the 1994 conference of the european association for health information and libraries drew together an exceptional group of invited speakers and contributed papers. speakers came from every part of europe, from n. america, and even from australia, and almost all the papers presented are collected in this volume. they represent an important summary of the state of the art in libraries and information services in the medical and health areas and are a rich source of advice, assistance and information for everyone working in related fields. most of the themes concentrate on the important growth areas of the profession: computer-based information services, networking (especially the internet), and cd-roms. more general topics are not ignored, and the book contains many interesting contributions on identifying the needs of library users and evaluating how well these are being met. there is also an important section on the history of medicine.