Bases A-Z

Polish Medical Bibliography

The Polish Medical Bibliography database is created at the Medical Information Centre of the Main Medical Library. It registers Polish scientific, clinical and professional literature in the field of medicine and related sciences, health care organisation, as well as popular literature in the field of health education. The database also contains information on monographs and unpublished doctoral and postdoctoral theses in the GBL collection.

It has been maintained automatically since 1979 on an ongoing basis and updated 7 times a year.At present, the Polish Medical Bibliography contains approximately 675,000 records and is one of the largest subject bibliographies in Poland.The recorded data comes from approximately 2,700 titles of Polish and foreign journals. Over 320 titles of Polish journals are regularly entered into the database.
Since 1991, abstracts of documents in Polish and English have been included in the database.Searching the database can be carried out according to any significant element from the bibliographic and content descriptor description, e.g.: by descriptor entry, words from the title and abstract, by journal title, year of publication, etc.

The full version of the database can be used free of charge at the headquarters and branches of GBL. Interested institutions can purchase the service of using the database in their own premises. It is also possible to place an order for a paid search of the database and the compilation of a thematic literature list on a specific topic.

The creator of the Polish Medical Bibliography of the 19th and 20th centuries is Professor Stanisław Konopka. This database reflects the Polish Medical Bibliography for the years 1901-1939, which until 2007 functioned only as a card file. The card form has 250 drawers containing a total of 186,000 cards with descriptions. Until 2007, this was the only form of record of the bibliography of medical writing from this period. As the bibliography has not been duplicated in any way, it can only be used by viewing the cards (scans) with descriptions. The digitisation of the file was an important undertaking for GBL, as its use was becoming increasingly difficult due to the destruction of the paper caused by acidification and deterioration by other factors. In addition, there is now the possibility of disseminating it via the internet. The possible destruction of the card file prior to digitisation would have resulted in the irretrievable loss of information on pre-war medical writing.

The file housed in the GBL's Old Medical Book Department is now of considerable value not only as a collection of invaluable information, but also as a unique archival document.