ABSTRACT
In the beginning, there were libraries! When I rst began to practice safety and health in the mid-1960s, public, university, or company libraries seldom collected works that dealt specically with the elds of safety and industrial hygiene due to the fact that their general interest was low and the breadth and range of publications was so small that shelf space was seldom allocated to these orphan sciences. At best, they were located in the areas of major science such as engineering, chemistry, physics, and small, personal collections, held closely and dearly by safety and health practitioners, were the primary references available to the educated few. Some of these classics included, but were not limited to Industrial Dust,1 The Chemistry of Industrial Toxicology,2 Fundamentals of Industrial Hygiene,3 The Diseases of Occupations,4 Industrial Hygiene and Toxicology,5 Accident Prevention Manual for Industrial Operations,6 and a few other dusty volumes.
