Library Bulletin

February 1998

The Library OneDesk: Enhanced Services for You Coming Soon
By Julie Semkow
 

Staff of the Library have been planning improvements that we hope, you, our patrons, will find both more efficient and useful. The Library is focused upon its teaching and consultation mission, and the One desk environment will permit Reference Librarians to provide more teaching and consultation, more assistance  with Web-based information searching, the development of more clinical support, expanded Library Internet service,  and, in future, an electronic reference question service.

Staff of the Public Access units have been intensively cross-training in each others' units, familiarizing themselves with routines and information that should enable the Library to create, on its first floor, a single desk access point for all patrons.

The Reference Desk will become a patron self-learning, self-teaching center with kiosks providing general information about the Library, such as its hours, access policies, class registration forms, Interlibrary Loan forms, and much more. Another kiosk, in the planning stages, but soon to be operable, will permit users to tutor themselves in basic computer skills such as keyboarding, effective use of the mouse and how to interpret screen menus. In the future,  a third kiosk is planned that will invite patrons to try out new kinds of software before the library commits to a purchase that users indicate may be of limited value.

The Circulation Desk will become a One Desk patron service and access point. Clerical staff have enhanced their knowledge and skills to assist patrons further, while the librarians, in addition to learning Circulation routines,  have been developing their consultation and teaching skills in order to provide focused, customized learning environments as well as expanded teaching and outreach activities for our patrons.

From 11 am  3 pm, and 5pm  7 pm, Monday through Friday, librarians will be present at the One desk site to help. At other times we will be relying on the "Librarian On Call" referral service for patron's needs that cannot be immediately met at the Onedesk. We will also offer "Librarian Consultation Service", by appointment, at a time convenient for both patron and librarian.

Finally, the old Reference telephone number, 2707405, will become voice mail only. Librarians will pick up calls twice a day or more, and will make every effort to respond to a call within less than one business day.

Our Serials Coded in OVID
By Ross Ljungquist

We have added to the literature searching databases messages about the serial titles we own here and at affiliated hospitals. The codes for the libraries are:
SUNY = SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn
BUHM = Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center
LICH = Long Island College Hospital
LUTH = Lutheran Medical Center
MAIM = Maimonides Medical Center
Messages have been added for approximately 5000 serial titles.

Introducing the Educational Services Team
By Anita Ondrusek

Preface: What constitutes an effective educational services program? Many educators would respond that these factors are essential: a knowledgeable teaching force, a focused training curriculum, and technology to drive educational change. In the Library, all three of these elements have coalesced into an effort to enhance learning opportunities for our constituents.

As the coordinator of this effort, I have chosen to highlight the teaching component  Anita Ondrusek, Associate Director for Educational Services.

The Team: The educational services team convenes once a month to review fulfilled goals and to bring new items to the table. Four of the five team members teach regularly. We represent a mixture of backgrounds and teaching styles which gives us an advantage when planning activities to meet a wide range of teaching needs. In alphabetical order, of course, we are:

Mary Doherty, Head of Reference Services. Mary coordinates scheduling for Medline tutorials and acts as the lead contact for Residents and nursing groups. She has a keen interest in Evidence Based Medicine and has become our EBM emissary both on and off our campus. Her current priority teaching project is assembling material for the upcoming World Wide Web seminar on "Finding Health Sciences Sites" on the Internet.

Andrea Markinson, Manager of the Learning Resources Center. Coming from a professional medical background, Andrea is adept at fashioning teaching activities that reflect the real world of medical practice. She handles Internet-based instruction and takes the lead where content needs to be geared to medical education. Andrea's familiarity with health sciences sites on the Web make her a valuable resource in planning as well as teaching classes.

Anita Ondrusek, Educational Services Coordinator, focuses upon projects that require the design of instruction in venues such as research skills and online searching. For example, CHRP and Nursing professors planned jointly with Anita to customize searching exercises to their students' research topics last semester.

Christopher Stewart, Reference Assistant Librarian, is a firm believer in giving learners the basics in order to prepare them for the challenges of operating in a "Digital Library". Chris is the lead teacher for our one-hour Medline tutorials and will be teaching many of the World Wide Web seminars on introductory Internet topics.

Our Backup: Because what librarians are teaching can influence Public Services, Julie Semkow, Associate Library Director for Public Services,  also sits on the Educational Services Team, and Anita joins Julie's Public Access Team meetings. Don Dederick, Senior Assistant Reference Librarian, attends to many of the day-to-day Reference Department details in order for us to teach. Finally, The Educational Services Team was formed with the support of, and under the direction of our Library Director, Richard Winant.

Technical Tips

Q. I am on the campus network. Previously, I had a library icon on my machine, but when I switched to a Windows 95 machine, there was no more library icon. How can I connect to the library?

Ans. When you switched to Windows 95, your machine needed to be connected to TCP/IP to get to the Internet.  (Not all University machines have this connection).  If you have Netscape/Internet Explorer, you have the TCP/IP connectivity.  To log into the library: at the Windows 95 Start button, choose Run and then enter telnet.  Enter bmec.hscbklyn.edu and you should be able to connect (provided you have a valid BMEC account).