Let me know if there is anything I can do to further the cause!” [13].

A few librarians expressed reservations. Among these was Brodman, librarian at Washington University School of Medicine. “While I agree wholeheartedly with your proposal, I am less sanguine than you about the reply you received from Dr. Cooper. . . . Unless we can change this attitude . . . I think the chance of our getting very far with AAMC in the next few years may be small,” she wrote to Oppenheimer [14]. Kronick was concerned lest the new organization compete with MLA. “Although I am convinced that we do need some kind of representation in AAMC . . . an approach which may be considered is some kind of dual membership of both the as yet unnamed constituent society and an Academic Medical Librarians Group in MLA” [15]. Bishop, university librarian at the University of San Francisco Medical Center, noted that he opposed the idea because of its divisiveness both intramurally and extramurally. “For those of us with broad health sciences constituencies identification with medical deans by library directors would have a decidedly negative effect on the other disciplines served by our own libraries.” Furthermore, he viewed the proposal as being “especially divisive within the Medical Library Association, where any such academic society would certainly be labelled ‘elite.’” [16].

Of the seventy-one responses received, only two said they would not support the effort. However the questions and comments raised by many of the directors provided valuable guidance for the Organizing Committee. For one, it was clear that the term “health sciences” would be preferable to “medical school” libraries. Also, while the directors applauded the creation of the new organization, they all felt that this society and MLA should coexist and that such coexistence and mutual support would be beneficial to both organizations. Moreover, while the opportunity to join CAS and work jointly toward common goals might have provided the impetus for creating the organization, the directors cautioned that this should not be the major reason for its existence. The organization needed its own identity and mission, namely to serve as a platform for academic health sciences library directors as a group, to strengthen their individual planning and policy development programs. Membership in the AAMC would bring an important additional dimension to this effort [17].

Armed with the support of their colleagues, the Organizing Committee turned to the work of establishing the new society. A fifth member, Nina Matheson, then director of the Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library at George Washington University, was added to the Organizing Committee. Although she joked that she was added as the “token woman” [18], the chief reason for her inclusion was that she was Washington based and, therefore, could serve as a representative in the Washington area to contact AAMC headquarters, if necessary. She also agreed to serve as the resident agent for the organization, because AAHSL did not have a headquarters or paid staff. Furthermore, it was felt that Matheson would be an effective advocate for the new organization, as she had ties to the AAMC dating from her previous positions at the National Library of Medicine and strongly supported the move to gain representation on CAS. “Unless we could have a presence in that kind of body,” noted Matheson, “we weren't going to be able to effect [sic] medical education except through these very indirect fringe ways that we were forced to operate in” [19]. Directors of the Canadian medical school libraries were also invited to join, as their schools' affiliate status in the AAMC permitted them membership in the new organization. A Bylaws Committee consisting of Richard Lyders, of the Texas Medical Center Library at the Houston Academy of Medicine, and Sargent, at Texas Technical University, was appointed, and a set of bylaws drafted that would be sufficient to enable the group to proceed with incorporation efforts. The name “Association of Academic Health Sciences Library Directors” was selected by the Organizing Committee at the suggestion of CAS. The committee felt that this made it clear that the basis for membership was institutional rather than individual and that representation was to be at the director level.

The new organization, the Association of Academic Health Sciences Library Directors, was formally incorporated in January 1978. The Organizing Committee became the first Board of Directors and elected as officers Oppenheimer, president; Hitt, president elect; and Stangl, secretary and treasurer. An announcement was sent to the library directors in February 1978, along with a request that each institution submit their dues, which the Organizing Committee had established at $50 [20].

DEFINING THE ASSOCIATION OF ACADEMIC HEALTH SCIENCES LIBRARIES (AAHSL) GOALS

The initial letter sent out by the AAHSL Organizing Committee presented the case for organizing an association to strengthen academic health sciences libraries and to increase their participation nationally in efforts to improve medical education. The letter proposed five goals for the new organization: to create a corporate voice for academic health sciences libraries; to identify common problems and articulate solutions relative to medical school curricula; to seek the improvement of staff, facilities, and resources of academic health sciences libraries; to influence federal legislation; and to seek closer cooperation and communication with the AAMC [21].

