Emily Hurst, Associate Vice Provost and Dean, HSHSL
Spring is here — and with that comes beautiful flowers, budget presentations, and the Middle States accreditation site visit. I hope that those of you who are able to visit the HSHSL this month will take the opportunity to view the new exhibit on display in the Weise Gallery through May 31, 2025: “Groundbreaking: Spring Botanicals.” The library gallery is one of my favorite spots, and I hope you will enjoy this exhibit and others planned for the future.
I am pleased to share that renovation work continues on the building restrooms. The first two of 12 restrooms will soon be completed on the Lower Level. Renovations include updated stalls and two freestanding sinks in each restroom. While the original trough sinks were innovative in 1998, they continue to experience issues.
Much of my time has recently been set aside to prepare the HSHSL budget for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 (July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2026). I will present our budget to university leadership in early April. Due to the state budget deficit, all University System of Maryland (USM) institutions face budget reductions. I have worked with the HSHSL leadership team to discuss how these budget cuts will impact HSHSL services, collections, and staffing. While we anticipate a very lean FY2026, I am optimistic of strengthening relationships with University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) schools and units, as well as with the University System of Maryland and Affiliated Intuitions (USMAI) consortium, of which HSHSL and the Thurgood Marshall Law Library are active members, to support our funding needs. We are also working closely with UMB development to establish new fundraising opportunities for the HSHSL.
We are actively monitoring the changes at the federal level regarding projects at the HSHSL funded by the National Library of Medicine (NLM). I meet regularly with our contacts at the NLM to discuss these changes. Our HSHSL employees who work on these grant funded projects continue to support the NLM’s mission, providing access to information, funding opportunities, and training support for their network members though the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM), Region 1 and the NNLM Web Services Office.
I am grateful for all of the support as I continue to learn and navigate our changing environments. It has been just over one year since I joined the UMB team, and I look forward to finding new and innovative ways to serve the UMB and Maryland communities, and to position the HSHSL as a flagship health sciences and human services library in the region and beyond.
New Open Access Publishing Agreements Benefit UMB Authors
As of Jan. 1, the HSHSL has negotiated two new agreements that will facilitate open access (OA) publishing at UMB. Known as “Read and Publish Agreements,” these contracts provide UMB authors with the opportunity to make their articles OA in certain journals without paying the article processing fee (APC) that would typically be charged. Our agreements are with Elsevier and Wiley, two large academic publishers.
When a UMB affiliate is the corresponding author for a paper that is accepted by an eligible journal, they will see the option to select this free OA publishing format when completing their copyright and licensing agreements in the journal publisher’s portal. If this option does not appear, the journal is either not eligible for the agreement or we have used our allotment of free publishing credits for that calendar year.
More information about these agreements as well as other publishing guidance is available on our Open Access guide. Contact Steve Douglas with any questions related to the OA agreements. For general publishing questions and guidance, contact publishing@hshsl.umaryland.edu.
Groundbreaking: Spring Botanicals
March 10-May 31, 2025
The "Groundbreaking: Spring Botanicals" exhibit features illustrations by 18th-century botanists William Woodville and William Curtis from the HSHSL’s Pharmacy Historical Collection. The botanical illustrations were digitally enhanced and enlarged to highlight intricate details and vivid colors.
The images featured in the exhibit come from historical texts that were donated to the HSHSL collections in 1940 from the estate of August Kach, a graduate of the Maryland College of Pharmacy, class of 1882. His donation included 700 volumes, many of which remain in the HSHSL. The HSHSL’s Pharmacy Historical Collection contains influential pharmacy and medical texts dating back to the 17th century.
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William Woodville, an English physician and botanist, published "Medical Botany: Containing Systematic and General Descriptions, With Plates of All the Medicinal Plants, Indigenous and Exotic, Comprehended in the Catalogues of the Materia Medica, as Published by the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London and Edinburgh," from 1790 to 1794. This four-volume work, illustrated by James Sowerby, served as an important resource for early physicians. The HSHSL holds a two-volume set.
