Journal Cancellations Review for UNC Health Sciences Library

The UNC Health Sciences Library (HSL) is preparing for reductions to the FY 2010/2011 acquisitions budget. As a result, we are again reviewing all areas of purchasing and asking publishers to keep price increases to a minimum for 2011. However, the primary strategy for finding reductions is to continue the 2009 comprehensive review of active journal subscriptions. Approximately 95 percent of HSL’s acquisitions budget is spent on journal or database subscriptions. To achieve budget reductions we must lower this recurring annual expense through targeted cancellations.

Last year, 670 users helped us evaluate our subscriptions and we need even more help this year. During the next couple of months we plan to post a list of potential journal cancellations and to ask for feedback. Here is some preliminary information about this review effort, which is also available via the Journal Review homepage:

Cancellation Criteria
Timeline
FAQ

Our goal is the same as for 2009: to keep as much valued content available as possible, minimizing negative impact on our community of users, while still achieving our budget reduction targets. Please keep checking the Journal Review homepage for updates and changes, and your opportunity to provide feedback. We value all feedback received and use it to help make the best decisions possible.

The 2009 review process helped greatly to reduce recurring annual expenses. Through extensive feedback from the UNC Chapel Hill Health Affairs community and beyond, and through aggressive negotiations with journal publishers for better pricing, we were able to cancel only 58 titles. We also implemented other changes to save costs, such as converting more journal subscriptions from print plus online to online only. However, these savings will not carry the HSL through another budget reduction in 2010/2011, so the comprehensive review continues.

While the need to reduce the acquisitions budget is driven partly by current economic conditions, carrying out a journals cancellation review is normal library practice, done most recently in 2009 and 2003. Furthermore, our acquisitions budget cannot keep pace with the annual price increases for journals in the health sciences, as the average cost of a health sciences journal is now $1,400.

Dr. Benson Reid Wilcox, UNC Heart Surgeon, Dies at 77

Benson Reid Wilcox, M.D., a pediatric heart surgeon who served 29 years as chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, died May 11, 2010, at his home after a courageous battle with brain cancer. He was 77.

Dr. Wilcox served as chief of cardiothoracic surgery at UNC from 1969 to 1998. During that period, which was a time of dramatic advances in heart and lung surgery, the UNC hospital began offering coronary artery surgery, heart and lung transplantation, successful surgery for congenital heart defects in newborn infants, and a comprehensive program for the treatment of lung and esophageal cancer.

Dr. Wilcox was primarily a pediatric heart surgeon whose specialties were congenital heart disease, pediatric cardiac morphology, pediatric chest disease, and pulmonary circulation. He was a co-author of three books and an author of numerous medical journal articles and book chapters. He held important leadership posts in national medical organizations and was especially interested in the training of future surgeons.

Dr. Wilcox, known as Ben, was born May 26, 1932, in Charlotte, N.C., the son of James Simpson Wilcox and Louisa Reid Wilcox. He was raised in Charlotte and graduated from the Darlington School in Rome, Ga., in 1949. He was named 1997 Distinguished Alumnus of the Darlington School.

He earned an A.B. in history from the University of North Carolina in 1953 and an M.D. from the UNC School of Medicine in 1957. As an undergraduate at UNC, he was president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and Rex of the Order of Gimghoul. At the UNC medical school, he was president of his class and was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society in 1957.

While a medical student in 1956, Dr. Wilcox helped to conduct laboratory research on the application of newly developed heart-lung machines. A heart-lung machine was first used in the operating room at UNC in April 1957, beginning the era of open heart surgery at North Carolina Memorial Hospital.

After serving as a surgery resident at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis (1957-1959) and North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill (1959-1960), he spent two years as a surgical clinical associate at the National Heart Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. He then returned to UNC as chief resident in cardiovascular and thoracic surgery (1962-63) and as chief resident in surgery (1963-64).

He joined the UNC Department of Surgery faculty in 1964 and was appointed as chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery in 1969 and as a full professor in 1971. He was named a Markle Scholar in Academic Medicine in 1967. After he retired as chief of cardiothoracic surgery, Dr. Wilcox remained on the UNC medical school faculty as Professor of Surgery from 1998 until his death.

