Continued increases in journal prices combined with a flat resources budget have resulted in difficult collection decisions. Faculty librarians spent several months evaluating the HS/HSL’s journal collection based on data (cost per use) and the need to ensure the provision of we provide a balanced collection addressing and supporting UMB’s mission.

Journal prices increased 6% to 7% making it necessary to take apart one of our “big deal” journal packages, sometimes known as “bundles,” this year. One way many libraries, including the HS/HSL, have extended their budgets is by participating in publishers’ offers of bundles or “big deals.” Under this model libraries commit to maintaining their current subscriptions with a publisher. In exchange, for a relatively modest fee, the publisher will allow the library access to many more of its titles. The HS/HSL currently participates in big deals with Elsevier, Wiley, Springer, Sage, and Taylor & Francis, giving the UMB community access to considerably more journals than single subscriptions would allow. However, steady increases in journal prices while the Library’s resources budget remains flat have made our continued participation in all of these deals unsustainable.

The Springer package was identified as the least well-performing on a cost-per-use . Consequently, the package is being “unbundled.” High-use Springer journals were evaluated on an individual basis, and thirty-one were selected for retention. Journals were evaluated for both their cost effectiveness and their fit with UMB’s research and educational missions. All other individual (non-bundled) subscriptions were also evaluated, and nine of them were selected for cancellation.

The cancellation of the Springer package was a difficult decision to make. Without the favorable pricing that comes with participation in the publisher’s bundle, the UMB community will lose access to over 1,600 Springer journals, including 372 that had twenty or more uses last year. But the HS/HSL must remain within its resources budget.

Access to the cancelled journals will be lost on January 1, 2016. Individual articles from any journal not subscribed to by the HS/HSL are available through Interlibrary Loan.

If the HS/HSL resources budget remains flat and journal costs continue to rise, we will unfortunately need to make more cancellation decisions next year.

HS/HSL’s Christmas and New Year’s Holiday Hours

Consider attending the first of a six-part seminar series commemorating the 25th anniversary of the launch of the Human Genome Project (HGP) in October 1990. The series, organized by the NHGRI History of Genomics Program (http://www.genome.gov/27557501), features HGP participants who will be sharing their perspectives about the HGP and how it affected their careers.

The series kicks off this Thursday, December 3, 2015 with a panel discussion that includes key HGP leadership: Francis Collins (NIH Director and Former NHGRI Director) as well as Elke Jordan and Mark Guyer (Former NHGRI Deputy Directors). The panel will take place from 2:00 to 3:00 PM in Lipsett Amphitheater in Building 10.

Additional details are provided below and at http://www.genome.gov/27562713.  Please note that if you cannot join us in person, the panel will be video recorded and made available on our GenomeTV channel of YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/user/GenomeTV#p/u) after December 3.

SPEAKERS:

Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., Director, National Institutes of Health.

Elke Jordan, Ph.D., Former Deputy Director, National Human Genome Research Institute.

Mark Guyer, Ph.D., Former Deputy Director, National Human Genome Research Institute.

Eric Green, M.D., Ph.D., Director, National Human Genome Research Institute.
TITLE: “A Quarter Century after the Human Genome Project’s Launch: Lessons Beyond the Base Pairs”
DATE: Thursday, December 3, 2015
TIME: 2:00-3:00 p.m.
LOCATION: Building 10, Lipsett Amphitheater
SPONSOR:  NHGRI History of Genomics Program

National Library of Medicine Informatics Lecture Series

Title: Use of Clinical Big Data to Inform Precision Medicine
Speaker: Joshua Denny, MD
Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Time: 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Location: Lister Hill Center Auditorium
This talk will be broadcast live and archived at http://videocast.nih.gov/

Abstract: Precision medicine offers the promise of improved diagnosis and more effective, patient-specific therapies.  Typically, clinical research studies have been pursued by enrolling a cohort of willing participants in a town or region, and obtaining information and tissue samples from them.  At Vanderbilt, Dr. Denny and his team have linked phenotypic information from de-identified electronic health records (EHRs) to a DNA repository of nearly 200,000 samples, creating a ‘virtual’ cohort.  This approach allows study of genomic basis of disease and drug response using real-world clinical data. Finding the right information in the EHR can be challenging, but the combination of billing data, laboratory data, medication exposures, and natural language processing has enabled efficient study of genomic and pharmacogenomic phenotypes.  The Vanderbilt research team has put many of these discovered pharmacogenomic characteristics into practice through clinical decision support.  The EHR also enables the inverse experiment – starting with a genotype and discovering all the phenotypes with which it is associated – a phenome-wide association study (PheWAS).  PheWAS requires a densely-phenotyped population such as found in the EHR. Dr. Denny’s research team has used PheWAS to replicate more than 300 genotype-phenotype associations, characterize pleiotropy, and discover new associations.  They have also used PheWAS to identify characteristics within disease subtypes.

Brief Bio: Joshua Denny, MD is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Biomedical Informatics and Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. A primary interest of his lab has been development of the PheWAS method applied to EHRs to rapidly uncover genetic pleiotropy and highlight potential drivers of genetic associations with endophenotypes.  He helps lead efforts for local and network pharmacogenetics implementation activities.  He is part of the NIH-supported Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) network, Pharmacogenomics Research Network (PGRN), and Implementing Genomics in Practice (IGNITE) networks. He is past recipient of the American Medical Informatics Association New Investigator Award, Homer Warner Award, and Vanderbilt Chancellor’s Award for Research. Dr. Denny remains active in clinical care and in teaching students. He is also a member of the National Library of Medicine Biomedical Library and Informatics Review Committee.

Sign Language Interpreters will be provided. Individuals with disabilities who need reasonable accommodation to participate in this lecture should contact Ebony Hughes 301-451-8038 Ebony.Hughes@nih.gov or the Federal Relay (1-800-877-8339).

Event contact:

Jane Ye, Ph.D
Division of Extramural Programs
National Library of Medicine, NIH
301-594-4882
yej@mail.nih.gov