William Curtis, a botanist and entomologist from Alton, Hampshire, England, founded The Botanical Magazine; or, Flower-Garden Displayed in February 1787. The early magazine featured illustrations by Sydenham Edwards and James Sowerby, and continues publication today as Curtis’s Botanical Magazine.
We’re pleased to share that long-awaited restroom renovations are happening at the HSHSL. These updates will bring new sinks, stalls, mirrors, and fresh paint to each restroom, enhancing comfort and accessibility for all.
What to Expect
Restrooms on each floor will be temporarily closed during renovations.
Restrooms on other floors will remain open—please use an alternative floor as needed.
Some construction noise is expected. Complimentary earplugs are available at the Information Services Desk.
We appreciate your patience as we make these much-needed improvements. Signage and updates will be posted throughout the process. If you have questions, contact us at hshsl@umaryland.edu or 410-706-7995.
Thank you for your support—we can’t wait for you to see the refreshed spaces!
Enhance Your Course with Health Literacy Online Module
Attention: UMB faculty, instructors, and clinical skills mentors!
Are you interested in helping your students understand how health literacy practices can improve patient comprehension and health outcomes?
Would you like to deepen your own understanding of health literacy?
Are you looking for ways to integrate health literacy into your existing coursework?
The newly released online course “Learning and Teaching Health Literacy from an Interprofessional Education and Equity Lens” is designed with you in mind.
This course includes a welcome module and four training modules. Completing the full series and earning a digital certificate takes just 2.5 hours.
We appreciate everyone who took the time to share their feedback in our recent library quality survey. We are currently analyzing results and looking at how we can improve the HSHSL. To encourage participation, we pledged to donate $2 per completed survey to the UMB student pantry and held a random drawing for prizes. Thanks to your responses, we are thrilled to donate $610 to support our students!
Congratulations to our five prize winners:
Anne Sawyer, School of Medicine
Jenna Silverman, Student Counseling Center
Maclean Panshin, School of Medicine
Sara Crane, School of Medicine
Vasumati Eranki, School of Pharmacy
Thank you again for sharing your feedback to help us improve the HSHSL!
Book It Forward 2025: Donate Books for Children and Youth Literacy
Book It Forward is back! From April 8 through May 19, you’ll find donation containers at the HSHSL and the Campus Center to collect new and gently used children’s books for ages birth through high school.
This year, donated books will support three incredible organizations:
The Rise Early Learning and Family Support Center – An initiative of the UMSSW Center for Restorative Change that provides free, comprehensive services for children birth to age 3.
Digital Harbor High School – A technology-focused high school that prepares students for college and careers with industry-level certifications.
The Maryland Book Bank – A Baltimore nonprofit dedicated to fostering literacy among children in under-resourced communities.
This marks the third year the HSHSL Community Service Committee has hosted Book It Forward, and we’re excited for another successful year—with your help!
Baltimore Medical College Items Added to Historical Collections
The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) is the result of the mergers of several smaller Baltimore colleges and universities. As a result, the histories of those schools are part of UMB’s story. Historical Collections aims to collect and preserve the histories of those constituent schools and to tell their histories alongside UMB’s. Recently, Historical Collections purchased and received through donation a few items relating to the Baltimore Medical College (BMC). These new items shed light on the graduates of that school and its history.
New Baltimore Medical College Items
BMC Football Photograph, ca. 1907
In their academic catalogs, the BMC faculty encouraged students to be active in athletics while earning degrees at the school. According to the BMC entry on the Lost Colleges website, the BMC football team was particularly successful. This photograph, purchased by the HSHSL in January, contains the signature of Dr. Meade E. Hagerty, BMC Class of 1908, on its reverse. Hagerty, from Emlenton, Pa., entered the BMC in 1904 and played left guard for the BMC in 1907.
Howard Martin Kemp, MD, BMC Diploma, 1911
Howard Martin Kemp was born in Colerain, Mass. in 1887. He entered the Baltimore Medical College in 1907 and completed his degree in 1911. Kemp’s diploma, donated by his family in February, is the first BMC diploma to be included in Historical Collections.
