Bringing the mountain to Mohammed without falling off the cliff of unmanageable technology.

This is the description of one library's trouble and success in creating a customized online service that could bring published medical information to remote locations for physicians, researchers, and clinicians who were often too busy to visit the library. The staff at Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences, serving the University of Alabama Medical Center at Birmingham, wanted to establish a dial-in modem system for clients to access twenty-five years of medical literature. They tried one method that failed and then developed a successful system. Today, clients are enthusiastically using so many hours on the system that the library may consider rationing time.

This paper will describe one library's trouble and success in creating a customized online service that could bring research material to remote locations, into the hands of medical clients who are too busy to visit the library. The goal is to save other libraries that may want to provide a similar service from falling into technical problems while trying to provide the leading edge of technology.

THE CHALLENGE

As the library that services one of the top medical centers in the nation, Lister Hill Library (LHL) faced a challenge. In order to serve clients at the University of Alabama (UAB) Medical Center at Birmingham, LHL wanted to find a way to bring research material into the hands of clients who needed the …