Medical and pharmaceutical education in Poznan till 1949 was offered by Poznan University, where, in 1919, the Pharmaceutical Department, and then the Medical Faculty, were established. Their development established the basis for University of Medical Sciences, which was created as a result of the partition of Poznan University in 1950. The bibliographic documentation of the scientific activity of The University of Medical Sciences and its roots is one of the main tasks of the Main Library. Forms and tools have been evolving over the years as technology has been developing. However, the library has retained possession of the complete bibliographic documentation.
The first bibliographies were published irregularly and covered different periods of time. They varied in arrangements and additional indexes. Since 1984 the Bibliography of The University of Medical Sciences has been published both in Polish and in English.
The automation of documentation work started in the nineties. In 1993, the original software created by the librarians was launched. It enabled the maintenance of the fully searchable, indexed bibliographic database. The software was used and developed till 2000, when the database was converted into the commercial program, Expertus 2000, which was also tailored to library’s needs.
While new records have been added continuously, retroconversion was conducted back through 1991. At the present moment, there are over 40,000 records in the database. There is a special electronic form to provide information on new publications, which speeds up the process of collecting needed data. Each record is bilingual (Polish and English). There is information on title, authors, source, MeSH, value of journals according to SCI, Copernicus and KBN Indexes. The records of the original research papers also provide English abstracts and links to the fulltexts, when available via the Internet.
The database is being used widely within the University not only for bibliographic searches, but also for many parametric analyses needed for a variety of purposes (grants, accreditation, reports, bibliometric sheets etc.). The Main Library puts a lot of effort towards enriching the database through tools and features speeding those time-consuming procedures. The database also serves as a platform to promote the scientific heritage of the University, and to develop cooperation both domestically and abroad. The bibliographic database is available on-line at http://www2.bg.am.poznan.pl/bazy/publikacje/.
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