Dr. Wilcox also served the university in a number of other capacities. He was a member of the Selection Committee for the North Carolina Fellows Program; the UNC Faculty Committee on Athletics, serving as chairman from 1977 to 1985; and the Morehead Foundation’s Central Selection Committee, serving as chairman from 1989 to 1992. He was on the university’s Faculty Council and other campus-wide committees. He was a member of the executive committee of the Atlantic Coast Conference from 1978 to 1982 and was its president from 1980 to 1981. He also served on the board of directors of the Ronald McDonald House in Chapel Hill from 1981 to 1999.

He held leadership positions in prestigious professional organizations, including chairman of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery, chairman of the Advisory Council for Cardiothoracic Surgery of the American College of Surgeons, president of the Nathan A. Womack Surgical Society, and president of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the largest society of thoracic surgeons in the world. He received the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons in 2003.

He had a strong interest in graduate medical education, the training of resident physicians. He was instrumental in establishing the Thoracic Surgery Directors Association (TSDA) which was formed to improve cardiothoracic surgery training and education for doctors, and whose members are directors of cardiothoracic surgery residency programs across the United States. From 1985 to 1987, he served as president of TSDA. In 2009, the TSDA honored him by establishing the Benson Wilcox Award for Best Resident Paper, to be presented each year at The Society of Thoracic Surgeons' annual meeting for the best scientific abstract submitted by a cardiothoracic surgery resident.

He also was on the Board of Directors of the National Resident Matching Program from 1998 to 2007, serving as president from 2001 to 2002. He was a member of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s Residency Review Committee for Thoracic Surgery (1999-2005); the American College of Surgeons’ Graduate Medical Education Committee (1993-2001); and a member of the Committee on Graduate Education for the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (1992-2001).

In 1980, Dr. Wilcox spent time during a sabbatical at Royal Brompton National Heart and Lung Hospital in London, beginning a collaboration with Robert H. Anderson, M.D., a pediatric morphologist at Royal Brompton. After that visit, he and Dr. Anderson worked together on many research projects and publications, including the book Surgical Anatomy of the Heart (Raven Press, 3rd edition, 2004). The two physicians established a program that for many years enabled UNC cardiothoracic surgery residents to spend time in London studying with Dr. Anderson and attending rounds with him. Dr. Anderson also visited UNC.

Dr. Wilcox also was co-author of Atlas of the Heart (Gower Medical Publishing, 1988); and a co-editor of Diagnostic Atlas of the Heart (Raven Press, 1994). He was an author of more than 100 scientific and clinical articles that were published in medical journals.

After operating on many ill children, Dr. Wilcox had the idea of starting a support group for families of children who are undergoing heart surgery. The Carolina Parent Network, begun in 1986 and directed by Maggie Morris for many years, enables parents of children who are facing heart surgery at UNC to talk to parents who have already had the experience, and it also educates families about what to expect before, during and after surgery.

Dr. Wilcox loved history, especially medical history. As a medical student at UNC, he helped found the Bullitt Club for the study of the history of medicine. As a faculty member, he began collecting old and rare books about the history of medicine, particularly books about thoracic surgery and the specialties that preceded it. In 1984, he began presenting a rare book to the UNC Health Sciences Library each year in honor of his chief resident. In 1998 and 1999, he donated most of his medical book collection to the library. Since then the Benson Reid Wilcox Collection has grown to more than 1,400 books, journals, reprints and other items. He served on the board of visitors for the UNC Health Sciences Library.

"Dr. Wilcox' contributions to the historical collections at the Health Sciences Library were truly remarkable in both variety and scope. An avid and erudite bibliophile, he thrilled in the hunt for significant texts, and had a deep appreciation for the role of history in the theory and practice of medicine," said Daniel Smith, special collections librarian for the UNC Health Sciences Library.

Dr. Wilcox is survived by his wife, Patsy Davis, and by his four children: Adelaide W. King and her husband, Ruffin, of Charlottesville, Va.; Sandra W. Conway and her husband, Peter, of Charlotte, N.C.; Melissa W. Bond and her husband, Brett, of Charlotte; and Reid Wilcox and his wife, Suzanne, of Greensboro, N.C. He is also survived by 11 grandchildren, Alexandra and Ruffin King; Peter, Ben and Adelaide Conway; Brett, Lucinda and Reid Bond; and Ben, Henry and Ellie Wilcox. He is also survived by two stepdaughters, Harriet Kendall and Julia Klein; a brother, Bob Wilcox; two sisters-in-law, Dede Thompson and Louise Wilcox, and a brother-in-law Allan Davis. He was predeceased by his parents and by his brother Jim Wilcox.

