Meeting with Lynn

I met with Lynn today, as well. Lynn's job involves supporting education and research and publicity and marketing. She helps people use individual specialities, also. Marketing takes up a large part of Lynn's time. She currently has an exhibit taking up three places. Lynn is the Liason to Pediatrics and Dermatology. This includes sending out monthly newsletters, teaching classes, and training for residents. She teaches weekly classes and is responsible for the consumer health collection. The easiest aspect of Lynn's job is working with her department; the people are great and supportive of each other. For Lynn, it is satisfiying to help people. Lynn has been in her position for thirty years.

Meeting John Gallagher/Lecture by Sarah

Yesterday, I met with John Gallagher, the Deputy Director of Public Services for the Cushing Library. John is originally from Ireland and went to a Regional Technical School and received his business associates, while there. He then came to America and attended Southern Connecticut State University where he received his BS in management and his MLS.

He first worked for RPS as a FedEx ground manager. That job was a total of eighty hours a week. The many hours a week were taking away from valuable time needed to be spent at home, so he pursued other jobs. A friend of his got him interested in a job in librarianship and so he applied for a casual job at the Sheldon Library. From the Sheldon Library he obtained degrees in between and then arrived at the Cushing Medical Library. In April of 2000 he was the evening circulation adviser, and then he became head of circulation. He is currently the Deputy Director of Public Services for the Cushing Library. Gallagher is also the liaison to the Department or Orthopedics and a personal librarian.

A typical day for John is meetings, primarily on large scale digitization. A grant was received to digitized books from 19th century medicine, other schools like Harvard and Columbia are part of this project as well. Besides that he has to work on construction projects, do strategic planning for the library, answer questions, help patrons, and get feedback from patrons about the library. He would like to be able to put more medical material online, so that its convenient for doctors, nurses, and other professionals who are extremely busy. Challenging aspects of his job include ensuring that the historical library is relative and visible to people and working with the limited resources he has for the library. John enjoys his work and has fun and feels like he is doing something valuable, and is nowhere near retiring.

I was able to attend a lecture by Sarah, the library preservationist. Sarah had several books out, one of them from the 14th century and another from the 16th century. A page from the Gutenberg Bible printed on vellum was being presented. The Gutenberg Bible is the first example of movable type. There are around 30 whole known Gutenberg Bibles in other libraries. The Cushing Library only has a page of a bible because people would break up the bibles to make money. Around 200 sheets were bound and sold separately. I also learned that the Cushing has one of the largest Vesalius collections in the world. Vesalius is known for his series of muscle men, which blew his competition away. The first book that had medical printing in it was in 1491, as well.

Sarah has a background in art history. To preserve the books she controls the humidity and light surrounding them. She will also go through all of the books and decide which books need help, which ones are emergencies, and what can sit and wait. More money would help in the preservation of these books.

Meeting with Mary Angelotti

Today I met with Mary Angelotti, the document delivery manager. She has had this position since 1999. Ms. Angelotti is originally from Connecticut and attended Southern Connecticut State University. She received her BS degree in history and had intended on becoming a teacher. Teaching was always her professional goal. While at Southern Connecticut State University she received her MLS and MS in health science. Each are two year programs.

Mary Angelotti started at the law school library, binding. The law school library she found interesting. She then went to the Beinecke and from there she went to the hospital library and was a director there. After that she worked at the nursing library in the reference room. Ms. Angelotti enjoyed this because it was small and she was able to get to really know the students. From there she came to her present day job at the Harvey Cushing Medical Library.

The document delivery department has three services: borrowing, lending, and MACS. The borrowing service orders things Yale doesn't own for its patrons. While the lending service will lend books to other libraries and even extends to corporations like law services and pharmaceutical companies. MACS is the Medical Article Copy Service, which is an in-house photocopy service. MACS is available for staff and students of Yale.

A work day for Mary is from 8:30-5:00, though she usually stays until 6:00. A typical day includes seeing if a book is owned by another library, then checking orders, followed by printing and filling, and then telling their user friendly DOCLINE what they filled and reject what they didn't. About eighty or ninety orders come in a day. This department has 48 hours to fill the request because people need these things quickly. If an order is not filled in that time period then it goes to another library. The criteria for judging a library is how fast they get orders out and the fill rate. The fill rate for this library is 75%, which is good.

According to Mary Angelotti the most challenging part of her job is getting work done in the time allotted. Machines will break down and staff will be out, causing the work process to slow. While the easiest part is using the departments programs, DOCLINE and ORBIS, also the online catalog.

Mary Angelotti's goal is to stay sane, considering that she has a very hectic job. Another goal is to get the orders out and develop good training for staff. The document delivery department is currently dependent on the circulation desk because of a shortage in their office, so they will need to be well trained.

Besides meeting Mary Angelotti, I was able to tour the downstairs section of the library and see where the display of a collection of brains will be. The space looks nice and I'm sure the display will be out of this world.

