MIDDLE ATLANTIC PERSPECTIVE
Newsletter of the
National Network of Libraries of Medicine

Middle Atlantic Region
New York New Jersey Pennsylvania Delaware

In This Issue...

Closing of MLCNY
A Death in the Family - MLCNY 1960 - 2003
ILL Cost Survey Results
NTCC Educational Clearinghouse Database
DOCLINE 1.6 Released
Library Closings
NLM Technical Bulletin

Note: This is a newsletter. The links and information are up-to-date when published and are NOT updated after the published date.

If you would like to propose topics you feel should be covered in the Middle Atlantic Perspective, or, if you would like to write an article, please contact Joanne Jahr at jjahr@nyam.org. Your comments, suggestions and criticisms are welcome.

Thank You and Goodbye to MLCNY

by Mary Mylenki
Associate Director

It is with considerable sadness and regret that we recognize the closing of the Medical Library Center of New York. Founded in 1959, MLCNY has been a fact of New York City library life before some of us were born and certainly before most of us were librarians.

For decades MLCNY has been an integral and extremely valuable part of medical librarianship. Before DOCLINE and before SERHOLD, the Union Catalog of Medical Periodicals (UCMP) made life easier for hundred of librarians, and made document delivery faster for many hundreds of their patrons. Now a victim of rising costs and technological changes unimaginable not so many years ago, MLCNY has had to bite the bullet and close its doors.

We in the Regional Medical Library particularly appreciate the support and assistance MLCNY provided in its role as a Resource Library and, for many years, as our Cooperative Technical Services subcontractor, providing SERHOLD coordination for libraries throughout the region. The implementation of DOCLINE, way back in 1986, was led by MLCNY members.

We all owe a debt of gratitude to the staff over the years. We wish them all well in their future endeavors.

(See article following).

A  DEATH IN THE FAMILY
THE MEDICAL LIBRARY CENTER OF NEW YORK
1960 -2003

by Erich Meyerhoff, Director Emeritus
The Medical Library Center of New York

The Medical Library Center of New York (MLCNY) was founded in 1959 by the medical schools and health research institutions in the New York metropolitan area as an independent, educational non-profit organization to serve as a “library for libraries.” It does not serve the public directly but rather assists libraries needing health science information either from its own extensive retrospective journal collection or the collection of other health science libraries. In the face of the changing library and economic environments, The MLCNY Board of Trustees determined that it was no longer feasible for MLCNY to continue as a freestanding organization and voted to end operations in July 2003 and close its doors by August 31, 2003. What follows is a brief remembrance of MLCNY by Erich Meyerhoff, its founding Director (1961-1967) and director emeritus. I was pleased to learn that Mr. Meyerhoff’s memories of the founding and early days of MLCNY will be preserved as part of The Medical Library Association’s Oral History Project: Voices of the Past.
William Self, MLCNY Director (2001-2003)

With the decision of its Board of Trustees, The Medical Library Center of New York (MLCNY) will end its existence in August 2003. No deficiency in its operation, financial mismanagement, or questionable conduct of its personnel is alleged as the cause of The Center’s demise. On the contrary, The Center has always been a superb operation and each of its Directors provided leadership in cooperative solutions for the coordination of resources.

The early Board consisted of leaders in medical education among them Houston Merritt, Dean of Columbia University-College of Physicians and Surgeons; Marcus Kogel, Dean at Albert Einstein College of Medicine-Yeshiva University; Frank Horsfall, Jr., President of Rockefeller University; John Deitrick, Dean at Cornell University College of Medicine; George James, Dean of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine; and Howard Craig, Director of the New York Academy of Medicine. Its Directors were prominent librarians: Jacqueline Felter (1967-1974), the creator of the Union Catalog of Medical Periodicals, co-editor of the third edition of the Handbook of Medical Librarianship and President of the Medical Library Association; Jean Miller (1974-1978), President of the Medical Library Association; and William D. Walker (1979-1989) now Senior Vice President and Mellon Director of the Research Libraries, The New York Public Library. Many who worked at The Center moved to important positions in the field including Spencer Marsh, John Patruno, Wayne Peay, and Stephen van Houten.

