The USA Biomedical Library can now provide services for the entire local community. Through its outreach program, called SouthMed, it serves, for a fee, research needs of non-USA area hospitals, corporations, law firms and medical personnel. Like many medical school libraries, especially those affiliated with state universities, the USA facility is also open to the public. And some Mobilians are taking advantage of the opportunity to check out their own ailments and those of friends and relatives. The first floor of the USA facility seems relatively familiar a circulation desk, rows of shelving full of medical texts and bound volumes of medical, psychiatric and related journals.
Computers appear everywhere many more than in a typical library.
And there are still more on the second floor. In fact, there s a microcomputer laboratory, a multimedia lab, an instructional lab and dozens of computers for patrons to use. What s more, there s a Computer Room, with scores of blinking lights, wires, electronic devices. The constant hum of the machinery is to a biomedical library what Muzak is to elevators. This computer room is the brains of the library.