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The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey's University Libraries exist in a rapidly changing environment. Like all academic libraries of the 21st century, we are hybrid facilities to an ever increasing extent, preserving past knowledge while offering the latest resources, services and information technology. To do this well necessitates acquiring extensive and appropriate resources, enabling ready and straightforward access to them, and using both traditional and cutting-edge methods of acquisition, access and delivery of service to users. Technology and access to information are being transformed at a pace that requires dynamic, research libraries to be more nimble and flexible than ever before. New emphases in research and teaching, and the heightened expectations of the UMDNJ user community require that the libraries be proactive in anticipating needs, customizing information services that respond to user requirements and designing facilities that enable new kinds of interaction.
The UMDNJ Libraries embrace the 21st century concept of knowledge management. These include the systems and processes used to acquire, organize, store, access, retrieve, teach and disseminate knowledge and information in all formats – traditional and digital. The University Libraries provide a critical portal, where scholarship in all formats is discovered and used, where collaborative education takes place, and where students, faculty and staff can find the expert assistance of highly trained librarians. The scholarly resources made available by the UMDNJ Libraries, combined with effective knowledge management, are crucial competitive assets in an era of massive change in health care and information technology.
Access to scholarly resources and information services to the students, housestaff, faculty, and staff is our primary goal. The Libraries are continually expanding information access, in particular, to electronic scholarly resources available onsite and remotely. Currently, the Libraries provide access to 91 electronic databases, 556 major electronic textbooks in the health sciences and over 11,941 of the most highly rated scholarly electronic journals. Utilization of licensed electronic resources, online books and journals in full-text, is growing monthly.
The University Libraries are more aggressively supporting electronic journal subscriptions while continuing to cancel large numbers of print journals at each of our campus libraries. As a result of the reduction, we attempt to address the ongoing needs for new electronic content and archival collections. The reduction in print subscriptions is essential to our ability to continue access to the electronic versions of the journals.
Currently, all UMDNJ libraries are fully wireless environments, providing flexible learning and study spaces for all users. New technologies are currently being implemented that will enhance library services to the University community. These include expanding access to electronic resources using open-link/URL technology through a comprehensive knowledge base called SFX and deploying federated search capability enabling searches of multiple resources simultaneously. Improved data security and authentication practices have been a priority over the past year as the libraries move closer to a single sign-on process.
The UMDNJ Libraries contribute to UMDNJ's community services goals and the reality of Internet medicine through HealthyNJ, an extensive consumer health Web site (http://www.healthynj.org). The recent link to HealthyNJ on the University's main Web page will dramatically increase its utilization. HealthyNJ assists consumers in their quest to rapidly find patient/consumer information tailored to a wide range of cultural, education, and language needs. Currently, there are 400 total topics in the Diseases and Conditions and Health and Wellness portals. Of these, over 200 topics are fully available in Spanish. The site has recently been enhanced with "Read Me First" entries resulting in more widespread use. Plans are underway to participate in the National Library of Medicine's Go Local project, which provides information about health services in local geographic areas, including hospitals, physicians, nursing homes, support groups, health screening providers and many others.
The University Libraries continue to work collaboratively to enhance knowledge management in the clinical practice, education, research, and community service to meet the increasing challenges facing UMDNJ as a major academic health center. The Libraries play a critical support role in supporting learning and the creation and dissemination of new scholarly resources. The libraries strive to be an active catalyst for scholarly communication and knowledge management.
The libraries look forward to meeting your ongoing needs for scholarly information. Please address your comments and concerns to me at: cohn@umdnj.edu
Judy Cohn
University Librarian