This year brought improvement in two areas. The first was a significant increase in our library materials budget recognizing the increasing costs we have incurred the past few years and the growing dependence we had on declining discretionary funds. The Library Committee, with the leadership of Dr. Kligfield, Chair, provided strong support for the Library request for additional funding to replace the discretionary funds that had been used for several years to "plug the gap" between the allocation and the actual inflated cost of books and journals. The College administration recognized this need and provided a substantial increase allowing the Library to fully fund its collection expenses from budgeted funds for the first time in several years.
The second area was in the increase in the number of computers the Library was able to obtain for use by the Library's patrons. This increase in computers, along with the increase and/or upgrading of Library staff computers, caught us up with current technology. With the increased access to electronic information resources and the growing dependence on computers for almost everything Library staff and patrons do, this upgrade and expansion was accomplished just in time. We plan further expansion of our electronic capability and hope that funding will be available in future years to accomplish it.
Notwithstanding these improvements, the rest of the budget was another year of hold the line. We were able to provide small merit increases to staff and some improvement in the supplies & services budget through the use of discretionary funds. This mechanism is not likely to be available to us next year so we need to find a strategy for addressing this part of our budget now that we have addressed the library materials part.
It goes without saying that our past efforts at cooperative purchasing of expensive electronic resources continued this year and expanded as we acquired several new bibliographic services and full text journals. It is increasingly clear that this cooperation, with our four-corners neighbors and our colleagues on the Ithaca campus is critical to our ability to provide access to the broadest range of information. We continued throughout the year to attend to those relationships and strengthen them.
While most of our statistical indicators remained high, Total Collection Use, dropped significantly this year. Even though visits to the Library are high, use of the collection appears down. While it is difficult to ascertain cause and effect, it is not unreasonable to attribute this to our growing collection of electronic resources. Many individuals come to the Library to use our computers to access electronic information. That would account for a high user count and a low collection use count. Since most publishers do not provide statistics of the use of their publications, that data is not available to us. Of course, it is possible that visits to the Library are for attending classes or consulting with our Information Services Faculty as well. It is an interesting statistic and somewhat counterintuitive so we will keep an eye on it.
As we moved into the new millennium, the Library was well positioned to meet the information needs of its clientele. This is not to say that additional resources are not needed. Our primary need is for another faculty librarian. But our collection is strong, our access to electronic resources is substantial and growing, and we have a strong staff. Our funding is stabilized and we have upgraded our technology. With the assumption that we can continue to build on this foundation, the future looks good.
The Library Faculty had another active year participating in local, regional, and national professional activities as follows:
Kris Alpi presented "A Partner in Providing Health Information in Spanish - New York Online Access to Health (NOAH)" at Partnerships for Health in the New Millennium: Launching Healthy People 2010 Conference, 1/26/00; published "It's Not Easy Being Green: A Survey of Staff Experiences with Environmental Issues in Sci-Tech and Other Libraries," Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, Spring 2000 (http://www.library.ucsb.edu/istl/00-spring/article1.html), and "Medical Informatics Librarians: Dual Roles as Teacher and Student," MLA News 322 (January 2000), p. 9. She served as Chair-Elect, Grants & Scholarships Committee; was appointed co-editor of MLA News "Technology Column"; was appointed Newsletter Editor and Webmaster of Public Health/Health Administration Section; Continued as Secretary/Treasurer of Medical Library Education Section all for the Medical Library Association; continued as reviewer for E-Streams; and as volunteer Spanish Content Editor for New York Online Access to Health (NOAH).
Robert M. Braude continued on the Editorial Board of JAMIA. He published Bader SA, McNeely RA, Sandefur, RR, Braude, RM. "Biomedical communications: Past, present, future," J. Biocomm. 2000 27(1):29-37.
helen-ann brown served as Chair, Leadership and Management Section Strategic Planning Committee and was a member of the Hospital Libraries Section/MLA Professional Development Grant Jury, both for the Medical Library Association.