Today was another successfully fun and interesting day.

My first day

Hello! I'm Roslyn Shanklin, the new Chili Intern at the Cushing library. Yesterday, January 26, 2009, was my first day. When I arrived, I met with Charles Greenberg, who gave me a tour around the Yale medical library. The library is wonderful, but I specifically loved the historical library. It was a rather welcoming, cozy, and beautiful section of the library. Mr. Greenberg introuduced me to several staff members that work at the library. Those staff members include:Janene Batten, Lei Wang, Daniel Dollar, Mark Gentry, and Judy Spak.

While on the tour with Mr. Greenberg I learned interesting facts about the library. One being that, Harvey Cushing, the founder of the Yale medical library, was a medical book collector. Cushing donated his collection to the library. Besides that I learned that there will be a collection of brains in the library very soon. A wealthy descendant of Cushing donated an entire computer section to the library as well. Mr. Greenberg also informed that there are tons of rare books, some even date back to the 13th century! Many are hand written and most are deteriorating. The library has an adopt a rare book program, also.

Overall the day was enjoyable and fun.

Meeting with Preservation Librarian(and my final day)

Today I met with Sarah who is the preservation librarian at the Library. She went to the University of Illinois for art and art history for her undergradute degree. Right after getting her degree she worked as a librarian for 2 years, and went to school for her masters degree in library services. She was inspired by a woman who was a conservator, and after their meeting she became interested and applied for a job at the Library as a preservation librarian, since she had a background on art. She has been working in the Library for 4 years. She preserves the collection, puts up exhibits, keeps the collection available for research, arranges the collection, and secures the enivronment. She makes sure that the books are safe from insects, water, and that the temperature is approriate. Also she gives tours to people, lessons on book history, and works on the database.

The most challenging thing about her job would to be prioritizing the tasks. She wishes there was enough time to sort through the collection, and that there were more student help. Progress is what keeps her happy in her job. She likes to see the bigger picture of what she does instead of just the one thing that she spends her focus on. Her memorable experiences are just feeling the satisfaction that there is some sort of difference in her work. Currently, she is working on a book program called Adopt a Rare Book Program, which involves people being part of the program when they donate money for conservation. She is also preserving the collection of Harvey Cushing's brain collection. As for her future she hopes to still be in her job but at bigger levels as well as working with the digital library, which will have pictures of some the collection.

Today is my last day and it has been so much fun. I have learned so much from the people that I have been fortunate to meet and interview. I will remember scanning an article with Kelly. I will remember seeing old books in the basement that date back to the 16th century like the Copernicus books which explained that the sun was the center of the Earth not the Earth as the center of the universe and all things surrounding the Earth. People thought that the Sun surrounded the Earth, and the catholic church at the time retaliated to the idea of Copernicus. I will remember the ice-cream party which was held at the Sternling library for the staff. I will remember seeing the staff and the building. I really had fun, and I will be back for the unveiling of the Harvey Cushing brain collection next summer. I think will keep coming back for as long as I am in Connecticut!

Meeting with Libray IT Support Librarian

After meeting with Rick, I met with Jason who the library IT support librarian. He makes sure that the systems are running, that students and staff can access their resources, and covers other systems in other departments, He says nothing is really challenging about his job because he is able to get most things done in a timely manner. On a daily bases the systems are running well, and not many systems fail. Although if he could change anything in the job it would be to see the library with more money to get better resources. A typical day for him is attending to problems, and getting software image identical in each system for the staff. He says that having good temperance, and technical skills are important traits for his job. Something that keeps him happy in his job is always having something to do. A project that he is currently working on involves replacing all the machines in the library, and upgrading the software. I asked about how technology will affect our libraries in the future and he says that there will still be a need for printed format, but there will be more electronic materials and study space. He has been in the job for a year and 8 months and will still be in the job depending on how Yale treats him.

Meeting with Circulation Supervisor

After meeting with the library service assistants, I met with Rick who is the circulation supervisor. He manages in access and delivery services, making sure that documents are being delivered to people. He helps people with their databases, deals with public computers, and teaches classes. One of the challenges is making sure that the patrons are receiving their resources. He communicates with people electronically, and through the information desk. A typical day for him is seeing the staff, and dealing with his emails.

He thinks that giving the best consumer service, and being a team player in the department as well as in other departments are personality traits that one needs for the job. What keeps him happy in his job is the fact that he has good staff members. Some of the projects that he is working on is shifting the entire journal collection, and working on a part of the library that is being refurnished for the brain collection of Harvey Cushing. One of his memorable experiences is a program, takes place at the Library once a year, which hosts high students from all over the world who are interested in medicine. He says that it is such a pleasure seeing the students animated about medicine and seeing the seriousness of the medical students who teach them. Some achievements of his are making sure that the department has a good reputation, and going to Mississppi to cook food for Hurricane Katrina victims. He is not sure what he will be doing in about 5-10 years but he hopes to still keeping cooking.