Legacy of a Library Leader: Anne Harrison

ABSTRACT

Anne Harrison (1923–1992) was a pioneering academic medical librarian who worked at the Brownless Medical Library (BML), the University of Melbourne from 1949–1983. In the early years, there was unprecedented demand for postgraduate courses and a limited budget to build a collection in support of the research needs of the faculty. However, with foresight, Harrison contributed significantly to the development of the University’s medical faculty, and also to the wider medical library fraternity in Australia. Those developments included moving the library from a wing of the University’s original Pathology building into a newly established Brownless Medical Library in 1967 and a major shift from print indexes to the use of online databases, such as MEDLINE in 1977. She was also instrumental in the establishment and administration of the Central Medical Library Organisation, an important service through which Victorian medical libraries were able to access, by telephone, a location service for journals and books and to cooperate in a duplicate serials exchange program. This paper aims to increase the understanding of present-day health librarianship by revisiting the principles of library service established under the leadership of Miss Anne Harrison. This reflection is based on an interview and previous publications on the topic about Harrison and the period in medical librarianship.

KEYWORDS:

• Health science libraries
• academic libraries
• leadership
• medical librarians
• university libraries

Introduction

Anne Harrison’s achievements have been recognised professionally. For example, to acknowledge her successful accomplishments, a biennial award is open to health librarians to fund research or projects that will enrich the knowledge and skills of Australian health libraries.

The award is conferred by the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and is named in her honour – the Anne Harrison Award (Australian Library and Information Association, 2019). It is testament in this regard to the influence she had, and this paper builds on the existing literature of her achievements by providing a unique perspective through an interview of a former colleague to gain a more detailed picture of the period of time that Harrison worked in. Harrison’s progressive approach can provide us with insight for how we could develop health librarians in the future.

This reflection is based on interview data and previous research on the topic. Ethics clearance to undertake the interview was obtained from the Human Research Ethics at the University of Melbourne. In 2018, an interview was undertaken with a former staff member who worked with Anne Harrison. The key findings from this interview are reported in this paper.

A Brief History

Harrison started as an Assistant Medical Librarian at the University of Melbourne in 1948 and became librarian-in-charge in 1949 when the old Medical School Library was housed in a compact space within the Pathology Building on Swanston Street (Steger, 1996). Before long, overcrowding became a problem with lectures and social events occurring in the same space which led to materials being packaged and stored in a basement that was prone to flooding (Steger, 1996).When the faculty started expanding at the southern end of the campus in the early sixties, Harrison along with Kenneth Russell lobbied hard for a new library, lobbying that led to the construction of the Brownless Medical Library, which officially opened in 1967 (Steger, 1996). Karel Axel Lodewycks, University Librarian at the time, also had great interest in the developments of the new library, as he had previously liaised with the architects in the building of Baillieu Library. He designed several plans and argued for a standalone library rather than building an extension to Baillieu or occupying two upper floors of the new building for the Pathology Department as some proposed. Eventually construction began for the new building and Lodewycks acknowledges the final plans ‘as developed in collaboration with the medical branch librarian’ (Lodewycks, 1982). According to the interviewee,

He would’ve had quite a lot of input in the planning of the Brownless Medical library, however it was Harrison who dealt directly with the architects and provided input of her plans for the library, undoubtedly drawing inspiration also from her travel to the U.S. and visits to libraries there, in particular the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM).

The new Brownless Medical Library would have three floors and a basement, a Medical History Museum, Medical History collection and a Rare Book room, and provisions for adding extra floors. It was a milestone for the medical faculty to have a separate freestanding building in which the Library could continue to grow a world class collection. As the interviewee said:

It was a big achievement to have its own separate, very large freestanding building. The Medical Faculty recognised that they had a good collection and excellent service delivery, and they saw the need for accommodation and state of the art facilities in the exciting world of new buildings on the campus. They were moving away from the old heritage buildings and thinking ahead to the future.

A New Beginning and Opportunities Created

As a leader, Harrison recognised the opportunities that the move to a new library building presented. This was a time when the ground-breaking Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR) (Library of Congress. & American Library Association. & Library Association, 1967) were under development and the new rules allowed for shelving serials by running title, instead of under issuing body. While the Baillieu Library at the time remained firmly committed to the old American Library Association (ALA) cataloguing rules, this did not deter Harrison from a utilitarian approach for library client benefit. A simplified auxiliary serials title catalogue was devised and collocated with the main card catalogue. This serial title catalogue showed brief title and holdings, ignoring parts of speech, indicated the general location and recording changes of title. Serials were filed under current title. This approach gave the client a rapid ‘look-up’ device, rather than the more complex catalogue check that often involved corporate authors. Our interviewee adds: ‘In practice, regular library users often walked straight to the shelves to find a known title filed by that title rather than under its issuing body’.