The AAHSL Bylaws, which were officially adopted by the organization at the June 1979 meeting, posited the organizations' mission as:

1. to promote in cooperation with educational institutions, other educational associations, government agencies, and other nonprofit organizations, the common interest of academic health sciences libraries located in the United States and elsewhere, through publications, research, and discussion of problems of mutual interest and concern; and

2. to advance the efficient and effective operation of academic health sciences libraries for the benefit of faculty, students, staff, administrators, and practitioners [22].

Between 1978 and 1981, AAHSL engaged in a great deal of soul-searching to determine specific priorities within the framework of this mission. The AAHSL Board of Directors had developed a schema of objectives and activities, which they presented to the membership in June 1978. After much discussion and debate, this schema was revised and a list of eight priority-ordered objectives was determined:

• develop guidelines for medical school libraries (updating the Journal of Medical Education reports)

• study trends in medical education and their effects on academic health sciences libraries

• study effects of developing library technology

• develop a statement about instructional resource production, distribution, and research

• assist in self-study programs of academic health sciences libraries

• evaluate and take a stand on health-related legislation and its impact on academic health sciences libraries

• establish medical literature and information science courses in health sciences schools

• participate in the development of a policy with respect to national repository collections [23]

This list—and especially the first three objectives—set the direction for AAHSL activities and programming during its initial years. The list continued to be reviewed and redefined, as some issues came to have less importance, and new issues arose that were then incorporated into AAHSL planning and programming.

AAHSL AND THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN MEDICAL COLLEGES (AAMC): FIRST STEPS

An a priori goal was to become a formal part of the AAMC, and, as soon as it was legally possible, AAHSL filed a petition for membership in CAS. In October 1978, a reply was received stating that the CAS Administrative Board acted to not recommend admission of AAHSL to CAS at this time. “Although I cannot provide a complete analysis of the reasons for this action, in part it was related to the fact that the association has only recently been organized,” wrote Swanson, director of the Department of Academic Affairs at the AAMC [24]. Swanson had suggested to the Administrative Board that they reconsider the application at their next meeting in January 1979. However at that meeting, the CAS Administrative Board again decided to withhold membership. “Your organization is so newly formed it is not possible to judge what your national goals are and how your programs will contribute to the advancement of biomedical research and education,” wrote Swanson to AAHSL President Oppenheimer. He suggested that AAHSL delay submission of another application until the organization's program was more fully developed [25]. The AAHSL Board was surprised and disappointed by this negative reaction, especially because they felt that they had received positive encouragement from Swanson and members of the CAS Administrative Board. However, this disappointment did not deter the new organization.

EARLY AAHSL INITIATIVES

The first meeting of the entire AAHSL membership was held on June 13, 1978, in Chicago, in conjunction with the MLA annual meeting. Fifty-five members attended. At that meeting, Secretary Stangl reported a membership count of ninety-two. The board announced the appointment of three committees: bylaws, nominating, and program.

In October 1978, AAHSL again met, this time in conjunction with the AAMC at the AAMC annual meeting in New Orleans. At this meeting, the secretary announced that the membership had risen to ninety-nine. By the end of the first year, membership had grown to 105, and four new committees had been established: the Committee on Information Control and Technology, the Medical Education Committee, the Committee on the Development of Standards & Guidelines, and an ad hoc committee on an AAHSL Newsletter. At AAHSL's third meeting in Honolulu in June 1979, the first annual report was received and association bylaws were adopted. The bylaws outlined AAHSL's mission and specified criteria for membership. Regular members were defined as academic health sciences libraries of institutions that were members of the AAMC; associate members were institutions or organizations with an interest in the purposes and activities of the association. Each regular member was to be represented by its director or chief executive officer.

In 1979, AAHSL took a critical step when the association assumed sponsorship of the Annual Statistics of Medical School Libraries in the United States and Canada. The Annual Statistics initially had been published by the University of Texas Health Science Center Library at Dallas. When Richard Lyders, director at the Houston Academy of Medicine, Texas Medical Center Library, took responsibility for issuing the compilation, he approached AAHSL to cosponsor the endeavor. The financial role for AAHSL would be minimal, as the intention was for the publication to be self-supporting. However, AAHSL sponsorship would allow the association to guide data definitions and develop the infrastructure for data collection. Sponsorship of the Annual Statistics set the stage for AAHSL to speak as the authoritative source for information about medical school libraries.

