Library Bulletin

October 1997

THE MEDICAL RESEARCH LIBRARY OF BROOKLYN AFFILIATE PROGRAM
 By.  Dr. Richard M. Winant, AHIP
Dean, Academic Information Access

The Medical Research Library of Brooklyn (MRLB) was created by the joining of the libraries of The State University of New York with the Kings County Medical Society .  The MRLB can trace it’s beginning to 1845.  For all of these 150 plus years the library has served as an information provider to the health care professionals of Brooklyn.  The State University of New York Health Science Center’s Affiliate Hospitals provide clinical education sites for our students and residents.  The Clinical Faculty at these locations provide their expertise in an educational experience that enriches everyone.  This process is knowledge and information driven.  The leadership of this institution has encouraged the development of library information services in accordance with a long tradition of service to Brooklyn.

The Medical Research Library of Brooklyn has a formal agreement with our affiliates for mutually providing library services.  These include the assistance for SUNY’s students and residents by the hospital librarians at the Affiliate Hospitals. MRLB provides free Interlibrary Loan as a way of recognizing this valuable support.  Our Affiliate Residents are permitted access to the MRLB as part of this agreement.  On an annual basis a “BLIS” i.e. Brooklyn and Staten Island Library Services meeting, is held which enables the MRLB and the hospital librarians to share experience and discuss services.

Four years ago the MRLB offered to our affiliate hospitals access, via dial in, to our OVID literature searching databases.  Currently four affiliates have taken advantage of this offer.  The MRLB maintains a number of lines and modems that support this fee based service. Over 12,000 logins by  users of this service were recorded last year.  Revenue is used to partially support the remaining library access lines and to help fund the databases.

The MRLB contracted with The Brooklyn Medical Education Consortium (BMEC) to provide library resources to residents.  The Director of Libraries served on BMEC’s Management Information Services (MIS) committee which assisted in defining services.  A Pine e-mail system was added to the existing Library Resource Group i.e. Online Catalog, Literature Searching, Newsgroups and Internet access.  This package was decided on because it provided basic computer literacy and computer access for residents.  Currently there are 1250 accounts (850 residents, 250 faculty, 150 staff) on the BMEC Server.  Last year over 60,000 logins were recorded.  The BMEC server supports SUNY-HSCB community that the network hasn’t reached yet.

An MIS committee retreat was held last October.  From that retreat a BMEC web page prototype was designed.  There is a recommendation that we move toward total Internet access for library resources (This latter recommendation has been endorsed by a number of SUNY-HSCB Computer Committees).  Hopefully, we will move in that direction.   The MRLB is prepared for that step.  Another important issue was resident access to the BMEC server at the affiliates.  This issue is also important to our students.  I’m sure working in partnership we can address this needed information technology service.  The MRLB looks forward to being a partner with SUNY-HSCB and its affiliates in this effort!

Accessing OVID through AOL 3.0 version (America On Line Internet service provider) works well.

However, if you have versions 2.5 or lower, according to OVID Technologies technical support staff, the AOL browser is incompatible with the web version of OVID and fails immediately upon attempting to log in. It is possible, however, to access OVID by using another supported browser such as Netscape. Once you have connected to AOL, simply launch the second browser.

OVID Technologies staff  report that although a number of browsers connect successfully, they support the following browsers:

*Netscape version 2.x or higher (3.x or higher is recommended)

*Microsoft Internet Explorer version 2.5x or higher (3.x is recommended)

The AOL browser 2.5 version is also incompatible with Internet Grateful Med. IGM developers suggest the following browsers:

*Netscape version 2.01 or higher (Macintosh or Windows)

*Netscape version 3.0b or higher for the X Window System (UNIX workstations)

*Microsoft Internet Explorer version 2.0 or higher (Macintosh or Windows)

*Mosaic version 2.3 or higher for the X Window System (UNIX workstations)

*MacWeb version 1.00a3 for Macintosh

*Lynx (character-based, for VT-1xx terminal emulators)

The above information is reprinted courtesy of the Univ. of Texas Health Science Ctr. At San Antonio “Library News”, September 1997, and amended by SUNY-Health Science Ctr. at Brooklyn’s Library staffers Sankar Mukhopadhyay and Donald Lemke.

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