As 2013 races to a close, it is easy to reflect on all our accomplishments this year. The library faculty and staff have had an outstanding year – lots of articles, chapters, presentations, new services, new resources, new staff, new web site, and all sorts of behind-the-scenes activities that make everything we do so much better for us and for you.

If I were going to identify some top stories in the HS/HSL in 2013, I would probably cite:

1. MPower Initiative – UMB and College Park Libraries partnered to develop the MPower Virtual Resarch Library in support of collaborative work between researchers at both campuses.  See Connective Issues Special Edition.
2. Remodeled Website and OneSearch – We remodeled our web site using responsive design technology so the site would be legible and usable on any device.  We introduced OneSearch on the Library’s home page. OneSearch is a research tool modeled on the ease of searching with Google. With a single search, users can uncover multiple types of library resources. It’s a huge hit.
3. 200th Anniversary begins – We began “Foundations for Discovery, Collaboration, and Innovation,” the celebration of our 200th anniversary on May 1 with a lecture by Dr. Phil Mackowiak on Dr. John Crawford.  It was Dr. Crawford’s collection that was purchased in 1813 to establish our library and found the University of Maryland’s libraries.  We’ve had a variety of programming, ranging from Dr. Mackowiak’s lecture, to a symposium on mobile health, to our 200th Anniversary Exhibit (held over until January 30th).  All members of our community have joined in the festivities.

2014 promises to hold all sorts of additional excitement!  We will be launching our research support service, holding a Sweet 16 Party to celebrate the 16th birthday of our lovely building (did anybody say Ace of Cakes?), offering a symposium on measuring research impact, re-envisioning Connective Issues, and beginning work on our new strategic plan (a personal favorite).  Our exhibits program will again be robust with the thought-provoking “Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race,” in partnership with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum running from February 28-April 30.  A highlight of the year is always the art exhibit with elementary and middle schoolers from our partner schools on the west side.  We will close out the year with “Surviving and Thriving: AIDS, Politics, and Culture.”

We hope you will be with us for every event.  Thank you for your ongoing support of the Health Sciences and Human Services Library.  Best wishes for a wonderful holiday season and a restful break.  See you in 2014.

We are pleased to announce that effective Tuesday, January 21, 2014, UMB faculty and staff will receive interlibrary loan and document delivery requests free of charge. UMB students were the first to benefit from these free services, beginning in 2009. Interlibrary loans are items borrowed from other libraries while document delivery refers to items that are held in the HS/HSL print collection.

Faculty and staff will continue to request materials through the ILLiad system, but the request form will be streamlined. For information about registering and using ILLiad, please visit the Request Articles and Books page on the HS/HSL website.

If you have any questions, please contact the Resources Sharing department at 410.706.3239 or by email.

The definitive international public health database Global Health is the only specialized, abstracted and indexed bibliographic database dedicated to public health research and practice. Derived from over 5,000 journals, as well as reports, books, and conferences, Global Health contains over 1.2 million scientific records from 1973 to the present. Over 100,000 records are added each year, and over 97% of these records include an abstract. Publications from 158 countries in 50 languages are abstracted, and all relevant non-English language papers are translated to give research access not available through any other database.

The database’s open serials policy and coverage of international and grey literature means that 60% of the material contained in Global Health is unique to the database. Everything from proceedings, patents, theses, electronic-only publications, and other difficult-to-obtain sources is included.

Gail Betz, MLIS

Gail Betz, MLIS, joined us in August as Research, Education and Outreach Librarian. She is working with the faculty, students, and staff of the School of Social Work. Gail earned her Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Drexel University. She has work experience in primary and secondary education and was a teaching assistant for several Nursing Informatics courses at Drexel. She enjoys running and participates in marathons.

Kimberly Yang, JD, MLS

Kimberly Yang, JD, MLS, joined us in November as Research, Education and Outreach Librarian. She is working with the faculty, students, and staff of the School of Pharmacy. Before earning her Master’s degree in Library Science from the University of Maryland, College Park, Kim was a grant writer and administrator at a nonprofit, and an attorney in a health law practice of a large firm in Los Angeles. She is a fan of book clubs, strenuous yoga, and hiking.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Exhibition “Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race” is coming to the HS/HSL.

The exhibition examines how the Nazi leadership, in collaboration with individuals in professions traditionally charged with healing and the public good, used science to help legitimize persecution, murder and, ultimately, genocide.

