<$BlogRSDUrl$> Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. Author/Speaker/Consultant
Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. Author/Speaker/Consultant
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Sunday, February 08, 2004  

GSK Leads the Way in Digitizing Pharmaceutical Resources
http://www.researchinformation.info/riwin03rees.html

When GlaxoWellcome merged with SmithKline Beecham, it created a global pharmaceutical giant with a massive appetite for information resources. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) spanned 24 research and development sites in seven countries, and its 14 main libraries met the needs of 100,000 employees, including some 16,000 R&D staff. Employees already had electronic access to research materials, but those resources were far from comprehensive, and access was often sketchy for mobile employees. To address the challenges, the company decided to develop a "virtual library" that would deliver electronic access to nearly all books and journals needed by its employees. The goal is to close all 14 libraries by year-end 2004. Melanie O'Neill, GSK's vice president of information management, concedes that there "is a lot of emotion attached to libraries," but adds that people are simply using them less and less often. "They had started to desert them." While numerous legal and logistical challenges have cropped up, one of the biggest is making older literature available to researchers. This is a gap that needs to be filled, not just for GSK but all pharmaceutical companies. "We may have to do it ourselves and sell it to our rivals," jokes O'Neill.

posted by Marcus Zillman | 4:42 AM
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