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Note: Pages in this archival exhibit describe a project which was conducted between October 1992 and April 1994.

Merle West Medical Center

Steve Rauch, M.L.S., Librarian

Merle West Medical Center's service area covers 10,000 square miles of southern Oregon and northern California. Several Indian Health Service clinics and the Klamath Tribal Offices are included in the area. The 176-bed facility will soon be a family practice residency site, in conjunction with the local Area Health Education Center.

Hospital librarians have always served as windows to the outside world for medical personnel and the Internet extends this capability. For example, the public relations officer asked me for some urgently-needed information on health care reform. I used several Internet resources to locate the Government Accounting Office Transition Report on Health Care Reform and Hillary Rodham Clinton's recent speech before the AMA. This information was not otherwise available in our community.

Early in the project, I came across a listserv message stating that we could "blacken the sky with routers and wire" and still not build a network because it is people, not technology, that are connected by networks. Even in the midst of this electronic wonderland, it is the people that impress me.

Internet reminds me of math -- problems may have multiple answers rather than one unique solution.

I would like to thank the National Library of Medicine for their support of this pilot connections project, NWNet for the guest accounts and services they have provided, and NN/LM PNR for a group of wonderful people -- everyone of whom has assisted me in my ventures during this project.

Go to the NN/LM PNR WWW Home Page now.