For the entire twenty years of MAHSLIN's existence - this statewide network of medical libraries, mostly small and mostly located in community hospitals, has relied upon UMASS for access and delivery of the biomedical literature. While many of these documents may have been available at other, large, libraries, the management and staff at the Soutter Medical Library have always clearly communicated their commitment to statewide service by providing cheerful, flexible, expedient and cost-effective delivery of requested materials.

Services to the medical library community are only one component of the UMASS' interlibrary loan operations. The department's performance and its services were recognized by the public and academic library communities when it was named 'ILL Department of the Year' by the OCLC network.

Many individuals and pieces of the Soutter Library's operations are required to achieve and maintain ILL service excellence, including; reference, shelving, photocopy, clerical, fiscal and administration. However, the true responsibility for the juggling and delivering the tens of thousands documents requested of the Library each year, in addition to the necessary customer support has largely fallen to two individuals - John Hemenway and Spiro Efstathiou.

MAHSLIN is indebted to these gentlemen and to the Lamar Soutter Medical Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center for supporting the network in its earliest stages, as a mature documents delivery system and as it enters the electronic era of literature availability.

The Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Department at UMASS Medical Center is located in Worcester, Massachusetts.