BMC Pennant
Unfortunately, little information is known about the BMC pennant purchased by the HSHSL in January. Unlike those appearing in the football photograph, which abbreviate the school as “B.M.C.,” this pennant bears the name “Balto. Medical.” Pennants like this one have appeared in yearbook photographs as well as sports photographs.
The History of the BMC
BMC was founded by Harvey Leonidas Byrd, MD; Benjamin Franklin Leonard, MD, University of Maryland School Of Medicine (UMSOM) 1876; Henry Froehling, MD, College of Physicians and Surgeons (P&S) 1881; Henry Wheaton Clapp, MD, Leonard Roberts Coates, MD, P&S 1990; William Robert Monroe, MD, UMSOM 1849; and Adolph Gustav Hoen, MD, UMSOM 1873, in 1881 as a Christian medical college. While the curriculum did not contain religious coursework, the faculty and board of directors at the school had to affirm their belief in Christianity.
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In its first year, the college operated out of the YMCA building on the corner of Saratoga and Charles Streets with Dr. William Robert Monroe serving as dean. The curriculum offered the traditional medical and surgical courses of Anatomy, Chemistry, Physiology, Materia Medica and Therapeutics, Principles and Practice of Medicine, Principles and Practice of Surgery (including eye and ear), and Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children, as well as dental coursework including, Operative Dentistry, Dental Histology and Dental Pathology, Mechanical Dentistry and Metallurgy. The course catalog boasted a longer annual session of 7.5 months compared to other medical schools, claiming students could graduate after two courses of instruction, which differed from the three required at other institutions. The cost for attendance was a $5 matriculation fee, $120 for lecture and laboratory tickets for one session, $10 for a dissection ticket, and a $30 graduation fee: all adding up to $165 ($5,138.80 in 2025 dollars)for a year of medical education. In the first year of operation, the BMC graduated seventeen students, including one woman. From 1881 to 1883, BMC was one of few schools in Baltimore that allowed woman students to attend; however, after 1883, women were no longer admitted.
During the 1882-83 academic year the BMC moved to 93 N. Paca Street. That same year, it offered daily clinical instruction at a free dispensary. By 1885, the Maryland General Hospital became part of the school, offering students more clinical instruction and internship opportunities. Soon after its partnership with the BMC, the Maryland General Hospital was given $3750 annually by the state to treat indigent patients free of charge. In 1888, the BMC moved once again to a building on North Howard Street. The Maryland General Hospital Training School for Nurses opened in 1891, offering a three-year training program.
By 1892, the BMC was doing well enough to build a new five-story $75,000 building on the northeast corner of Howard Street and Linden Avenue. The new building included a dispensary with six private exam rooms and separate drug room, an accident ward, lecture halls, a 500-seat amphitheater, and separate laboratories for histological, pathological, anatomical, and chemical instruction. The college building was connected to the Maryland General Hospital. In addition, in 1892 the American Medical College Association required schools to lengthen the course of instruction to three-years course before graduation. 1895 brought additional changes to the school when it established a separate dental department. A year later, a second college building was under construction at a cost of $60,000. In the fall of 1904, the Baltimore Law School became affiliated with the BMC. The law school moved to 802 N. Howard Street and offered evening lectures so students could work full-time jobs during the day. The law school was a three-year program offering the degree of LL.B and had a yearly cost of $60 with an additional $20 diploma fee at graduation.
All signs point to a thriving medical school; however, in March 1909 Abraham Flexner visited the school and in 1910 he released a scathing report of the BMC in his bulletin titled Medical education in the United States and Canada: a report to the Carnegie Foundation for the advancement of teaching. Flexner called the BMC “one of the weakest of the seven medical schools in Maryland.” He found fault with the school’s low entrance requirements, claiming new students could enter the BMC having less than a four-year high school education. Flexner also asserted that the BMC frequently gave high-level standing (i.e., second- or third-year status) to students that had failed out of other (better) medical schools.
