|
When Dr. Thomas Moore Philson retired as Provincial and Consulting Surgeon in 1883, the people of Auckland raised 270 sovereigns as a tribute to his outstanding service to the Province. In 1887 Dr. Philson donated this money to the University College to provide books for medical students in Auckland. The sum was invested and allowed to accumulate, and from time to time its income was used to add items to the "Philson Collection" housed in the University College library. In the 1920s the College received two further gifts of medical books - the "Cathedral Collection" (in origin a gift from Mr. Ormerod to Bishop Selwyn) was placed into the College's keeping by the Anglican Diocese of Auckland, and the Auckland Division of the British Medical Association (as it then was - now the New Zealand Medical Association) deposited its collection of books with the College.
In 1949 the Auckland Hospital Board consolidated its library services and at that time the University transferred its small medical collection, by now known as the Philson Library, to the Board with safeguards for the continuing identity of the collection. This identity was preserved when the Marion Davis Memorial Library was constituted in 1961 under the Board?s administration. Once the School of Medicine was established, the Philson collection was transferred back to the University for its medical library. The University's foundation Medical Librarian, Mr. Harry D. Erlam, took up his duties in February 1968.
At the end of 1973 the library was moved into its present quarters in the Clinical Building, comprising an area of some 14,500 square feet with 160 reader places.
Discussions over many years considered the need to merge the Auckland Hospital Board's Ernest and Marion Davis Library with the Philson Library in order to avoid the costs of duplicating resources. This was finally achieved in November 1980 and a Joint Library Committee was established to oversee a cooperative network of libraries. The Auckland Medical Library System comprised the Philson Library, the Ernest and Marion Davis Library (now a medical historical collection), and the various Board libraries at the hospitals around Auckland. This arrangement existed until the early 1990s but finally fell apart when the Government created the competing Crown Health Enterprises. Mr. Erlam had retired in 1979, and from that point until her retirement in early 1997 Mrs. Margaret Gibson Smith served as the Medical Librarian. Under her leadership the Library developed extensive reader education programmes and was quick to implement new information technologies.
The Philson Library's ongoing relationship with the Auckland District Health Board (A+) has become the basis for a strategic relationship between A+ and the University Library. Taking up his appointment as Medical Librarian in October 1997, Dr. Greg Morgan worked with the A+ Library Service Manager, Mrs. Alison Cooke, to review the library services offered to A+ staff, resulting in an excellent cooperative model. This model formed the foundation for the development of a new service level agreement through which A+ contracts the University Library to operate its entire library service. The ADHB Library Links service offers online access to library services and resources in a web environment, supported by print collections and information and instructional services tailored to support A+ in meeting its knowledge-based goals. Implementation of the contract began in June 2000.
As a divisional library within the University Library, the Philson Library seeks to provide effective and well-managed information resources and services for teaching, learning, research and creative work in Medical and Health Sciences, as well as the library resources required for excellent patient care. The Library is working towards an "anytime, any place" service for its members; quality information services and web-based, cross-platform electronic solutions are key to the success of this strategy.
|
