First Day at the Medical Library & Cushing Center

My first day at Cushing Center was exciting. I got to meet Charles Greenberg who is the coordinator of curriculum and research support. First I received a basic overview of the chili internship. Then, I got to meet the library staff, and I received a tour of the library which was very informative and interesting. I got to see how books were organized for efficiency. My favorite part of the tour was visiting Harvey Cushing's collection of brain tumors; it was interesting to see actual brain tumors from his patients and to read about these brain tumors. After the overall tour, I had to come up with interview questions. I even had the chance to interview Mr. Greenberg. From my interview with him, I can conclude that Mr. Greenberg is passionate about his career, and he enjoys teaching. Also, he favors a collaborated teamwork because more things can be accomplished. The people he works with is what makes his work more worthwhile as well as the students he teaches. As you can see, my first day couldn't have been any better, I gain a lot of knowledge about the library as well as the staff that worked there.

LAST DAY!!!!!!

Today is my last day at the CHILI Yale Internship. I just would like to thank everyone who took some time off during their busy day to chat with me. This has been a really great experience. Before starting this internship, librarians were just people, boring people, who find books for you, but now I know that librarians are the ones that connect the information to the world. As for medical librarians, they are the ones who connect doctors to the information they need to cure patients. I had a wonderful experience, a special thanks to Mr. Charles Greenberg for this wonderful opportunity.

Sarah Burge

Today I had the opportunity to meet with Sarah Burge. As an undergrad she majored in Art and Art history. As a graduate student Sarah studied library science and focused on book and paper preservation. She has been working at the Yale Medical Library for five years. She is working on a project called "Locked Stacks", which is to preservative the rare books of the library. These historical books are very different from today's books, so they need special care. The library has about 120,000 rare bound books. Most of these books have been donated to the library. I really enjoy the interview with Sarah today.











Sarah looking at an ancient 3D glasses

Diane Turner

Today I had the opportunity to meet with Diane Turner. She is the head of the human resources for the Yale Library. She has been working at Yale for 32 years. Most of her job involves hiring people and providing counseling to the ones that are getting laid off. She is also responsible for staff training and human relations. She loves to learn and interact with people. The difference between the Medical library and the other libraries is the fact that they deal with life and death situations. The characteristics needed for her job are: respect, communication skill, and sound judgment. I really enjoy my time with Diane. She is a wonderful person.

Day with Denise

Today I interviewed Denise. She started out getting a masters degree in American History. Because of her lack of interest in teaching, she earned her library degree and started working at Smith college as a librarian for 3 years. She worked at Connecticut College managing a small department for 1 year. Currently she has a job share position, half time. Now she had been working at Yale Medical library for 5 1/2 years. Denise works as a liaison program coordinator. One of the things she does is write monthly Liaison email messages for the other liaison staff to send to the department they are working with. Denise works with the Cancer Center, the Anesthesiology Department, and Comparative Medicine. One thing she loves about her job is the flexibility and the environment. One of the things that she had learned while working here is that it ok to admit when you do not know something. The characteristics needed for her job are: Self confidence and the art of persuasion.
Today I learned that working with people who like you and that you like can really make your job easier.

15-feb-2011

Today I had a demonstration of how the book scanning works. Kelly and Kristen are working on the Medical Heritage Library project, collaborating with other libraries to get rare old books onto the internet so anyone can use them. One reason that this is a great idea is because it helps students and researchers all over the world. They can also use it when they need to. The book scanner has three cameras ( see the Youtube video below). The special thing about the book scanner is automatic but you need someone to make sure the machine is doing all the pages one by one. In a normal day if all the electronics are working properly the staff can probably do 1800 to 2100 pages an hour depending on the condition of the book. If the book is old and not in good condition, it may take longer.

Matt is the Medical librarian for the School of Public Health and also the director of technology . As a librarian he makes information available to Public Health students and teaches them how to acquire, organize and apply information to health problems. He deals with the administrative aspect of Academic Technology. Throughout the years he had spent working at Yale, Matt has learned a little bit of everything. He believe that librarians are the bridge that connect patients to health providers.

Meeting with Janene Batten

Today I Interviewed Janene Batten, she went to Southern Connecticut State University. After earning her degree she worked for 3 years at a hospital library. When I asked her how the hospital library was different, she told me it was not that different but the hospital library was inside of a hospital. She later started working at Yale Medical library. She is the Nursing Librarian for the School of Nursing and currently supervising the Medical Historical Library. As a nursing librarian she works with students, teaching them how to find information and she also worked closely with nursing faculty on the Curriculum Committee.
Since November, as the acting Historical Medical librarian, Janene finds information, answers question and works in the administration. She enjoys learning about Harvey Cushing , the father of neurosurgery.

Today I learned that they are many careers within one career. I also learned that sometimes knowing history can help you to understand the modern world.










An old book from the Historical Medical Library.