Mark Funk continued his service as a member of the Library Board of Advisors, Doody's Health Sciences Book Review Journal; and as a member, Library Advisory Council, Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. He was appointed to the NIH chartered committee: Literature Selection and Technical Review Committee, 1999-2003.
Mira Myhre continued to serve as a mentor to a junior member of the profession for the Medical Library Association Technical Services Section.
Carolyn Reid served as representative to the Board of Directors of Documentation Abstracts, Inc. for the Medical Library Association; served as member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Information Science Abstracts; was invited by the NY/NJ Chapter of the MLA to present MeSH for Searchers, New York Academy of Medicine, New York, NY, March 10; and continued as Adjunct Associate Professor, Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Science.
Patricia Tomasulo assumed the position of Chair, New York-New Jersey Chapter of the Medical Library Association and continued as Section Editor, Online Updates, A Column for Search Analysts in the Medical Reference Services Quarterly. She published: "A New Source of Herbal Information on the Web: the IBIDS Database," Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 2000 19(1):53-57.
The activities of each Program Area
follow as reported by the Heads. These reports and statistics reflect substantial
activity and a high level of services. All the Library Staff deserve credit
for continuing this growth and development of the Library towards its goals
of excellence in the delivery of information services. They continued to make
a maximum effort and that effort and their dedication is greatly appreciated
and hereby acknowledged.
Robert M. Braude, M.L.S., Ph.D.
Frances and John Loeb Librarian
Human Resources. Following the resignations late last year of the Head of Information Services and an Information Services Librarian (which left two faculty positions vacant as this year started), consideration was given to the overall library organization. We decided to plan for the eventual merger of Information Services with Circulation and InterLibrary Services, creating a new program area, Information and Access Services, with many possibilities for cross-training of staff and enhancement of service to users. Interviews began early in the year and Daniel E. Cleary was appointed to the new position of Head, Information and Access Services, effective October 1, 1999. The remaining faculty position was then redefined to include web server development aspects in addition to reference and instructional services. A successful recruitment process resulted in the appointment of Kristine M. Alpi to the position of Information Services Librarian, effective January 3, 2000. In the Administration Program Area, Anna Marie Morin vacated the position of Senior Secretary on January 5, 2000 and was replaced by Audrey Townsend on April 10, 2000.
Finances. Capital funding provided by the College allowed replacement of those computers that were not Y2K compliant and upgrading of other computer and network equipment. Additional capital provided for the opening of the Library Computer Commons on the main level with 5 Windows computers, 3 Macintosh computers, and one networked printer. The allocation for FY00 for materials was increased sufficiently to allow us to continue to provide all current subscriptions, acquire appropriate monographs, and add more electronic information resources, as well. However, supplemental funding from Library discretionary accounts again needed to be used to provide additional supplies and services needed to operate the library.
Facilities. Plans were made for the creation of additional office and user training space in the alcove across from the Information Services office, which, when funded, will provide appropriate consultation and demonstration space for training and research conferences with users as well as added staff work space. Capital funding provided for complete replacement of all worn and broken chairs, many of which had been purchased for the Library 15-20 years ago. In February, a broken pipe caused several hundreds of volumes in Stack 2 to be damaged. Quick action by several faculty and staff prevented losses from being too severe and WMC Facilities Department repaired the pipe to prevent further damage.
Planning. Data clean-up for the Tri-Cat system continued throughout the
year. Sharing sessions among staff from all three libraries took place every
week for several months so that staff could discuss situations that developed
and work out shared management solutions. The Library sent five faculty and
staff-Kristine Alpi, Daniel Cleary, Anny Khoubesserian, Loretta Merlo, Vergie
Savage Branch, and Michael Wood--to Philadelphia, PA to attend the Innovative
Users Group Annual Meeting, in April, during which presentations by Innovative
Interfaces, Inc. trainers and other III users provided very practical information
about how the system is and can be used in a variety of settings. Support for
travel to this meeting for staff next year will also be provided and we look
forward to the opportunity for more staff to attend.