Among MLCNY’s achievements are the various editions of the Union Catalog of Medical Periodicals (UCMP), a computer aided listing of the periodical holdings of some 68 health related libraries in our area, including the American Museum of Natural History and the New York Botanical Garden, that eventually grew to reflect the holdings of over 600 libraries in the Northeast and regularly updated with on line access. In addition, MLCNY provided a van delivery service to its membership to provide speedy delivery of interlibrary transactions; a storage facility for members, and, most of all, a site for a collection of less used journals in the health and allied health sciences with the aim to eliminate duplication. A superb staff maintained a practically flawless and courteous operation.  With a collection size of over 450,000 items, it is a measure of its effectiveness that in 2001 MLCNY received 39,571 loan requests and filled 33,882; in 2002 it received 34,882 requests and filled 31,751.

With its dissolution, some of its holdings will go to the National Library of Medicine to become part of a program of scanning the journals indexed in the Cumulative Index Medicus as well as complete gaps in NLM’s holdings. Some materials will be claimed by other academic, research, hospital and medical society libraries and MLCNY will be forced to dispose of the remainder.

A collaborative, cost-effective consolidation of materials held by libraries continues to be a necessity. Whether on paper, film or electronic media, the elimination of unnecessary duplication is an ecological necessity. The construction of warehouses in which the collections of different institutions sit in splendid isolation merely postpones the problem of retention as part of a national policy.

One feels abandoned when a useful institution dies. Sincere attempts to save it failed.  MLCNY Board members, headed by its current President Lynn Kasner Morgan of Mount Sinai School of Medicine, along with Lois Weinstein (1990-2001) and William Self, the last and present directors of MLCNY, made attempts at rescue.  In the end The Medical Library Center of New York shares the fate of the School of Nursing of Cornell University and the School of Library Service of Columbia University among other distinguished institutions; without any support, fiscal or humane, they disappeared.

I would like to thank William Self, Karen Brewer, Lynn Kasner Morgan and Tina Meyerhoff for their assistance in the preparation of this article.

+++++
SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI

Note: For additional information on MLCNY and its programs and services:

Craig, HR and Felter, JW. “Cooperation or Chaos: a Summary of the Problems Confronting the Medical Libraries of Greater New York.” Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, 46:381-388, July 1958.

Meyerhoff, E. “The Medical Library Center of New York: an Experiment in Cooperative Acquisitions and Storage of Medical Library Materials.” Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, 51:501-6, October 1963.

Felter, JW. “The Medical Library Center of New York: a Progress Report.” Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, 56:15-20, January 1968.

Walker, William D. “The Medical Library Center of New York: an Independent, Privately-Funded Network.” IFLA Section of Biological and Medical Sciences Libraries Newsletter, 3(4), October 1982.

Dempsey, R. and Weinstein, L. “UCMP and the Internet help hospital libraries share resources.” Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, 87(3):270-4, July 1999.

ILL Cost Survey Results

At the end of March 2003, using MARL, the Middle Atlantic Region Listserv®, we asked Network members in this region for input on questions related to ILL charges. An online form was available to record responses, with information about individual libraries remaining confidential.

We would like to extend our thanks to the 176 (anonymous) librarians in this region who answered the questions. We appreciate their assistance in this important initiative which, along with that of librarians in other regions, will enable us to assess the charges libraries incur to borrow material through ILL and provide information for planning improvements to resource sharing systems. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank our colleagues in the NN/LM Pacific Southwest Region, Julie Kwan and Andrea Lynch, for preparing the questionnaire and organizing and presenting the data.