A memorial service will be held Friday, May 14, at 2 p.m. in Gerrard Hall on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Gerrard Hall is on Cameron Avenue, across from the Old Well, between Memorial Hall and the South Building.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial gifts to the TSDA Benson R. Wilcox Award. Checks can be made to the Thoracic Surgery Directors Association and mailed to Michael R. Mill, M.D., Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, CB#7065, UNC-CH, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-7065.

Note: See related Carolina Curator posts: Dr. Benson Wilcox: Surgeon, Scholar, and Benefactor and A Hearty Valentine's Greeting.

A Conversation with Oliver Smithies: The Complete Video

On March 30, 2009, the UNC Health Sciences Library hosted "A Conversation with Dr. Oliver Smithies." The event was moderated by Dr. Tony Waldrop, UNC Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development, and featured a conversation with Smithies, 2007 Nobel Laureate in Medicine or Physiology, and a lengthy question-and-answer with the audience, which was composed of numerous students, researchers, staff, and faculty, as well as members of the public. While a previous blog entry included video excerpts of his presentation, the present posting includes the complete video [1:19:28].

For other Smithies-related postings on the Carolina Curator blog, click here; for a collection of Smithies' Nobel-related materials, visit the Highlights section of the HSL Special Collections web site. The text of Smithies' 2002 Norma Berryhill Distinguished Lecture, "Fifty Years as a Bench Scientist," is also available online.

UNC maintains a channel for university-related YouTube videos, which can be accessed at the YouTube site; a playlist for Health & Medicine videos is also available. In addition, UNC Health Care and the School of Medicine maintain a YouTube channel, with playlists for news, grand rounds, and more.

April Is National Minority Health Month

April is National Minority Health Month. Check out the resources offered by the Office of Minority Health (OMH) at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HSS), as well as the many health information guides for diverse population groups maintained by MedlinePlus at the National Library of Medicine.

OMH was established in 1986 by the HHS. It advises the Secretary and the Office of Public Health and Science (OPHS) on public health program activities affecting minority groups within the United States. Resources are available online that recognize diverse heritages: Black History Month; Asian American/Pacific Islander Heritage Month; Hispanic Heritage Month; and American Indian Heritage Month.

The OMH also maintains state offices of Minority and Multicultural Health. Contact information for all the state liaisons is available online, including the North Carolina liaison.

At the University of North Carolina, the Minority Health Project works to eliminate health disparities, and provides a guide to minority health-related activities at the university and elsewhere on its web site. In addition, NC Health Info, a service based at the UNC Health Sciences Library, provides much valuable health and medical information for minority groups, as well as links to local health services.

Special Collections at the Health Sciences Library also maintains a digital collection of Community Diagnosis Papers on public health concerns of diverse populations within the state, and is actively digitizing many historical North Carolina public health materials as part of the North Carolina History of Health Digital Collection, an NC ECHO grant-funded project. Additional resources on minority medical care, health and hygiene, among other topics, are discoverable via the online catalog.

Keys To Communication: Speech & Hearing Sciences Exhibit

The Health Sciences Library (HSL), in collaboration with the UNC Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences (DSHS), is hosting an exhibition celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Division from March 1 - August 31, 2010. The “Keys to Communication” exhibit highlights the activities of all speech and hearing professionals, and places special emphasis on the specialty areas of UNC Faculty.

"This is a wonderful addition to our 40th anniversary events and one that will live on after the exhibition through the virtual exhibit," said Dr. Jack Roush, Director of the DSHS. "We're very proud of the display and the detail with which it addresses our areas of research and practice. The HSL staff has been wonderful partners in this endeavor and continues to be a tremendous resource for our department and this campus."

The exhibit covers the various activities of speech-language pathologists and audiologists, as well as brief histories of the speech and hearing professions. Also included is an overview and history of the Division, which is part of Allied Health Sciences in the School of Medicine, with commentary from Robert Peters, the first Division Director, to help celebrate the anniversary.

Among the highlights of the exhibit is the display of selected items from Roush’s antique hearing aid collection. These items help show the development of hearing instruments over time from early ear trumpets to modern digital hearing aids and cochlear implants. The audiology portion of the exhibit also includes various hearing devices from special phones to Bluetooth devices and other modern hearing aids.

