The Medical Library forms part of the Medical School annexed to St Luke's Hospital, Guardamangia. It holds over 22,000 books and subscribes to some 250 journal titles, covering medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, pathology, psychiatry and public health, as well as dentistry.

Books on pre-clinical subjects, such as anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and pharmacology, are shelved in the main library for students during their pre-clinical studies.

Although the majority of works are classified according to the Library of Congress classification, the library still has some older stock which uses the Bliss Bibliographic Classification. For pre-1992 material one has therefore to search through two subject catalogues and through the author-title card catalogues. All library acquisitions since that date can be retrieved on the OPACs, which list holdings of both the main and the branch libraries.

The Medical Library has its own reference and short-loan collections, as well as runs of bound journals, the latest numbers being displayed on special racks inside the reading room. Stack material covering back issues of periodicals and old book material, which are kept for historical purposes, are available on request. The Medical Library is a depository of the World Health Organisation and as such receives a copy of all WHO publications.

One important work of reference at the Medical Library is the Pubmed database which contains indexes and abstracts for around 11 million biomedical journal citations and is updated weekly. This is invaluable for research and current awareness purposes. Pubmed is freely available via the National Centre for Biotechnology homepage and is also bookmarked on all Medical School Library workstations.

The Concise Oxford Textbook of Medicine is also available via one of the workstations at the Medical School Library. For more information contact the Medical School Library on tel: 2595-1867.