For those who are interested in seeing the results, there is now a link from the NN/LM Librarian and Health Educator Resources Page http://nnlm.gov/libinfo/ to the ILL cost study in the form of a PowerPoint presentation made at the RML Directors Meeting in San Diego during MLA. (It is the last link under the “Use NLM’s DOCLINE interlibrary loan system” heading.) [Please note that since this is a PowerPoint presentation of about 750KB, it may take a little time for people with dialup access to download.]

For those of you who would have responded to the survey “if only you had known,” MARL is our primary mechanism for communicating with Network members. If you have not as yet signed up, you may do so by following the instructions at
http://nnlm.gov/mar/listserv.html.

NTCC Educational Clearinghouse Database: A Step-by-Step Guide to Its Use

by Maureen Czujak, Assistant Director, NN/LM National Training Center & Clearinghouse

The National Training Center & Clearinghouse (NTCC) has just completed the first evaluation of the Educational database. The results will be published in a future issue of the Newsletter.

It became abundantly clear in the initial previewing of results that many users did not know this resource existed. This tool within the NTCC’s web site was designed for the easy searching and locating of educational materials created by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM). The Clearinghouse database went live on June 17, 2002.

The Educational Clearinghouse database currently contains approximately 133 items in varied formats. One is able to find PowerPoint presentations on PubMed and LinkOut; online tutorials; pamphlets, lists of classes, class manuals, etc.

NTCC Home Page
The NTCC Home page (http://nnlm.gov/mar/online/) is shown in Figure 1 below. There are two ways to get to the Clearinghouse database from the NTCC Home page. If you are familiar with Web searching, and NLM materials, go directly to the Clearinghouse database by clicking on the Educational Clearinghouse Database link.

If you are unfamiliar with NLM materials, you may wish to click on the Documentation Link from the NTCC Home page. This page explains the purpose and objectives of the Clearinghouse database and provides definitions of the types of information found in it. This list of definitions will be overhauled in the near future incorporating user comments from the evaluation.

Using the Clearinghouse Database
The definition of Clearinghouse database page is shown in Figure 2. You can browse or search by Content, Format, Audience, or Title. Figure 3 shows the browse functions and the search features of the educational clearinghouse database.

As shown in Figure 3, you can search by Content, Format, Audience and/or Keywords. Content, Format and Audience search terms are predefined and can be selected from pull-down menus. Figure 4 shows a few results from the Title search.

Figure 5 shows the search by Keyword “consumer” and this query (Figure 6) results in a list of “easy to read consumer health information items, a guide to Internet tools, the link to the Household Products Database and links to a description of NLM Online Systems.”

Notice a brief description of each item is given. We will select the record “Household Products Database (HPD),” click on the title (which is a link) to see the full database record for this Clearinghouse database resource (see Figure 7).

Suggest a New Resource
We welcome and strongly encourage your submission of items/resources to be added to the Clearinghouse database. Please use the tools provided on the home page (see Figure 8). When making a suggestion, please remember that we are looking for no-fee, high-quality resources that are updated when necessary. Complete information concerning the resource is vital.

If you have a suggestion for enhancing/improving the mechanics of the Educational Clearinghouse database, please forward your ideas to mczujak@nyam.org. Please be as clear and concise as possible. Examples would be appreciated.

DOCLINE 1.6 Released July 1, 2003

DOCLINE 1.6 Enhancements:

LOANSOME DOC®
For the Loansome Doc User
* Order Documents: Added the ability to request a document from the NLM Gateway using the Old Medline UI from 1953 to 1965.
* Order Documents: To reduce (accidental) ordering of free material, added link to full-text article on Loansome Doc Order page when article being requested is available free in PubMed Central

For the Loansome Doc Library
* Receipt: Added indication to the end of the library holdings statement that the article is available free in PubMed Central
* Receipt: PubMed UI field will display “(Old Medline)” after number when UI is from Old Medline.

DOCUSER®
* Address: Increased length of institution name from 60 to 80 characters.

