Newspapers / InterCom (Durham, N.C.) / Dec. 1, 1962, edition 1 / Page 2
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Page 2 Duke Hospital, InterGom New Medical Center (Continued from page 1) hours every day of the week, includ ing holidays, with professional help available during all but a few of these hours. Mr. Cavanagh explains that the major current need of the library is more service to the Medical Center staff. Many changes are being made now along these lines and more are contemplated. Even before Mr. Cava nagh’s arrival in November, it was evident that the new staff would re quire new office spaces. Previously the entire library staff' had only one office from which to conduct its work. To improve this very inadequate situ ation, Mrs. Miller supervised the re modelling of spaces behind the circu lation desk to provide more functional space for the staff. From these spaces, the enlarged staff will be able to offer the services so desperately needed. One of the biggest needs is an increase in the number of scientific journals available in the library. New journals have mushroomed during the past 10 years. The library now oifers 800 periodicals and on January 1 the number will increase to 1250. To help solve the ever-present problem of periodicals that are temporarily out of service at the bindery, duplicate copies of the most used journals will be purchased. Along with these journals many new volumes will be added. The appoint ment to the staff of an acquisitions librarian will result in the best selec tion of new materials. It is the earn est hope of the library staff that mem bers of the medical center staff will offer suggestions of anj’ new materials they feel worthwhile to this librarian. These new additions serve to ])oint up the major, unsolved problem fac;- ing the Medical Center Library— space. In order to carve out the new offices, volumes had to be removed from the shelves. More volumes will have to be removed to make room for the new purchases, and this will re sult in certain inconveniences to library users. But it is hoped that facilities will be available to offer 24- hour acquisition service on the stored volumes. This is not ideal, but it is a situation that caimot be remedied luitil new library spaces—ejivisioned in the medical center’s long range planning —are built. As announced in the first of the library’s news letters in October, two important new services being oifered are the photo duplication and refer ence services. A very fine piece of equipment has been purchased to pro vide good photo copies of library materials at a small charge. This facilitates the building of personal libraries for the members of the staff'. A new “broad-spectrum” reference service will be provided. Part of this service will be the resumption of a bibliographic service which Mrs. Mil ler started last year but had to curtail when she assumed her duties as acting librarian prior to Mr. Cavanagh’s arrival. While many of the new services being offered at Duke are “musts” that are overdue for a research li brary, the bibliographic service is somewhat unusual. The professional staff' writes many scientific papers and gives many talks each year which en tail the preparation of a bibliography of the field they are covering. This time consuming job has in the past been done by the student or doctor himself—at a big sacrifice in time— or by an exceptional secretary, tech nician or wife. Now the person com piling a bibliography has profe.ssional help available if he wishes to use it. All bibIiograj)hies compiled will be on file for the benefit of the entire medical center staff. Another improvement being under take]! is the reclassification of books. TTntil now the library has used the system originally worked out by Dr. Davison and his staff. Needless to say, medical literature has changed so nnu'h over the jiast 80 years that this system is no longer adequate. A more useful and more comprehensive one—and one which is used in other medical libraries—is being instituted here. In the field of medical literature, a researcher often finds that something he wants very much to read is written in Japanese or Russian. This is a problem, indeed. The lil)rary does not have facilities for translating, but it does keep an accurate list of people in the comnmnity Mho can translate into the various languages and the iiioi-e obscure translations are availa ble from the National Medical Library. The Duke Medical Center Library’s first responsibility, of course, is to its own Medical Center personnel. But that is not its only responsibility. The fine research libraries across the coun try are joined together in an effort to make any piece of scientific litera ture in the world available to any researcher in any part of the country. The Duke library along with the other North Carolina medical school libra ries serve the entire state. They co operate with one another in obtaining materials for their locale quickly. And when a volume is unavailable within the state, a library can bor row it from the National Medical Library in Bethesda, Maryland. Here every piece of medical literature in the world is available, in translation. And so, the fresh outlook in our li brary will not only benefit the Duke staff, but will enable our library to take its rightful place in the larger system of national medical libraries. Outpatient Department Makes New Administrative Appointments Two key administrative appoint ments in Duke Hospital’s Outpatient Department have been announced. Stanley Ehvell has been named di rector of the department, and Harry E. Brown has been appointed to the new position of assistant director. Mr. Blwell succeeds Ralph L. Drake, who resigned to become manager of the Nalle Clinic in Charlotte. Prior to his new appointment, Mr. Elwell was business manager of the medical division of the Outi)atient Department. He joined the Duke Hospital staff' in 1961 and earlier was associated with the A. E. Staley Manufacturing Company, Decatur, Illinois. ^Ir. Brown came to Duke in 1960 as business manager of the Outpatient Departmeiit’s surgical division. He will continue to hold this position in addition to his new duties as assistant director of the department. A native of Hillsboro, he holds the A.B. degree from the T^niversity of North Caro lina. He was eiiijjloyed by the Pyramid Life Insurance Company, Raleigh, before liis Duke a])i)ointmeJit.
InterCom (Durham, N.C.)
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Dec. 1, 1962, edition 1
2
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