Harrison sought to employ best practice, often with reference to the United States (US) NLM’s trailblazing Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, which was conveniently located in Harrison’s office. The Bulletin also set the scene for the layout and evolution of a very impressive and comprehensive collection. According to our interviewee: ‘for example, current medical literature usage studies would’ve shown that 80% of the usage would be over the last 20–25 years of the literature, so Harrison planned that the first floor held post 1945, and the second floor held the earlier material’. She was guided by utilitarian principles, wanting to make the collection discoverable and predictable, and it is still visible in the periodical collection in 2019.

Once the Library was established, Harrison needed to build and maintain the collections. She had strong allies amongst the faculty though still needed to lobby for funding. With her acquisitions team, Harrison instituted a direct arrangement with the local medical and science bookseller Standish, Prideaux & Pye, after securing authorisation from Baillieu Library Acquisitions, for books to be sent over for approval. This was in the 1970s, the supply was regular, and the number of books obtained in this way was significant. It would speed things up for approval as she could then invite academics to assess an item if necessary, particularly if it was expensive. With both books and serials, she also arranged to have the National Library of Medicine’s Current Cataloguing Proof Sheets (CCPS) which included prepublication data, delivered by airmail. This made it possible to get things on the shelves for users in Australia much faster than previous systems and processes.

Harrison also took the opportunity to establish ‘reader education’ programs to students in the life sciences as well as the general practitioners through liaison with members of the medical faculty. These programs became a compulsory part of the University of Melbourne’s Biochemistry syllabus in the 1970s and laid the foundation for future library liaison information skills education. We can view this as an early example of embedding librarians and information literacy into the medical curriculum, which is pertinent to current practice in academic librarianship.

Central Medical Library Organisation (1953-1994)

The Central Medical Library Organisation (CMLO) was formed in 1953 following an inaugural meeting initiated by Harrison and Jean Scott (Librarian of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute at the time (Harrison, 1955). A meeting of representatives from all medical libraries in Melbourne was called to seek collaboration in the sharing of periodical holdings, to consolidate as well as expand by exchanging duplicate materials. Harrison oversaw the planning and became its executive secretary (Russell, 1977). It was formed in response to the lack of acquisition funding across the hospitals and other university medical libraries. The Brownless Medical Library had a large and comprehensive collection and became a major library member of CMLO after its establishment.

Metropolitan hospital libraries paid a small annual subscription to access a rapid look up service provided by the Brownless Medical Library. A telephone inquiry service was located at the reference desk to provide the rapid response. It became a hotline, so much so that in the mid-seventies they had a second line to the reference desk because that rapid fulfilment to location was extremely urgent. This enquiry line delivered a location service for journals and books. Our interviewee explained that the national union catalogue of serials (Scientific Serials in Australian Libraries – SSAL) was not held by all medical libraries and more importantly lagged behind severely in reflecting current serial holdings. There was also a National Union Catalogue of Monographs (NUCOM) that was updated at relatively infrequent intervals and that came out on microform. Medical libraries including Brownless could not afford to subscribe to NUCOM and moreover NUCOM could not keep up with the rapid publication rate in medical sciences. This prompted establishment of the telephone enquiry service that operated off a card system that was updated continually.

Interviewee:

It was quite remarkable, and the hospital librarians of the time were a pretty amazing bunch who were very dedicated and committed to meeting client needs. They worked in a very challenging environment I would say because it was fiercely patriarchal and fiercely hierarchical, and their funds were extremely limited. So, networking and resource sharing were critical to their ability to meet the information needs, which were often demanding and urgent, so the Telephone Enquiry Service was vital. It operated on a shoestring and sometimes it competed with human resources against service delivery. It’s not a criticism, it’s an observation of what happens in an environment where resources are limited.’

Another major contribution was … it also offered a reference and referral service and perhaps more as a network colleague add-on if you like. Anne was a very generous member of the network and always willing to discuss issues about library operations with members … . It was called a duplicate exchange program. And that was very useful in those times because remember medical/biomedical information was always aiming to be current and rapid and waiting for agents to supply missing issues of journals was a long drawn out process. Months of negotiation would ensue. So, if the hospitals or members had duplicates, they would send them in, they’d be rapidly sorted and filed on work shelves in the back areas. A working duplicates list would be distributed, and people would put in claims and that also operated for back sets, particularly small libraries that were running out of space. Then they could send in back sets and new libraries starting up could draw on those free of charge. They paid delivery if it was anything substantial. Over time, rationalisation of back sets became important to maximise space, binding and service costs particularly in the case of widely held titles. This was cooperatively mediated also through the CMLO.