The exhibition will open at the Library on February 28, 2014 and will be on display through April 30, 2014.

"Deadly Medicine explores the Holocaust’s roots in then-contemporary scientific and pseudo-scientific thought," explains exhibition curator Susan Bachrach. "At the same time, it touches on complex ethical issues we face today, such as how societies acquire and use scientific knowledge and how they balance the rights of the individual with the needs of the larger community."

Eugenics theory sprang from turn-of-the-20th-century scientific beliefs asserting that Charles Darwin’s theories of "survival of the fittest" could be applied to humans. Supporters, spanning the globe and political spectrum, believed that through careful controls on marriage and reproduction, a nation’s genetic health could be improved.

The Nazi regime was founded on the conviction that "inferior" races, including the so-called Jewish race, and individuals had to be eliminated from German society so that the fittest "Aryans" could thrive. The Nazi state fully committed itself to implementing a uniquely racist and anti-Semitic variation of eugenics to "scientifically" build what it considered to be a "superior race." By the end of World War II, six million Jews had been murdered. Millions of others also became victims of persecution and murder through Nazi "racial hygiene" programs designed to cleanse Germany of "biological threats" to the nation’s "health," including "foreign-blooded" Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), persons diagnosed as "hereditarily ill," and homosexuals. In German-occupied territories, Poles and others belonging to ethnic groups deemed "inferior" were also murdered.

This exhibition is made possible through the support of The David Berg Foundation, The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, The Lester Robbins and Sheila Johnson Robbins Traveling and Temporary Exhibitions Fund established in 1990, and The Dorot Foundation.

If you are interested in developing programming in coordination with this exhibit, please contact Aphrodite Bodycomb at 410.706.8853 or by email.

The Employee Assistance Archive (EA Archive) collection is now available within the UM Digital Archive. The University of Maryland School of Social Work – the only social work program with a dedicated Employee Assistance (EA) curriculum as part of the larger MSW program – is working with staff at the HS/HSL to develop the collection. The intent of the EA Archive is to preserve important historical documents as well as provide a national depository for all significant articles in the field.

The EA Archive is a free, publicly accessible site where professionals can post original works, historical documents, or other related papers. The EA field is interdisciplinary, with experts from a myriad of fields such as social work, addiction, psychology, occupational health and wellness, work-life, peer counseling, human resources, risk management, benefits, and organizational development, among others. We hope professionals from these diverse backgrounds will contribute to the archive.

Visit the Employee Assistance Archive.

The HS/HSL offers a variety of video tutorials that can show you how to use RefWorks bibliographic management software for more than storing citations. Learn how to search for journal citation styles and create bibliographies with RefWorks: Creating Bibliographies and Using the Output Style Manager. Want to share your references with a colleague? You can learn to do this with our RefWorks: Using RefShare tutorial. RefWorks’ latest version of Write-N-Cite now incorporates directly into Microsoft Word. You can learn how to download and use this new tool in our Setting up Write-N-Cite 4 and Using Write-N-Cite 4 tutorials. To view additional tutorials on a wide range of topics, please visit our Videos and Tutorials webpage.

In October, librarians from the Health Sciences and Human Services Library (HS/HSL) attended the annual meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Medical Library Association (MAC-MLA) in Pittsburgh. Ryan Harris, MLIS, AHIP, Reference Services Manager, was voted chair-elect of MAC, and Paula Raimondo, MLS, AHIP, Head of Research, Education and Outreach services, became the MAC representative to the MLA Nominating Committee.

Publications

Ryan Harris, MLIS, AHIP; Alexa Mayo, MLIS, AHIP; J. Dale Prince, MA, MLS, AHIP; M.J. Tooey, MLS, AHIP, FMLA, published “Creating shared campus experiences: the library as culture club” in the Journal of the Medical Library Association, 101(4), October 2013.

Posters

Multiple HS/HSL representatives presented posters at MAC-MLA: Everly Brown, MLIS; Steven Douglas, MA, MLS, AHIP; Katherine Downton, MSLIS; Yunting Fu, MLS; Andrea Goldstein, MSLIS; Emilie Ludeman, MSLIS; Alexa Mayo, MLIS, AHIP; David Midyette, MA, MLIS, AHIP; María M. Pinkas, MLS; Sheila Snow-Croft, MA, MLIS; M.J. Tooey, MLS, AHIP, FMLA; and Andrew Youngkin, MLS, AHIP.