Medical Library Association of Great Britain and Ireland

The Medical Library Association of Great Britain and Ireland was founded in 1908 and held two annual meetings. Its first formal meeting was held in Belfast in July 1909 (during the meetings of the British Medical Association) and its second, in London, in 1910 (also in conjunction with the meetings of the British Medical Association.) No written record of its activities after 1911 has been found.

William Osler was one of the founders, in 1898, of the Medical Library Association in North America (initially called the Association of Medical Librarians) and served as its President from 1901-04. Osler moved to England in 1905 as he had been appointed Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University. Shortly after his arrival he was also involved in the formation of the short-lived British equivalent and he was elected the new Association's President in 1909.

The proceedings of the Association's 1909 meeting were published as a separate publication and are the first eight pages of Volume 1 of the Proceedings of the Medical Library Association of Great Britain and Ireland. A copy of this publication is in the Osler Library of McGill University in Montreal where Part 1 is Osler 7206. Part 2 of Volume 1 (pp. 9-19) is the Presidential Address by William Osler (Osler 3576 No. 286). Osler's Presidential Address - entitled "The medical library in post-graduate work" - was originally published in the British Medical Journal, October 2, 1909, pp. 925-8. No further issues of the Proceedings were published.

It appears that the Osler Library copy of the Proceedings of the MLA-GBI may be a final proof copy as it contains proof-reader's corrections but, to date, no other copy has been found for comparison. A copy of these Proceedings is at

Famous quotes containing the words medical, library, association, britain and/or ireland:

    One fellow I was dating in medical school ... was a veterinarian and he wanted to get married. I said, but you’re going to be moving to Minneapolis, and he said, oh, you can quit and I’ll take care of you. I said, “Go.”
    Sylvia Beckman (b. c. 1931)

    Our civilization has decided ... that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men.... When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.
    Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)

    In this great association we know no North, no South, no East, no West. This has been our pride for all these years. We have no political party. We never have inquired what anybody’s religion is. All we ever have asked is simply, “Do you believe in perfect equality for women?” This is the one article in our creed.
    Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)

    When Britain first, at Heaven’s command,
    Arose from out the azure main,
    This was the charter of her land,
    And guardian angels sung the strain:
    Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!
    Britons never shall be slaves.
    James Thomson (1700–1748)

    The tragedy of Northern Ireland is that it is now a society in which the dead console the living.
    Jack Holland (b. 1947)