Additional support was provided this year to Vergie Savage-Branch and McEvoy Campbell to attend meetings of the New York State Library Assistants' Association in planning for an upcoming annual meeting of the Association in New York City. The leadership role that Ms. Savage-Branch and Mr. Campbell have taken in NYSLAA is commendable and reflects well on the Library. Through their efforts, library assistants in the city and throughout the state will have educational opportunities that might not have been available otherwise.
Dr. Braude and Ms. Reid met several times in consultation with staff from Dr. Ron Crystal's office regarding setting up a file server with electronic document delivery of personal files. It would be useful to expand this type of consultation service in the future as a benefit to the College. Two new current awareness services were added to those already available and the Library set up a web page describing the services and providing easy access. Plans are underway to enhance this service with increased document delivery service during the coming year. Implementation of the ILLiad service for managing InterLibrary loan requests was delayed until the fall due to problems in developing the DOCLINE connection. The Library designed a new logo that incorporates both the College and the Cornell University Libraries (CUL) formats (see cover page for an example). Once again, Camille Campbell, Administrative Manager, coordinated a very successful Take Our Daughters to Work Day program with participation by five girls and cooperation throughout the institution. On April 12, the Library hosted a reception to celebrate National Library Week. Also that week, the Library sponsored a celebration of New York State Library Assistants' Day for all Library staff. As always, all regular statistical reports were completed and submitted in a timely fashion along with several special surveys and questionnaires. Ms. Reid and Ms. Campbell attended WMC Administrative Forum meetings throughout the year, and Ms. Reid attended General Faculty Council Meetings on occasion, at the request of Dr. Braude.
Carolyn Anne Reid
Librarian and Associate Director
The driving force for Collection Development this year was organizing and managing electronic full-text resources. Our access to electronic journals, which tripled last year, tripled again this year. Together with CUL we were able to purchase access to Elsevier's ScienceDirect collection of scientific journals. By the end of June, we had access to 980 full-text journals. We were able to add other significant journals by cooperating with the Ithaca campus including the full range of the American Chemical Society's journals and Science magazine. Web page access to new electronic journals was added immediately to assure access by users, while the Serials section of Collection Development added the hypertext links for these titles to our online catalog, Tri-Cat, as an additional access point.
Other, non-journal electronic information sources added this year include MD Consult, a one-stop information center for clinicians; and SciFinder Scholar, a database of chemical literature from the Chemical Abstracts Service. In addition, our number of simultaneous users to the web version of Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine was increased to 30, in response to increased demand from our users.
As we worked to increase our access to electronic information, we also had to reduce our print collection, as decreasing space became an issue in the stacks. Considerable hours were spent evaluating both the book and journal collections, with selected older material removed. Older journal titles were sent to the Medical Library Center's collection if they were not duplicates. This project will continue for a number of years.
Collection Development staff were busy this year in projects with their colleagues. With four other librarians, Mark Funk attended a one-day conference in Ithaca on the future of the digital library. Michael Wood and Vergie Savage-Branch attended the Innovative User Group meeting in Philadelphia from 4/29 - 5/2/00. Mr. Funk and Mr. Wood are members of the library's web committee. They and Ms. Savage-Branch are also each a member of one of three library planning task forces.
Mark E. Funk
Associate Librarian and Head, Collection Development
Cataloging continues to provide bibliographic organization and online retrieval for material acquired by Weill Cornell Medical Library and by the libraries of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and the Westchester Division of the Department of Psychiatry. This program area maintains name authority work and subject authority work in our on-line catalog (Tri-Cat). We are consistent in following national guidelines, formulated by the Library of Congress and the National Library of Medicine, for cataloging electronic resources and providing access from our online catalog. As internet resources suitable for addition to our collection are identified by the Head of Collection Development, they are cataloged and added to Tri-Cat for easy access by our users.