This is an illustration of Harrison’s remarkable dedication to service delivery, that she was able to bring this all together and define and accommodate the needs of not just the Brownless Medical Library but also to collaboratively benefit the wider medical library community in Melbourne. Her skills lay in playing her own role and being effective at negotiating, co-operating and collaborating through mutual agreements. This ability to multitask is stall relevant to library leadership today, where collaboration, resource sharing and networking is key to the delivery of services during times of competing budgetary pressures.

Introduction of MEDLINE

The development of the CMLO group was an illustration of Harrison’s collaborative nature, it also demonstrates how she understood networking as crucial in keeping health libraries current and surviving budgetary cuts. The next stage was when MEDLINE was introduced by the National Library of Australia (NLA) in 1976 and Harrison played a significant role in this (Delafosse, 2016a). Prior to its introduction, medical librarians used to search for articles in Index Medicus or send off searches to the NLM in America and that could take several weeks for results to return.

MEDLINE was the online version of the MEDLARS service, evolving from the 1879 Index Medicus printed listing of medical articles, and would revolutionise the way medical literature could be found. When MEDLINE was offered via NLA as the national centre, Harrison seized the opportunity. Initially the Brownless Medical Library reference librarian along with the other reference librarians from Australia’s medical school libraries were trained in Canberra by NLA’s MEDLINE section. According to our interviewee, after returning to Victoria, the then Library Association of Australia (LAA) Information Science section sponsored the first local MEDLINE demonstration and this was hosted by Denis Richardson as University Librarian in the Baillieu Library, in 1976. Brownless Medical and Monash Biomedical Libraries were thus trained to perform MEDLINE searches for their own clients and for the hospital medical libraries until the hospital medical librarians gained the skills for searching MEDLINE independently. According to our interviewee, who was demonstrating how to use MEDLINE on an asynchronous terminal, ‘the meeting was popular, and everyone was agog at the new online informational retrieval tool’. Brownless Medical and Monash Biomedical Libraries were thus trained to perform MEDLINE searches for their own clients and for the hospital medical libraries until the hospital medical librarians gained the skills for searching MEDLINE independently.

In 1978 a joint meeting entitled ‘Using MEDLINE’ was held in the Baillieu Library, inviting all medical librarians for a demonstration. Harrison particularly appealed to hospital librarians to participate as it would be a valuable tool for them (Delafosse, 2016a). Paul Hodgson from the Australian MEDLARS service, Sandra Russell from the Biomedical Library, Monash University, along with Harrison used this meeting to speak about their experiences using MEDLINE (Delafosse, 2016a).

Following this meeting, the University of Melbourne’s Baillieu Library developed a week-long training program in using MEDLINE:

The reason for the venue was that universities were the only places with computer training rooms. We stayed at the Baillieu for the working week. The morning sessions included theory of searching, using MeSH, and working out search strategies for MEDLINE. The afternoons were spent putting into practice what we had learned in the mornings. We certainly returned to our workplaces fully capable of implementing a good search. (Czuchnowski, 2004)

The introduction of MEDLINE was the single greatest moment of progress for medical librarianship and Harrison wasted no time in having her staff trained and encouraging all medical librarians to train in using MEDLINE and promoting the tailored and rapid service it offered.

Australian Medical Librarians Group

In 1971 the LAA held a biennial conference in which university medical librarians met to discuss the proposal to form a medical librarian’s group. Harrison and Jacqueline Baillie played key roles in forming the Australian Medical Librarians Group (AMLG) in the early 1970s, (Australian Library and Information Association). At this time, university and hospital libraries were increasingly approached by clinicians and managers for help with their information needs and setting up libraries (Delafosse, 2016b). The aims of the group were to advance the needs of medical libraries in Australia, to promote liaison between medical librarians, and to institute educational programs for medical librarians (Widdess et al., 1972).