“Keys to Communication” offers insights from patients as well as professionals to provide a deeper understanding of how essential communication is to our everyday lives, and how the services of speech and hearing professionals help make that communication possible. Descriptions of the DSHS programs also include commentary from current students as well as alumni.

Each section of the exhibit highlights examples of the activities of the DSHS faculty’s research, teaching and practice. This includes researching best practices for teaching autistic children, establishing bilingual language development programs, and participating in international programs, including teaching in Guatemala and offering hearing screenings at the Special Olympics.

Visitors from Tajikistan, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, and Latvia enjoyed the exhibit on March 9 as part of an effort to learn more about serving preschool children with disabilities. The international visitors are directors of each of their nations Open Society Institute foundations and Step-by-Step programs, which help families prepare their children for school and is similar to the United State’s Head Start program.

The exhibit is on display in the South Columbia Street entrance foyer of the HSL. An enhanced, online version of the exhibit includes videotaped interviews and links to related resources. The exhibit is a collaborative effort of HSL staff, DSHS faculty, and Anne Wood Humphries of RiverRunDesign.net, designer and curator.

The DSHS was established in 1969 and is internationally recognized for excellence in education, research, and professional service. It is one of seven divisions in the Department of Allied Health Sciences, UNC School of Medicine. The Division’s academic degree programs include a master’s (M.S.) in speech-language pathology and doctoral degrees in audiology (Au.D.) and speech and hearing sciences (Ph.D.). The audiology and speech-language pathology programs at UNC are among the nation’s top-ranked graduate programs.

Exhibition of Drawings at Health Sciences Library

The Health Sciences Library (HSL) will be hosting an exhibition of former Associate Provost Ned Brook’s drawings featuring UNC-CH campus buildings and Franklin Street townscapes. The collection will be displayed from Feb. 21, 2010 through June 30, 2010.

"A few of these pieces reflect where I've lived,” said Brooks. “One of them is from New England where I grew up. A couple are from Alaska where I spent three years in the late 1960s as a hospital administrator with the Alaska Native Health Service. The vast majority, though, are from [Chapel Hill] where I've lived since 1972."

The exhibit will display 20 original drawings featuring poignant portraits, Franklin Street townscapes, UNC-CH buildings, and rural and coastal scenes. The drawings will be displayed in several prominent locations on the first and second floors of the HSL. Read more . . .

UNC University Libraries and Health Sciences Library to Consolidate

The University Gazette on February 24, 2010 reported that: "Beginning April 1, the Health Sciences Library and the University Libraries will be combined under University Librarian Sarah Michalak. Currently the two library systems are separate. Consolidating the collaborative but separate structures of both libraries is intended to help improve the efficiency of overall library operations in meeting the University's teaching, service, and research missions, Bruce Carney, interim executive vice chancellor and provost, said in announcing the change on Feb. 12." Read more on page 6 of the Gazette.

National Library of Medicine to End Go Local Program

Since 2001, the National Library of Medicine has supported Go Local web sites across the United States. The goal of Go Local was to connect users to health services in their local communities. This seemed like a natural extension to MedlinePlus, which provides health information. In 2001, Go Local was a unique service.

Over the past nine years, the Internet has evolved. Search engines that people use daily, such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing, bring health services listings to users. These sites include provider-level directory information and can collect user reviews that Go Local cannot. Health insurance sites give insured users local practice details, such as hours, fees, parking, and quality ratings based on provider or facility performance measures. To include this granularity in Go Local would not be feasible.

The changed Internet environment, coupled with declining use, has led to a decision by NLM to phase down and end its support for the MedlinePlus Go Local program. Resources are tight throughout our profession and as the internet has moved forward, it no longer makes sense to use scarce resources to compete with machine-based indexing used by the search engines.
NLM is grateful to the hundreds of people whose time, labor, ideas and patience went into creating Go Local. For many years we could proudly point to Go Local as a unique and valuable service to so many people in this country. We will be working with our partners around the country as they make decisions about what to do in their local areas.

Source: Newsletter of the NN/LM Southeastern/Atlantic Region.

Note: In North Carolina, Go Local online resources have been provided by NC Health Info, a service of the UNC Health Sciences Library and collaborators.

