In December 2013, THL staff offices will move to temporary space in the Neuroscience Hospital Building 2 (NHB2) until the construction project is complete. The public parts of the library will also be relocating, though we don’t have the exact location yet. Stay tuned for details of that space closer to the time of the move.

As a primarily digital library, the majority of the THL collection remains accessible from other campus locations, including other campus libraries. Print library materials are readily available on request for delivery to campus libraries or, for U-M faculty and graduate students, to their campus offices.

We’re excited about our new facilities and look forward to returning to the THL building in Fall 2015. In the meantime, we’ll be working with the health sciences schools, the provost’s office, and the rest of the university library to minimize the inconvenience and disruption.

The U-M Board of Regents approved the schematic design for the renovation of the Taubman Health Sciences Library building at their March 21 meeting. Their approval moves the renovation project a step closer to completion.  Within months, work will begin on a $55 million project to transform the Taubman Health Sciences Library building into a natural light-filled health sciences education hub, one that supports in-person, collaborative, active learning. Construction of designs by TMP Architecture and Ballinger will create an estimated 72 construction jobs.

While much of the collection will be moved to a different location, library items will be available on request or online, and recent or frequently requested volumes will still have a place in the renovated building. A rare medical books collection, with historical works dating as far back as the 15th century, has already joined the Special Collections Library in the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library.

In place of bookshelves, U-M will create a multi-level health sciences education space in 137,000 square feet across four floors, and add a glass “skin” to the building, originally built in 1980. In addition to the library, students will have access to modern classrooms, collaboration spaces, and small group learning and team breakout rooms. The project will increase the number of fully equipped medical and procedure rooms where students can develop their physical examination and clinical interaction skills with standardized and real patients. Both U-M medical and other health professions students, such as those from the College of Pharmacy, will take part in learning there, as part of multi-disciplinary training. A large commons area, space for exhibits, interprofessional leadership training spaces, and wide new staircases and halls will foster interaction.

The project will also make the building more energy efficient, in keeping with U-M’s environmental sustainability commitment. Upon completion, it will qualify for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design silver status.

A new approach to health sciences library services

The conversion of library space reflects the changing reality of medicine and other health professions and the dramatic rise in the availability of online resources such as electronic journals and databases which physicians, researchers and students can access from anywhere, at any time.

U-M’s health sciences librarians offer an incredible range of services, and continue to share their expertise in finding, accessing, managing, and using information with students, faculty and staff in all of U-M’s health-related schools. But more and more, the emphasis is on collaboration with librarians joining faculty in teaching and conducting research. The Taubman health sciences librarians are experts in information who can work with clinicians and researchers via online interactions, or by coming to their classes, labs, clinics and even hospital grand rounds.

Jane Blumenthal, MLIS, AHIP, director of Taubman Health Sciences Library and associate university librarian, notes that the project is in line with the library’s emphasis on immersion in the environments where health professionals train and practice, rather than waiting for them to come to the library building.

“The new building design reflects the way the library functions now. Librarians are an integral part of the work of the health sciences schools, and like our 21st century collections our 21st century librarians are available in the places where that work is being done. From the beginning of the project we approached the design from the perspective of integration rather than the idea of a stand-alone library,” she said.

“This project will uphold our commitment to preparing students to be the health care leaders of the 21^st Century, and continue a historical tradition that now spans three centuries,” says Rajesh Mangrulkar, M.D., associate dean for medical student education. “Our partners in the health sciences library community and our other health professional schools have embraced this change, which will create a truly modern learning environment.”

The renovation project has been planned through cooperation among the Medical School, the Taubman Health Sciences Library, the Provost’s Office, the University Architect’s office and U-M health sciences schools that train health professionals and also use the Taubman library. The opinions, ideas and insights of students, faculty and staff all contributed to this process.

For updates on the Taubman Health Sciences library renovation as it progresses, visit http://www.lib.umich.edu/thl-renovation

The moment Taubman Health Sciences Library (THL) director and associate university librarian Jane Blumenthal has been patiently awaiting has finally arrived.

“The books are moving,” says Blumenthal, “beginning on March 4.” She expects the move, which will shift the bulk of THL’s print collection to an off-campus storage facility, to be complete by the end of May. The work was originally scheduled to take place last summer, but was postponed to accommodate upgrades to the storage site.

The move is the next step in a plan, approved by the Regents last April, to renovate the THL building. The rehousing of the bulk of the less-used print collection will yield space to support collaborative learning, studying, and clinical skills training for medical and other health professional school students.

Blumenthal and her staff are more than ready for the change. “Our colleagues in the health sciences schools and colleges and in the hospital don’t come to the library building for research and reading anymore,” she says. The preferred format for health sciences information has been digital for some time. But those colleagues still depend upon ready access to information expertise, so THL’s liaison librarians go where they’re needed—to the classrooms, labs, and clinics of health sciences students, researchers, and clinicians.

Blumenthal expects the enriched learning environment to further enhance the relationships between health sciences librarians and the community they collaborate with (or work with).

A core collection of most current and frequently-used print materials will remain at THL, as will course reserves items. Most of the printed journals and books published before 2008 will be moved to remote storage, and will be readily available on request for delivery to a campus office or library. THL will remain open during the move, though access to some print materials may be temporarily limited.

Specific items from the collection may be unavailable for short periods of time while they are being moved. Also, there will be fewer quiet study areas available. However, items will only be moved between 8:00am – 4:30pm on week days, allowing us to provide the same amount of quiet study space in the evenings and on week-ends as we currently do. In addition, we will also continue our regular extended study hour schedule during exam season.

Please feel free to contact the library if you have any questions or concerns.