REQUESTS
* Borrow: Added ability to request material using the Old Medline UI (1953-1965) via Borrow / UniqueKey
Note: Old Medline records are not yet in PubMed, but may be searched in the NLM Gateway.
See “How to Search Old Medline Using the NLM Gateway” in the NLM Technical Bulletin
(http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/mj01/mj01_gw_hands_on.html)

* Borrow: To reduce the (accidental) ordering of free material, added link to full-text article on Process PubMed Orders page when article being requested is available free in PubMed Central
* Receipt: PubMed UI field will display “(Old Medline)” after UI number when UI is from Old Medline.
* Receipt: Verify field will indicate full-text item is “(Free in PubMed Central)” when article is in PubMed Central
* Display increased length of institution name from 60 to 80 characters.

SERHOLD
* Added ability to automatically output serial holdings data from SERHOLD for importing into OCLC on a quarterly basis for libraries that authorize NLM to do so.
* Display increased length of institution name from 60 to 80 characters.

HELP
* Help screens were added or modified for all new features or changes to DOCLINE 1.6.

If you should have any questions or problems regarding this new release, please call Joanne Jahr, Network Programs Coordinator, 212-822-7352 or jjahr@nyam.org

Library Closings

The library of Wyeth Vaccines Research, NYUPRX, closed due to the downsizing of the entire facility. If it is in your routing table, now is the time to remove it.

Medical Library Center of New York, NYUMLC (see related articles on pages 1 and 2), is in the routing tables of 362 libraries. Check your table and remove it.

NLM TECHNICAL BULLETIN 2003

The following articles from the current Technical Bulletin are available on the Web at:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/tb.html.

2003 May - June; 332

Update on NLM’s Position on the Application of Major-Minor Journal Title Change
Rules - e2
PubMed® Central in Entrez - e3
Genetics Home Reference: A New Consumer Guide to Genetic Conditions - e4
LinkOut for Libraries Announcements - e5
New Icons in PubMed® Indicate Free Full Text Available - e6

Technical Notes: - e1
Special List Indicators No Longer Searchable in LOCATORplus
May 2003 PubMed® Training Manual Now Available
Link to SARS Citations from the PubMed® Home Page
New Version of Gateway Adds Citations from 1953 – 1956 Publications to OLDMEDLINE
List of Serials Indexed for Online Users - 2003 - Now Available
Papers of Nobel Scientist Fred L. Soper Added to NLM Profiles in Science
NLM Update Available via NIH VideoCasting
History and Clipboard Timeout to be Extended in PubMed
New Domain for Entrez Utilities (EUtilities)
Free Full Text Subset Available for PubMed Searching
NLM Launches Asian American Health Site
SARS Coronavirus Resource Available via NCBI Genome Database
NLM Defines Standard for Electronic Archiving and Publishing

We Wish Everyone a Happy Summer!

NN/LM, Middle Atlantic Region
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10029

Phone: 212-822-7396 or 800-338-RMLS; Fax: 212-534-7042
Email: user name (first initial last name) followed by @nyam.org; URL: http://nnlm.gov/mar

NN/LM STAFF

Director - Maxine L. Rockoff, Ph.D.
Associate Director - Mary Mylenki
Consumer Health Information Coordinator - Rhonda Allard
Education Programs Coordinator - Joan Seidman
Network Programs Coordinator - Joanne Jahr
Outreach Programs Coordinator - Peggy Falls
Technology Coordinator - Denise O'Shea
Administrative Assistant - Dorothy Weyeneth

NATIONAL TRAINING CENTER AND CLEARINGHOUSE STAFF

Assistant Director - Maureen Czujak
Online Analyst - Vacant
Online Analyst - Mary Van Antwerp
Assistant for Training Services - Charles Rapisarda

Middle Atlantic Perspective is supported under NLM contract N01-LM-1-3521and is published bi-monthly.

Middle Atlantic Perspective Index | NN/LM

NN/LM- Middle Atlantic Region New York Academy of Medicine 1216 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10029 Site maintained by MAR STAFF Revised: July 15, 2003 URL: http://www.nnlm.gov/mar/perspec/2003/0004.html