Mira Myhre
Associate Librarian and Head, Cataloging
In the fall, the decision to combine information and access services impacted directly on the Circulation Department. Loretta Merlo, Head of Circulation, participated in the search process for the Head of Information and Access Services. Combining the Library's service programs under the supervision of one individual has facilitated greater collaboration, communication, and teamwork. To that end, Ms. Merlo represents Circulation in regular meetings with member of the Information Team and the Head of InterLibrary Services, chaired by Mr. Cleary.
The Library successfully installed the first phase of a new computer facility we are calling the "Computer Commons": eight new computers situated on the main floor, between the Information Desk and the Circulation Desk. The Circulation Staff is now regularly called upon to perform basic instructional and maintenance duties in support of this area, especially during the evenings and on weekends, when the Information Desk is not staffed.
Staff turnover was minimal this year. Sherisse Brown opted for a day position in InterLibrary Services effective December 2, giving us the opportunity to re-hire Jonathan Lim, who had been laid off when the Media Desk was closed two years ago.
Ms. Merlo continued to oversee electronic reserve in support of the new college curriculum, and Circulation continued to play an important role in the processing and scanning of all reserve material, in coordination with Information and Computer Services. Furthermore, Mr. Cleary revised procedures for this service, and greater responsibility for electronic reserve will be turned over to Circulation beginning next fall.
Ms. Merlo is currently serving on
two library planning committees: the Constituency Library Planning Task Force,
and the Web Team, the latter being involved in a total revamping of the Library's
web site.
At last count, there are still 135 items checked out in the library's former computer system. Items continue to trickle in and their records are then cleared from the database. The weeding and shifting project in the stacks is still underway in coordination with Collection Development.
Loretta Merlo
Head, Circulation Services
Procurement Activities. During the year, InterLibrary Services procured 6,718 items from other libraries for Weill Cornell Medical Library patrons.
Loans to Other Libraries. InterLibrary Services also supplied 9,711 requested items to other institutions. More than 60% of this material was transmitted electronically. The fact that many journals are now accessible only through electronic links complicates the verification of InterLibrary loan requests but also provides increased opportunities to deliver content electronically.
Personnel. Sherisse Brown transferred to the department as a replacement staff.
Stephen Bright
Head, InterLibrary Services
Faculty and Staff. Daniel E. Cleary assumed the new position of Head, Information and Access Services on October 1, 1999. Kris Alpi accepted the position of Information Services Librarian on January 4, 2000. helen-ann brown was promoted to Librarian status on July 1, 2000. McEvoy Campbell resigned his position as Library Aide effective February 25, and the position remained open until the end of the year.
Electronic Resources. Much of our reference work now deals with helping users to access electronic information resources, either from remote locations or from workstations here in the library. Collaboration with CUL, state, and local libraries provided for the addition on many new databases. Significant among these are the following: the broad range of FIRSTSEARCH® databases; many SilverPlatter® databases through CUL's WebSPIRS® interface including PsychINFO®, Human Nutrition®, and Dissertation Abstracts; Alt-HealthWatch®; the Sci-Finder Scholar registry which allows access to Chemical Abstracts; LEXIS-NEXIS® legal and news resources; Dialog® including ESPICOM (pharmaceutical and medical company profiles), Health Devices Sourcebook, and International Pharmaceutical Abstracts; and MD Consult® which provides full text clinical books and journals. These bibliographic databases and full text information services, available throughout the college and hospital network, provide our users with greatly expanded capabilities to assist with research, patient care, and education. This vastly expanded array of information resources is accompanied by a similar increase in the need to train users in the effective access and management of these resources. The challenge to library faculty and staff is to learn about the new resources and then transfer that learning to our users through point-of-use instruction, formal classes, or the immediate response to a reference query.
