Information Access and Library and Information Networks for Health Sciences

A library is described by Ranganathan as a social memory. A library is an information access centre. It provides a variety of access-physical access, bibliographic access, intellectual access, psychological access and social access-to any seeker of knowledge. It is, infact, a structured organised knowledge base meant for societal use. In it there is knowledge gained by the experience of individuals and teams of individuals from time immemorial and to-date. At any time, it presents the human achievements of the past in terms of cognitive process. In the contemporary environment, relatively new information is exchanged in many media between individuals and teams of individuals working in any specialised field through online interactive access and other similar media.