AAHSL also strengthened its ties with the AAMC through collaboration on a new AAMC-sponsored study on academic medical libraries. As soon as the AAHSL Board learned about a proposed project to update the “Guidelines for Medical School Libraries” that had been published in the Journal of Medical Education in 1965, they set up a meeting with Marjorie P. Wilson, M.D., director of the AAMC Department of Institutional Development. The board members emphasized the importance of this project to both organizations and suggested some form of cooperation to most effectively carry it forward [26]. At its 1980 meeting, the board designated the president elect to serve as the liaison to the AAMC study on academic health sciences libraries. “By creating this direct liaison relationship, AAHSL wishes to demonstrate the association's strong and continuing support for the AAMC study and our willingness to become involved,” wrote Robin LeSueur, president of AAHSL, to Wilson. The partnership was further strengthened when Matheson resigned her position at George Washington to assume the role of project coordinator for the study [27].

By the end of AAHSL's third year, membership had grown to 118 regular and one associate member libraries.

PROGRAMMING

One of the reasons for the CAS denial of AAHSL's application for membership was that the association had “not yet had a national scientific session” [28]. This set a clear direction for AAHSL and provided the incentive for an ambitious programming effort. A Program Committee was established and held its first meeting in June 1978. Committee members agreed that programs at AAMC meetings should emphasize a broad area of interests, which would appeal to members of AAMC as well as to health sciences library directors. Three major themes were identified: continuing medical education, research, and management. The committee decided to focus its initial program planning on “research relating to the broad area of information transfer which would relate to the advancement of biomedical research and education” [29].

The first AAHSL program was presented at the 1979 AAMC meeting in Washington, DC. Moderated by Hitt, the program was titled “Information Transfer: Present and Future Directions” and featured three presentations. F. Wilfrid Lancaster opened the program with a talk on “The Library in an Electronic Society.” Tamas E. Doszkocs, Ph.D., and Warren Hoag, D.V.M., discussed “Specialized Data Base Development at the National Library of Medicine,” and Murray Turoff, Ph.D., and Starr Roxanne Hiltz, Ph.D., spoke on “Medical Applications of Computer Conferencing Systems.” By all accounts, the program was well received [30]. Also at the 1979 AAMC meeting, AAHSL sponsored a presentation by Joseph Leiter, Ph.D., on NLM's plans for MEDLARS III.

An additional programming effort undertaken by AAHSL during 1979 was collaborating with the Medical Schools Libraries Group to present a program at the MLA annual meeting in Hawaii. AAHSL Secretary-Treasurer Stangl was also chair of the Medical School Libraries Group in 1978/79. He had the idea to develop a program for the Medical School Libraries Group that would coincide with AAHSL program interests. The result was a panel on the topic of “The Relationships between the Library, Media Production, and Instructional Development in the Academic Health Science Center.” Though AAHSL was not listed as a cosponsor of the program, this early example of an AAHSL and MLA partnership represented an important initiative on AAHSL's part to counter the charges of “elitism” that some had directed toward the organization [31].

CONCLUSION

It is impossible to write about the founding of AAHSL without paying tribute to the vision of the founders of the organization, in particular Oppenheimer. “Forget the prominence of your name in the letter [of October 1977]. There is no other way, and you certainly did do all the work!” [32] wrote Hitt to Oppenheimer. “Gerry was the sparkplug,” stated Brudvig [33], and Stangl commented, “Gerry was the source of the initial push. He was the long-term thinker, the strategist—more than the rest of us” [34].

Through their positions on the AAHSL Board and through their participation on AAHSL committees, all five members of the organizing committee (Brudvig, Hitt, Matheson, Oppenheimer, and Stangl) continued to provide guidance and establish direction for much of AASHL's early years. All remained members and active participants in MLA as well, working to ensure a symbiotic relationship between the two organizations. While each founder brought his or her own focus—lobbying, technology, standards— to the process, they all shared a commitment to what AAHSL could do to further the cause of both academic health sciences libraries and medical education.

In the “1987/88 President's Report,” Matheson wrote: “AAHSLD has gone from a perceived need, to a strong, thriving energetic voluntary organization with worthwhile and significant purposes of its own” [35]. In that report, she also announced that the AAMC Council of Academic Societies Administrative Board had just voted unanimously to invite an application from the association to join CAS—the initial goal of the founders was at last achieved.

Note on naming: In 1978, the Association of Academic Health Sciences Library Directors (AAHSLD) was incorporated. In 1996, in response to IRS requirements, AAHSLD formed a new organization to carry on its work, under the name Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL). In this article, unless otherwise stated, the newer name is intended to refer to the organization throughout its history.