EMTS logo EMTS Abstract
P. F. Anderson, Galter Health Sciences Library, Northwestern University;
Marlene B. Smith, Medical Education Media Center, School of Medicine, University of Missouri-Kansas City.

This multimedia web-based centennial presentation for the Educational Media and Technologies Section (EMTS) will include a history of the section; interviews with key persons involved with the early life of the section; a timeline highlighting educational technologies and computing, focusing specifically on the part, present, and future significance of educational and multimedia technologies to the health sciences.

EMTS received official Section status (as HSAV) in 1973. As relative newcomers to MLA, our focus on educational technologies is also a relatively new aspect of library science. This does not, however, imply a lack of importance. Learning in the health sciences is and has always been uniquely dependent on multisensory input. Auditory and visual information are obvious components of interpretation from the simplest heart auscultation to the most complicated surgical procedure.

Before the arrival of educational technologies, topics which required an enriched sensory environment were able to be taught only with a patient present. While this has always been a highly effective method of teaching, it places serious limitations on both the total number of students and the variety of illnesses presented to students.

Educational technologies have been essential in overcoming those constraints. They continue to be instrumental in expanding the range and quality of health sciences education. Educational technologies have expanded far beyond their initial boundaries, into patient education, distance learning, and even telemedicine. Newly developing technologies, such as virtual reality, digital videodisc (DVD), and others as yet unforeseeable, can only continue to expand the influence of educational technologies in the health sciences and the field of information technologies.


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