As a result, the BMC made some changes in admission requirements for students. By 1912 students entering the school were required to have a medical student’s certificate, a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university, as well as a diploma from an accredited high school, normal school, or academy. Unfortunately, the BMC never really recovered from the scathing Flexner report.
In January 1913, a meeting was held to discuss the merger of the BMC with the UMSOM. The following resolutions were adopted, and the BMC, its students and faculty became part of UMSOM:
Resolution 1 – The rights of the BMC in the Maryland General Hospital were transferred to the UMSOM.
Resolution 2 – All lab & teaching equipment in the building on N. Howard Street was turned over to UMSOM. The building itself remained separate from the UMSOM.
Resolution 3 – The faculty members at the BMC were elected full professors at UMSOM and three were elected to Board of Regents.
Resolution 4 – The BMC dental department would continue to operate until June 1914.
Resolution 5 – The titles of faculty of the BMC would remain when transferred to UMSOM.
Gail Betz Receives JEDI Award for Advocacy in Accessibility and Inclusion
Gail Betz, MSLIS, research education and outreach librarian for the School of Social Work, received a JEDI Award from the School of Social Work on March 13, 2025.
Betz was honored with the Judith Heumann Staff Award, which recognizes individuals who advocate for both individual and systemic change. Colleagues and students alike commend her deep commitment to accessibility and disability justice.
She has served on the school’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee and its accessibility advisory group, advised students through the Office of Student Services, and played a key role in implementing universal design training for all faculty.
Her impact extends far beyond these roles, strengthening inclusivity and support across the School of Social Work through numerous initiatives.
Congratulations Gail!
Employee News
Hiring News
Christine Hilsop, MSLIS, accepted the position of data services librarian in the Research and Information Services Division, Data and Bioinformation Services Department, effective January 2025.
Christine joined the HSHSL in 2022 as the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) Region 1 data education librarian, where she had been an active and collaborative colleague.
We are excited that she is bringing her expertise in data literacy, research data management, and other data-related topics to her new role.
Amy Lubinski, MLIS, digital content specialist, joined the Resource Development and Access Division in January 2025. Amy has been working closely with the UMB Digital Archive, identifying, documenting, and submitting records. She earned her MLIS from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Emilie Ludeman, MSLIS, was named head of Research and Education Services in March 2025, having served in that position on an interim basis since December 2023.
Emilie began her career at the HSHSL in 2008 as a reference technician in the (then) Reference Department. In 2011, she joined the Research, Education, and Outreach Services team as liaison librarian to the School of Nursing and later to the School of Graduate Studies.
She brings deep subject knowledge, creative ideas, and strong leadership skills to this role.
Promotions and Permanent Status
Emily Gorman, MLIS, research and education librarian to the School of Pharmacy was promoted to Librarian III.
Tara Wink, MLS, historical collections librarian was promoted to Librarian III.
Amy Yarnell, MLS, head, Data and Bioinformation Services, obtained permanent status.
Presentations
Everly Brown, MLIS, presented “Your Library, Your Resources: HSHSL for Staff” at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, Environmental Services Winter Town Hall on Feb. 26, 2025.
Emily Gorman, MLIS, was an invited panelist for the Medical Library Association’s Pharmacy and Drug Information Caucus discussion “Drug Information Tools Demystified: A Panel Discussion With Pharmacy Librarians and Pharmacists” on March 18, 2025.
Emily Hurst, MSLS, and Everly Brown, MLIS, presented “Marketing Approaches: Health Sciences Libraries” at the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries New and Interim Directors Symposium, held virtually on Jan. 23, 2025.
Recognition
Three outstanding HSHSL employees were honored for their dedicated service to UMB during an employee recognition luncheon March 20 at Westminster Hall. Brad Gerhart, web developer, and Michele Nance, research information specialist, celebrated 25 years at UMB, while Charlene Matthews, library services technician, marked an impressive milestone of 40 years at the university.
Emily Hurst, second from left, and Charlene Mathews, third from left, at the ceremony. Photo by Matthew D’Agostino.
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