How hyper are we? A look at hypermedia management in academic health sciences libraries.

Advances in instruction-delivery technology have a direct impact on academic media centers. New technology challenges librarians philosophically, financially, and ethically to provide access to information and instructional systems. Each institution has a unique set of circumstances governing decisions to provide access to hypermedia. If patron needs are met satisfactorily through labs outside the library, it may not be necessary for the library to incorporate hypermedia into its collection. Other library media centers may serve as a main point of access, or a substantial alternative computing resource may exist in departments or professional schools. Regardless of which route is taken, hypermedia is a viable instructional delivery system and can coexist with traditional services. Future studies on various aspects of hypermedia and multimedia management should be encouraged. Academic health sciences librarians would benefit from the study of hypermedia and multimedia collection-development policies, equipment, and personnel management. As computer networking of multimedia and image databases becomes available, it will be interesting to see the role academic health sciences libraries assume in integrating these data-bases with traditional information-delivery systems. Changing technology and instructional methods will affect budgets as well as library relationships with academic departments and computing centers.