Day Four: Part Two

Interview with Mrs. Melissa Grafe

I interviewed Mrs. Melissa Grafe today, and she seemed to be one of the more personable people I've met here during my internship this week. Mrs. Grafe works here as the Medical Historical Librarian. She has the daily difficult task of managing the entire historical collection of books, medical instruments, and other library staff. She's a lifelong fan of history and has worked in museums in the past. She was attracted to Yale Medical Library because of its rich history and immense collection of books that support the history of medicine; new and old. While she has been employed by Yale for only a brief period of time, she seemed to have already made a large impact with other members of the staff. A typical day for her consists of many meetings, lots of questions, and today, she's holding a class for the public, showing some library treasures. As I spoke to Mrs. Grafe, she seemed very knowledgable, willing to help, and friendly. She's working on a project in partnership with other medical libraries called the Medical Heritage Library, a collaboration of medical libraries at prestigous universities such as Columbia, Yale, and Harvard, putting their collection of medical books online to give more people access to them.
After the interview, she showed me the collection of old books stored in the basement of the library, preserved books that date back to 1500s and earlier.