Spanning the Digital Divide: Low-Cost Digital Solutions for the Small Hospital Library

摘要

The digital divide among medical hospital libraries is a very deep and wide chasm. The big, well-funded libraries can offer a wonderful array of digital products to their users. The smaller libraries can afford to offer little. Costs for digital products continue to rise. This becomes apparent when medical students rotate from one hospital to another and complain about the lack of resources available in a library. It does not have to be so. There are many digital services that a small hospital library can offer. In the digital age, it is not how much space that defines a library but rather how much freely available content can be accessed. This article describes simple approaches that were used to improve access to full-text electronic resources and to enhance document delivery in a hospital library.