Abstract
Reference service in medical libraries should be considered more seriously by the members of the Japan Medical Library Association, as their interest so far has been focused mainly on interlibrary loan service, compilation of union lists and union catalogs, and the business side of library administration. The Association does not have enough funds to be very active, and its membership is limited to the libraries of medical and of some large dental schools. It should open its membership to other medical libraries, such as those of hospitals and medical laboratories, and eventually to individuals.
Many of the member libraries do not have complete control of their own budget, as each department of the school earmarks part of its budget for the library while it still holds the right of deciding which books and journals are to be bought and keeps a large part of them in its departmental library.
Lack of proper library school education among the library staff is one of the major problems. There are some training courses for medical librarians in the library schools and also some workshops held by the Association, but they are limited in their usefulness by the fact that there are not enough library school graduates who can take advantage of them.
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