Immediately upon her arrival, Ms. Alpi took on the formidable task of organizing and promoting use of this vast richness of electronic information resources. Through her role as chair of the library's Web Committee, Ms. Alpi is also planning for a complete redesign of the library's web page.
Classes and Instruction. Information Services resumed full instructional services in January, summer and fall classes having been suspended due to faculty vacancies, presenting 18 classes for 70 participants, 29 consultation sessions for 39 participants, and 19 instruction/orientation sessions for special groups totaling 143 participants. The purchase of a NEC projector greatly improved the effectiveness of the instruction offered by providing clear, bright, legible demonstrations of electronic resources. The significant expansion of electronic resources and requests from users prompted the development of two new classes scheduled for the summer of 2000: Alternative Medicine, developed by Patricia Tomasulo, and instruction on the use of molecular biology tools, developed by Ms. Alpi. Library faculty, in conjunction with Dr. Braude, also co-taught classes in the Clinical Epidemiology/Health Services Research Program.
Tours/Orientations. There were 12 tours and special orientations for 109 participants including premedical minority students as part of the Travelers Summer Research Fellowship Program, incoming graduate students, and pastoral care students.
Reference Questions and Resources. A total of 16,614 queries were responded to by Information Services with 13,775 of these questions coming directly to the Information Desk from customers using library services on the premises. Over 1,500 queries came through the telephone or e-mail and there were opportunities for over 1,300 point-of-use instruction. Electronic or e-mail reference was re-initiated at the beginning of May 2000 and has proven to be an increasingly popular format for reference queries and communication between library staff and our constituency. This format also allows for a more thorough response to in-depth questions. Management of the service and replies are handled by Information Services faculty and staff on a rotating (weekly) basis.
Mediated Searches. Although we encourage our users to search the literature directly, we continue to provide a considerable number of mediated searches -- 278 this year. Our efforts at increasing self sufficiency have been very successful but so are our efforts to reach out to users through clinical librarian activities and attendance at morning reports. This type of outreach generates a higher level of demand for mediated searches which suggests that this still is a service valued highly by our users.
Special Information Services. Ms. brown continues to promote and deliver valuable library services through her attendance to the Gynecologic Oncology Tumor Board and the Cornell Internal Medicine Associates (CIMA) morning reports. This exposure resulted in an invitation to present an overview of library resources to the Pathology Journal Club. Ms. Tomasulo also contributed to outreach activities through CIMA's ambulatory care residents' morning reports. The cases being discussed on these rounds resulted in 109 mediated searches. The library acted in consultation and provided introductory services to the implementation of web-based information services to workstations installed in the doctors coat room in the hospital. Ms. Alpi assisted the hospital Patient Education Committee by providing information on the use of MEDLINEplus which resulted in its being chosen as the main resource for instruction and education of patients and health consumers.
Curriculum Support. Both Ms. Brown and Ms. Tomasulo were Library Faculty Liaisons in support of the curriculum. Information Services in conjunction with Circulation Services and Computer Services assured that electronic course reserves and journal club readings were posted. Library presentations were also delivered in support of new medical school student orientation.
Art Shows. The Ninth Medical Complex Art Show was held this fall. Dr. Bernard Landis won the Golden Harvest Award for Best of Show with his oil painting entitled, Delacroix's Studio. Other shows this year, featured a group showing by the Artists League of Brooklyn, art and sculpture by members of the Art Studio, and oil paintings by Lee Haber, a neighborhood artist.
Daniel Cleary
Associate Librarian and Head, Information and Access Services
The evaluation of software and hardware for the millennium bug was our primary focus this year. We determined which microcomputers were not Y2K compliant. Since the millennium bug did not affect the Macintoshes in the Library, we focused on the Library's PCs. We determined that six of the PCs were not compliant. Two of the six were disconnected from the network. The other four PCs were made compliant with the purchase of a $39.00 board.
Software compliance was also part of the year's focus. We determined which applications on the "MAC Software" file server were not compliant and removed them from the server and from the Tri-Cat online catalog.
