Ernst & Young (2001) describe the global health sciences marketplace as "a web created by pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms, eHealth companies, hospitals, physicians and other practitioners and medical device manufacturers" to name a few (p.1). This web or library of information is the wave of the future. Health sciences information libraries of the future will not just serve as global resources of health care information, but will rather serve as collaborative and interactive repositories where patients will be able to discover individualized treatment options and health care providers can collaborate on new biotechnological advances and discoveries. .

             The global health sciences marketplace and libraries are inexorably changing as technology is better enabling corporations, individuals and providers to provide services in new and faster ways. Trends developing within the industry that will affect health sciences libraries include providing health products and services that are delivered "Through integrated alliances" and digital technologies (Ernst & Young, 2). .

             Trends In Technology and Biotechnology Affecting Libraries.

             Technological forces "best represented by information technology and biotechnology" will continue to "radically change" the manner in which health care services are delivered (Ernst & Young, 2). Health sciences libraries of the future will serve less as information storehouses and more as interactive chambers where physicians can access individualized treatment protocols and independent research, collaborating with health professionals across the globe. More and more global organizations and providers will use biotechnology forces, deliver services through "B2B commerce on the Web" and participate in telemedicine as means to delivering efficient care and information in health sciences markets of the future (Ernst & Young, 13; Anton, Schneider & Silberglitt, 2001).