Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library

I. History The Medical Library which houses both the historical medical collections and the general medical collection was completed in 1941. It was the vision of well-known neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing to create a new medical library for the Yale School of Medicine. He wanted the library to be the heart of the medical school and specified that both collections be easily accessible and located on the main level. Dr. Cushing persuaded two of his colleagues, Arnold Klebs and John Fulton, to donate their rare book collections and along with Dr. Cushing’s extraordinary book collection the historical medical collection was formed.

With a generous donation from Betsey Cushing Whitney, the entire library was renovated (except for the Historical Library) in 1990 and renamed the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library. In the years since the renovation, the library has continued to re-envision our space. Most recent is the Cushing Center. Once the oversize book stacks, it is now a spectacular museum devoted to the work of Dr. Cushing. His brain tumor registry, selections from his book collection, skillful surgical illustrations and portraits of his patients fill this wonderful space. In addition, the library has repurposed space to create three collaborative study rooms, the Computer Support Center, and recently renovated the historical stacks and offices.

The Director of the Medical Library reports to both the University Librarian and the Dean of Medical Education at the School of Medicine.

II. Constituencies served The Medical Library serves the Yale New Haven Medical Center community by supporting the research and clinical needs of the faculty and staff and the education needs of the students from the Schools of Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health as well as clinicians, nurses and staff of the Yale-New Haven Hospital. The library also serves the Connecticut Mental Health Center, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Haskins Laboratory and the J. B. Pierce Foundation. We provide assistance to affiliated health professionals at clinics including the Fair Haven Health Clinic and the Hill Health Center.

III. Relations with faculty The Medical Library’s relationship with clinical and research faculty has been enhanced by our well established liaison program. The program itself began in 1998, and essentially assigns a medical librarian to serve as the point of contact for educational and research support to the departments, programs, and research centers of the Yale New Haven Medical Center. The Library Liaison Program promotes communication between the library and the faculty of the medical departments, establishes educational opportunities for these users, and enhances the research collections of the library. Liaisons often work outside of the physical library itself, providing assistance to faculty at their point of need by meeting with them where they work. Many liaisons serve on their departments’ curriculum committees and provide departments with workshops on specific resources. In addition to working with specific departments, medical librarians also support faculty-wide campus initiatives. They provide support and workshops on complying with NIH publication requirements; assist faculty in their endeavors to publish; and support them in their use of instructional technologies and mobile devices for their teaching, research and clinical needs.

IV. Role of the library in education, research, and patient care EDUCATION The Medical Library is well incorporated into the curriculum of both undergraduate and graduate medical education with informatics components at all levels throughout the different programs. Using a framework that accommodates academic programs of varying lengths, initial sessions begin with fundamental techniques and consecutive sessions build on previously learned skills. Enveloping these course-integrated and special sessions is our well-established Personal Librarian program, which matches matriculating students to a professional librarian, a relationship that lasts until after graduation. Personal Librarians offer individualized assistance for almost anything – from library policies/procedures to thesis research.

The library has an active end-user education program with a variety of “drop-in” classes scheduled every week during the year - these classes are available to faculty, students and staff. Many of our face-to-face classes have been redesigned as online tutorials to maximize learning flexibility.

Our Curriculum Support Librarian is the system administrator for the Yale School of Medicine course management system and coordinates the selection of educational software. All library liaisons and personal librarians provide ongoing support for educational technology, with a special emphasis on mobile devices.

RESEARCH Expert searchers provide support throughout the entire research process by conducting in-depth literature searches for both basic science and clinical research, providing citation analysis assistance, and citation management preparation. Recently, Curriculum and Research Support has assisted in multiple systematic reviews – a methodologically rigorous process.

PATIENT CARE Librarians have been assisting clinical staffs’ efforts to improve patient care in a variety of ways. Currently librarians are team-teaching classes with nurse educators on finding evidence-based- literature for hospital nurses, a requirement for the hospital to maintain magnet status. In addition, some of the medical librarians work directly with clinicians either by helping them to find supporting literature during discussions at morning rounds or by offering personal help with library resources within the operating room suites of the hospital. Medical librarians are also involved in the implementation of the new hospital electronic medical record system, ensuring that this resource links to the most appropriate library-licensed online resources.

V. Particular strengths (service, collection, etc.) The Medical Library’s strength lies in its unique combination of past, present and virtual collections. The Medical Historical Library, one of the great historical libraries, collects current material on the history of medicine and holds collections of manuscripts and rare books, objects and artifacts, pamphlets, medical ephemera, and posters, prints and drawings. Historical treasures include the best and most extensive Vesaliana collection in existence with two first editions of Renaissance physician Andreas Vesalius’ classic anatomy text De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem and the unique De Revolutionibus orbium caelestiu (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies), 1543, by Nicolaus Copernicus.

With only eight print titles in our current print journal collection, the Medical Library has made the leap to a virtual journal collection by providing seamless access to our users. Since the medical center community relies heavily on the use of the journal collection, this is a premier service for our community. As researchers, clinicians and students continue to rely on mobile devices for information, the Medical Library strives to be at the forefront of this technology by ensuring that the library offers the best mobile medical applications and provides assistance and instruction on how to use these products.

The Cushing Center is truly a library strength. The opening of the Center in June 2010 has re- energized both the library and interest in this unique collection. Tracing the birth of modern neurosurgery through the work of Harvey Cushing, this center highlights Cushing as a surgeon, teacher, collector and artist.

VI. Relationship to other libraries at Yale Collaboration with other libraries and library staff members has primarily been in relation to providing services to our collective constituents. The Medical Library and the Kline Science Library provide a scan-on-demand service for patrons from the medical campus or science departments. In addition, medical librarians have worked with counterparts from across campus to teach citation management resource classes, make purchasing decisions for electronic materials and databases, and serve on library-wide committees.

VII. Global outreach Medical librarians reach out to our global constituents and colleagues in many ways. Librarians have traveled to Africa and Central America to teach online searching to clinicians at local hospital and universities. Others have shared library initiatives with colleagues at international conferences and worldwide venues. The library participates in the World Health Organization’s HINARI program to provide access to the biomedical journal literature for developing nations.

The Medical Library has also hosted visiting librarians from China, Uganda, and the World Health Organization. In addition, a number of National Library of Medicine Associates have selected the Medical Library as the location for the practicum year of their two year program.

Each year the library welcomes international medical students from Uganda and China and participates in their month-long curriculum to educate them in current knowledge management practices and to help acclimate them to the medical school environment.

VIII. Staff The Medical Library currently has 18 librarians, 3 managers, and 19 C&T staff. Schedules vary between full and part time positions. Staff have recently begun participating in a mandatory staff development program. The library also holds regularly scheduled meetings known as “Library Councils” and “Staff Seminars.” Library Councils are open to all professional librarians, and Staff Seminars include all library staff. Each revolves around timely topics of interest that pertain to the staff who attend.

IX. Plans for next 3/5 years

The Medical Library is entering Year 3 of its 2009-2012 Strategic Plan. We continue to work on the following even as we begin planning for the initial phases of the 2013-2016 Strategic Plan.

1. Provide integrated access to the Medical Library’s collections and services 2. Build and preserve world-class collections 3. Provide outreach initiatives 4. Provide an intellectually stimulating environment that inspires creativity, productivity, communication, and collaboration 5. Foster a culture of life-long learning and education for staff