Health, Harmony, and Balance: American Indian Concepts of Health and Wellness

As part of American Indian Heritage Month, the UNC American Indian Center and Health Sciences Library invite you to join in a discussion featuring Dr. Clara Sue Kidwell, Director of the UNC American Indian Center, regarding traditional and contemporary concepts of American Indian health and wellness practices. Entitled "Health, Harmony, and Balance: American Indian Concepts of Health and Wellness," the event will be held on Wednesday, November 4, 2009 in Room 527 of the Health Sciences Library. An informal discussion and light refreshments will begin at 3:30pm and the presentation will follow at 4:00pm.

A schedule of other events at UNC during American Indian Heritage Month is available on the American Indian Center web site. Governor Beverly Perdue's proclamation is also online.

Public Service Announcement for NC Health Info

Designed to meet the needs and interests of North Carolinians, NC Health Info is an online guide to thousands of web sites of quality health and medical information and local health services throughout North Carolina. It was also the first resource of its kind to link local health information with corresponding information from MedlinePlus, the consumer health site maintained by the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.

NC Health Info informational flyers in English and Spanish are available in the "Community" section of the UNC Health Science Library's online exhibition on public health.

NC Health Info is created, housed, and maintained by the project staff at the UNC Health Sciences Library, and is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), as administered by the State Library of North Carolina, a division of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

International Open Access Week

The first International Open Access Week will take place October 19-23, 2009. The Open Access movement aims to promote free, online access to content that has traditionally been available on a subscription or fee basis. Many examples of open access journals can be found in the Directory of Open Access Journals, which currently tallies 4,371 journals world-wide. BioMed Central and the Public Library of Science (PLoS) are among the leading publishers that make scientific and medical literature freely available to the public.

The UNC Health Sciences Library has long been a strong supporter of Open Access, and a number of useful Open Access and Scholarly Communication resources can be found on the HSL web site. Beginning in April 2008, Congress mandated that National Institutes of Health-funded researchers must submit articles produced from such funding to PubMed Central no later than 12 months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal. To facilitate this process, HSL has prepared an NIH Public Access Policy Toolkit, and also manages a fund to support Open Access publishing fees.

On Monday, October 19, the UNC Libraries Scholarly Communication Committee will be sponsoring a panel on Perspectives on Open Access, which will feature Phil Edwards, UNC School of Information and Library Science; Kate McGraw, UNC Health Sciences Library; James Boyle, Duke Law School; and Kevin Smith, Duke Scholarly Communications Officer. The event will be held in Room 214, Davis Library, from 3:30-4:30pm, and is open to the public.

University Day at UNC: 1793 to 2009

Celebrated since 1877, University Day at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill commemorates the laying of the cornerstone of Old East, the first building of the first state university, on October 12, 1793. Highlights of the 216th anniversary of this happy occasion include Chancellor Thorp's address to the university community and a keynote speech by Governor Beverly Perdue at the convocation held earlier today.

To learn more about the history of the university, there are a number of online resources that can be explored, including the following:

:: The Carolina Story: A Virtual Museum of the University

-- Medical and Health Education
-- Public Service and Professional Schools at Carolina
-- Teachers, Scholars, and Citizens: Distinguished Carolina Faculty
-- Names Across the Landscape

:: The First Century of the First State University

:: This Day in the History of the University of North Carolina

:: Virtual Tour of the University

-- HSL and Health Affairs Schools

:: History of the Health Sciences Library and Health Affairs Schools

:: UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health: Meeting the Public Health Challenges of the 21st Century

In addition, here a few selected publications that deal with various aspects of the history of Health Affairs at UNC:

:: Bettering the Health of the People: W. Reece Berryhill, the UNC School of Medicine, and the North Carolina Good Health Movement / by William W. McLendon, Floyd W. Denny Jr., William B. Blythe [2007]

:: Norma Berryhill Lectures: 1985-1999 / The School of Medicine, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ; edited by William W. McLendon, William B. Blythe, Floyd W. Denny, Jr. [2000]; volume two, containing lectures from 2000-2008, has recently been published.