The Brownless Medical Library was aware of the responsibility that entailed, and they were uniquely placed with their sizeable collection in providing access. It was the precursor for the Australian Medical Libraries Group (AMLG) Victoria branch and Harrison was a key leader, along with Baillie who was the librarian at Monash University’s Biomedical Library. They were committed to establishing the medical librarians’ group as a way of providing and encouraging support and resource sharing and continuing education and mentoring within a very small group of dedicated hospital and medical librarians. According to our interviewee: ‘One of the first things was to develop a little directory of medical libraries of Victoria, in which strengths and unique or significant holdings were included. According to the 1973 MLG newsletter, the directory had reached the final stages and they intended to have 2500 copies, of which 50 were circulated to each library to complete their own specific detail (Medical Librarian’s Group – Victorian Branch, 1973, November). Harrison also reported briefly at that meeting on the future of Medical libraries. It was influenced by the US NLM 1972 Annual Report and her paper was titled ‘Special libraries in the 1980s’. The NLM report had mentioned that MEDLINE would be introduced in Australia in the near future and noted issues medical libraries would face in the 1980s with the changes in health care administration and the possible increase in the use of paramedical professions (Medical Librarian’s Group – Victorian Branch, 1973, November). This is another illustration of Harrison’s ability to be aware of library trends and important healthcare developments, to help strategise long-term and short-term planning that she shared with colleagues across the continent.

Lessons in Leadership

Our interviewee explained that Harrison displayed incredible foresight and passion for medical libraries, at the local level in supporting the research needs of the medical faculty and also at the broader national level. She was a transformational leader who transcended her own self-interest for the good of the organisation and library community. With the numerous groups she founded such as the Medical Libraries Section of LAA, the Central Medical Library Organization and she convened the Life Sciences Consultative Committee and led efforts, such as organising the first national conference of medical librarians, to inspire change. Many of the issues that Harrison faced continue, such as shortage of storage for resources, and challenges arising from the requirement for rapid access to information, and discoverability. The challenges presently confronting health librarianship, for example, issues such as shrinking physical collections being replaced by online content; acquisitions budgets not keeping pace with increasing publisher charges and an overall scholarly publishing transformation (Tillack, 2014) could benefit from a collegial and cooperative approaches such as those demonstrated by Harrison.

What our library leaders learn from Harrison’s legacy and implement to current practice?

• To use foresight and imagination to navigate the rapidly changing landscape in which libraries work. In particular, to be aware of the need to accomplish the library’s mission and marrying this with the University’s or other organisation’s goals, whilst also being attuned to the contemporary challenges of the modern library. Harrison could see how MEDLINE would revolutionise the mode of medical literature searching and wasted no time in optimising its introduction and use.

• Recognise and take advantage of opportunities: Harrison seized opportunities and acted on them for the betterment of her library, her staff and the entire medical librarian profession.

• Networking/collaboration: Harrison was interested in sharing with colleagues and wanting the best for everyone. With the challenges that libraries currently face, particularly acquisitions budgets that cannot keep pace with increasing publisher charges and access to research output being restricted by publishing paywalls, collaboration and networking are ways that libraries can continue to offer varied and comprehensive information resources for their clients. For example, there is research on the viability of developing an Australasia open biomedical repository (Kruesi et al., 2019). This could be a timely and significant approach to provide access to research output that would benefit not just the biomedical community but also the society as a whole: ‘Open biomedical repositories are a means to achieve accessible, discoverable, mineable, interoperable and permanently findable research output.’ (Kruesi et al., 2019).

• Specialist training: Harrison recognised that staff training was necessary for professional development and beneficial for the organisation. She understood that Health librarianship is distinct from general librarianship in that the tools, services, search techniques and subject knowledge require specialist skills. As specialist librarians, health librarians need to provide access to health information about clinical trials, latest medical treatments, and assist with search strategies for systematic reviews to educators, physicians, allied health professionals, patients, consumers and corporations (Medical Library Association, 2018).

• Reader education: Harrison recognised the need for ongoing innovation and the importance of building information literacy into the medical curriculum. This continues to be a fundamental part of the library’s suite of programs. Such innovation informs current practice and an equivalent today may be the development of frameworks such as the University of Melbourne’s Scholarly and Digital Capabilities Framework, which guides library staff and academics, to prepare students for learning, research and working in a digital world (University of Melbourne Library, 2019)

Conclusion

For over three decades, Anne Harrison oversaw major changes in health librarianship in which she herself was instrumental. In describing her outstanding qualities and achievements as a librarian and leader, the author is immediately struck by her ability to transform one opportunity into the next. Reflecting on her leadership, this paper has aimed to provide insights into what health librarianship today might be able to learn from Harrison’s approach to move forward. Harrison’s visionary leadership positioned her library for the future. She was a forward planner who could envisage how the future needs of her clients were going to develop and she was determined put in place mechanisms to provide innovative and appropriate service. This had far reaching influence and achieved a lasting legacy for medical librarianship

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Vesna Birkic

Vesna Birkic is a Liaison Librarian for the Brownless Biomedical Library at the University of Melbourne. She has a wide range of experience in both Client Services and Liaison Services. At the Brownless, she works in a team delivering services to support a scholarly and digital literacy program, research support, collection development as well as assisting the Biosciences Faculty Librarian.