摘要：This fifth edition of a publication issued since 1952 was a project of the Publications Subcommittee of the Medical Section of the Library Association before federation of this section with the Hospital Libraries and Handicapped Readers Group in 1978. The composition of the list reflects developments in the field of hospital medical librarianship since publication of the fourth edition in 1973. Small libraries based in postgraduate medical centers have increased; emphasis in libraries has shifted from a purely medical to a multidisciplinary concept; and prices for books and periodicals have risen significantly. These trends in the United Kingdom parallel those in the United States recently documented by Brandon and Hill [1] in another core list of books and journals for the small medical library.
