Medical Library Association Of Great Britain And Ireland

The ''Medical Library Association of Great Britain and Ireland'' was founded in 1908 and held two annual meetings. Its first formal meeting was held in Belfast in July 1909 (during the meetings of the

British Medical Association The British Medical Association (BMA) is a registered trade union for doctors in the United Kingdom. The association does not regulate or certify doctors, a responsibility which lies with the General Medical Council. The association's headquar ...

) and its second, in London, in 1910 (also in conjunction with the meetings of the British Medical Association.) No written record of its activities after 1911 has been found.

William Osler Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet, (; July 12, 1849 – December 29, 1919) was a Canadian physician and one of the "Big Four" founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Osler created the first Residency (medicine), residency program for spec ...

was one of the founders, in 1898, of the

Medical Library Association The Medical Library Association (MLA) is a nonprofit educational organization with more than 3,400 health sciences information professional members and partners worldwide. History Founded on May 2, 1898, by four librarians, including Marcia ...

in North America (initially called the Association of Medical Librarians) and served as its President from 1901-04. Osler moved to England in 1905 as he had been appointed

Regius Professor A Regius Professor is a university Professor (highest academic rank), professor who has, or originally had, Monarchy of the United Kingdom, royal patronage or appointment. They are a unique feature of academia in the United Kingdom and Republic ...

of Medicine at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. Shortly after his arrival he was also involved in the formation of the short-lived British equivalent and he was elected the new Association's President in 1909. The proceedings of the Association's 1909 meeting were published as a separate publication and are the first eight pages of Volume 1 of the ''Proceedings of the Medical Library Association of Great Britain and Ireland''. A copy of this publication is in the

Osler Library The Osler Library, a branch of the McGill University Library and part of ROAAr since 2016, is Canada's foremost scholarly resource for the history of medicine, and one of the most important libraries of its type in North America. It is located in ...

of McGill University in Montreal where Part 1 is Osler 7206. Part 2 of Volume 1 (pp. 9–19) is the Presidential Address by William Osler (Osler 3576 No. 286). Osler's Presidential Address - entitled "The medical library in post-graduate work" - was originally published in the ''British Medical Journal'', October 2, 1909, pp. 925–8. No further issues of the ''Proceedings'' were published. It appears that the Osler Library copy of the ''Proceedings of the MLA-GBI'' may be a final proof copy as it contains proof-reader's corrections but, to date, no other copy has been found for comparison. A copy of these ''Proceedings'' is at

{{Authority control Library associations Professional associations based in the United Kingdom Medical libraries 1908 establishments in the United Kingdom Organizations established in 1908