We maintained the computers in the Microcomputer Room such that the PC board inside the Macintoshes were Y2K compliant. This was accomplished by replacing Windows 95 with Windows 98. Although Windows 95 was compliant with two Microsoft patches, we opted to upgrade the PC's operating system. A note: Windows 2000 was a choice but due to the unacceptable speed in which it operated, it was deemed a failure.
The purchase of the NEC projector represented an improvement on the quality of the computer's projection. This was welcome news to those who taught classes.
The microcomputers and printers in the Computer Commons were configured, placed on the network, and protected with the assistance of Information Services and the Office of Academic Computing. The Computer Commons was designed with both Macintoshes and PCs and users fill the desk throughout all hours of the day and evening.
As the year progressed, eliminating thinwire and replacing it with 10BaseT became the secondary focus. With capital expenditures and new microcomputers, we began slowly to phase out the thinwire. Due to the scope of the migration, this will continue into the next year.
The Linux server became operational (LibNT.med.cornell.edu) and served as a good environment for our new web server software.
Octavio Morales
Head, Computer Services
The Heberden Society scheduled three lectures during the academic year as part
of the Dean's Hour. Three interesting and enlightening speakers lectured to
Weill Cornell students, faculty, and staff (see Table I below). The Dean provided
the Society with the funds for this year's lecture series as he has in the past,
and that assistance is acknowledged with thanks. The Heberden Society Advisory
Committee is likewise acknowledged for its valuable support and advice.
TABLE I
HEBERDEN SOCIETY LECTURE SERIES
1999-2000
October 27, 1999
Joshua Lederberg, Ph.D.
Germs as Weapons: A Grim History
January 26, 2000
Michael Bliss, M.A., Ph.D.
What's A Doctor?-How William Osler Practiced Medicine
March 29, 2000
John Harley Warner, Ph.D.
Bedside Stories: Clinical Narrative and the Making of Modern American Medicine
The Library Committee, again this year, provided valuable assistance in the
area of policy and the FY01 budget request. The contributions of the members
are gratefully acknowledged.
The members of the Library Committee for 1999-2000 were:
Piyush Agarwal
Medical Student, 4th-Year
Charles L. Bardes, M.D. Clinical Sciences
David V. Becker, M.D. Clinical Sciences
Robert M. Braude, Ph.D. Library, Ex Officio
Tao (Ted) Du Medical Student, 2nd-Year
Matthew Fred Medical Student, 1st-Year
Daniel Gardner, Ph.D., Chairman Basic Sciences
Antonio Gotto, M.D. Dean, Ex Officio
Bernice Grafstein, Ph.D. Basic Sciences
Catherine Grossman Medical Student, 1st-Year
Barbara Henriquez Medical Student, 2nd-Year
Hilary Hochberg Medical Student 3rd-Year
Samir Kelkar Graduate Student Council
Abigail Kristt, RN, MS Nursing Education
Patricia Mackey, M.L.S. Rockefeller University Library, Ex Officio
Joel Pardee, Ph.D. Graduate School of Medical Sciences
Mark S. Pecker M.D. General Faculty Council
Carolyn Anne Reid, M.A.L.S. Library, Ex Officio
Katherine Stemmer Frumento, M.L.S. MSKCC Library, Ex Officio
Carol Storey-Johnson, M.D. Education Center
.............................................................................
Robert M. Braude, Ph.D.
Frances and John Loeb Librarian
Assistant Dean for Information Resources
Questions: Email the infodesk@med.cornell.edu | Created on Monday, July 21, 2003 by Diana Delgado
The
Samuel J. Wood Library | The
C.V. Starr Biomedical Information Center |
The Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College and Graduate
School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University
1300 York Avenue New York, NY 10021-4896 |
Information Desk: 212-746-6055 |
Circulation Desk: 212-746-6050
© 2003 Weill Medical College of Cornell University. All rights reserved.