For more information on the THL renovation project, click here.  Additional questions may be sent to thlibrary@umich.edu

Photo by Patricia Anderson

The Taubman Health Sciences Library’s (THL) rare book collection is moving to the Special Collections Library on the seventh floor of the Hatcher Graduate Library.  Containing titles that range from 1470 to the early 20th century, the rare books present a wide range of materials related to the history of medicine.  . Of special interest are several named collections originally gathered by famous collectors and scholars, including Le Roy Crummer (1872-1934), Lewis Stephen Pilcher (1845-1934), and Alfred Scott Warthin (1866-1931). The subjects represented in these collections range from the very specific, such as the depiction of the “Dance of Death” in early illustrated books, to to the very broad, including the histories of surgery and anatomy.

The Special Collections Library provides the optimal environmental conditions to preserve these valuable resources while also offering additional hours to access the materials.  Much of the collection is represented in the University Library’s online catalog, MIRLYN, where patrons can click on a “Request this” link to submit a request to use the item in the Special Collections Library.

What’s leaving?  Generally, all of our printed journals and printed books published before 2008.

What’s staying?  Printed books published in 2008 or later + high use print books published prior to 2008 + course reserves materials.  Additionally our growing collection of e-books (85,000+) and online journals (4200+) remains accessible from on and off campus.

For more information on the THL renovation project, click here.  Additional questions may be sent to thlibrary@umich.edu

As we move many of our print materials to remote storage, there may times that materials are unavailable for a short time, or that part of the library is closed to public use. Watch for this logo to see the latest announcements.

Thank you for your patience as we work on the Taubman Health Sciences Library of the future.

Here at Taubman, we are very excited about the proposal to renovate the library’s space to better support health sciences education. In support of the project, we will be moving many of the library’s print materials to an offsite location. This is a logical extension of the change in our information services, staff, and collection that has already taken place, and is similar to changes that have taken place  in other biomedical libraries around the country. What remains the same is our commitment to services, collections, and collaboration.

A core collection of essential print materials and those frequently used will continue to be housed at THL. Lesser-used materials, duplicates, and items also available electronically will be moved to our new remote storage facility. While the facility will only be open to library staff, the library’s document delivery service and library-to-library delivery mechanisms will make the materials readily available on request. At any time the library is open, staff will be available to assist with locating and obtaining materials from the collection.

In May, we will begin to select and set aside materials that will remain at THL. We expect to begin shifting materials offsite in July, and will do our best to minimize the disruption caused by the move and related work. The library will remain open during the move, though access to parts of the collection may be limited while work is underway.

In the coming weeks, we will be sharing additional information about our plans and progress, and look forward to our continued collaborations with you as our new facility takes shape.

Dance Cylinder (Detail) 1980, Robert Graham

At their April 19th meeting, U-M’s Board of Regents approved a project to renovate the Taubman Health Sciences Library building and to appoint an architect to design the reconfigured space. The university’s press release about this is available at http://www.uofmhealth.org/news/medical-education-space-0420.

The new vision for the building is an exciting one. The building will become a comprehensive interactive learning environment, fostering inter-professional education, student/faculty interaction, and enhanced integration of the library into the life of the health sciences community. The project is in line with our increased emphasis on librarians immersing themselves in the environments where physicians and other health professionals train, conduct research, and practice, rather than waiting for them to come to the library building.

We at the library are very excited at this opportunity to expand our collaborations with colleagues in the health sciences programs. The repurposed space will  better reflect the ways in which information is managed and used in modern health sciences education, research, and patient care. We look forward to sharing more details with you as the design process unfolds.

This is the first in a series of posts exploring the changing landscape of the Taubman Health Sciences Library.

For some time it has been evident that the preferred format for health sciences information is digital. The pace of the transition to electronic resources in medical literature has outstripped the broader library move to digital formats. This is in part due to the nature of the material—journals and periodicals with timely content are ideally suited to rapid electronic dissemination.

It’s also true that the finances of health care today put a greater premium than ever on physician time, which must be used efficiently to ensure both the quality of patient care and the viability of the health care institution. In addition, limitations on residents’ work hours require that their patient care and learning activities be efficient and focused. Students and researchers, too, must have ready access to library resources within the labs, classrooms, and offices where they work.

All of these pressures combine to create a demand for streamlined delivery of information to clinicians, residents, faculty, researchers, and students.

At Taubman Library, our circulation statistics reflect these changes in real time. Our colleagues in the health sciences schools and colleges and in the hospital no longer come to the library building for research and reading. To maintain our relationship with these colleagues so that health sciences research, education, and patient care continue to benefit from our information expertise, we must work where they work, and respond to their information needs in their environment.

What does this mean in practical terms? First, that physical books and journals are less important than they once were, though the information they contain remains valuable. Content, not container, commands a premium.

Second, that librarians today have richer interactions, better relationships, and more understanding of our colleagues’ priorities when they reside within the education, research, and patient care environments rather than in a dedicated library space. The more fully our liaisons and informationists immerse themselves in these environments, the more they are able to bring knowledge solutions to bear on academic, clinical, and research goals.

Third, that a combined focus on information and integrated services permits the library to better manage its resources by focusing on knowledge and skills rather than building maintenance. It enables librarians to teach in the curricula of the health sciences education programs, contributing their knowledge of evidence-based resources and their expertise in finding, managing, and applying information. They can attend lab meetings, work on grant proposals, sit on major committees, and contribute as authors to systematic reviews. They can attend grand rounds, journal clubs, and morning reports. They can work with physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, administrators, faculty, staff, and students across all the health sciences disciplines.

In short, these outside-the-library librarians are on the cutting edge of a burgeoning learning and teaching environment, one that here at Taubman Library we will continue to foster as we adapt to, and indeed anticipate, the changing needs of our colleagues in the health sciences.