:: Medical Education at Chapel Hill / by W. Reece Berryhill ... [et al.] [1979]

:: Memories & Reflections: Academic Medicine, 1936-2000 / John B. Graham [2002]

:: The School of Pharmacy of the University of North Carolina: A History / by Alice Noble [1961]
:: Dreaming of a Time: The School of Public Health: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1939-1989 / by Robert Rodgers Korstad [1990]

:: The University of North Carolina School of Public Health Relates to the Needs of a Changing Society: A Selective and Interpretive Account with Emphasis on the Decade of the Sixties / by William Fred Mayes [1975]

Lastly, the HSL Special Collections web site features a variety of guides to research materials such as archival collections, digital collections, oral histories, etc. concerning the history of Health Affairs and the university as a whole. The library's online catalog also provides subject access to hundreds of resources on university history.

Note: The image above is from the Photographic Archives of the North Carolina Collection. It is a pen and ink sketch by John Pettigrew and depicts Old East circa 1797.

UNC Health Sciences Library Hosts Talk on Art and Medicine

The UNC Health Sciences Library will host a panel discussion on October 14, 2009 on the relationship between art and medicine. The talk, “Reflecting the Medical Sciences through Art,” is held in conjunction with “Learned in Science, Explored in Art,” an exhibit of paintings by Dr. Wolfgang Ritschel, professor emeritus at the University of Cincinnati. A painter and sculptor, Ritschel holds doctorates in medicine, pharmacology and philosophy, and a master’s degree in pharmacy. Several of his paintings and collages are on display on the 1st and 2nd floors of the library until December 31.

The talk will cover topics such as whether medicine is an art and a science; where art appears in the everyday lives of scientists; and whether a distinction should be made between “artist” and “scientist.”

The talk will take place from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on the library’s 2nd floor. Light refreshments will be served.

Panel discussion members are Terrence Holt, M.D., Ph.D., research assistant professor in the School of Medicine’s social medicine department, clinical assistant professor in the division of geriatric medicine and author of In the Valley of the Kings; Gretchen Case, Ph.D., visiting instructor in the medical school’s social medicine department, a Thompson Writing Program fellow at Duke University and adjunct lecturer at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine; and Ann Millett-Gallant, Ph.D., lecturer in UNC-Greensboro’s liberal studies program and art department and author of the forthcoming book The Disabled Body in Contemporary Art.

For more information and to see images of Ritschel’s art, visit the HSL web site. Health Sciences Library contact: Ginny Bunch, (919) 966-0943, gbunch@email.unc.edu

New Exhibit at UNC Health Sciences Library

Learned in Science, Explored in Art: An Exhibit of Paintings by Wolfgang Ritschel

September 21 to December 31, 2009
UNC Health Sciences Library

Gallery Talk & Reception: Wed., October 14, 2009, 5-6:30pm

In this collection of 35 paintings, Wolfgang Ritschel explores the world of medicine through the media of visual art. Although Ritschel had formal training in painting at a young age, he went on to pursue a successful career in pharmacology and medicine before returning to art full time. Ritschel is emeritus professor at the University of Cincinnati. The paintings are displayed on the 1st and 2nd floors of the Library.

For more information about the artist and his work, please visit the exhibit webpage. An exhibition catalog is also available online [PDF].

The travelling exhibit was organized by the University of Cincinnati Libraries.

Every Patient Tells a Story

The UNC Health Sciences Library and the Department of Social Medicine will be hosting Lisa Sanders, MD for a reading on October 7, 2009 from her new book Every Patient Tells a Story: Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis. Sanders is the NY Times Magazine "Diagnosis" columnist and technical adviser to the television show House, MD. The reading will be held from from noon-1pm in Room 2204 of the Medical Biomolecular Research Building (MBRB) on the UNC campus.

In addition to the reading, a series of small groups will meet to discuss the book during September and October in the library. These discussions will be facilitated by faculty in the Schools of Medicine and Nursing, and registration is required. Visit HSL's web site to sign up.

Journal Cancellations at UNC Health Sciences Library

The Health Sciences Library has concluded the journal review that it began earlier this summer, and selected 153 titles to be cancelled in 2010. Other titles on the review list will continue in 2010, but may be subject to cuts later on. The cancelled subscriptions will reduce expenditures by about $322,000, which will help the library meet its reduced budget due to statewide cuts. The list of cancellations is available online.

The library solicited input from a wide range of users before making any cancellation decisions, and applied several criteria to identify and evaluate candidates for reduction: cost per use; overall usage; impact on UNC audience; and cost effectiveness. Further information on the review process is available on the HSL web site. Updates on the UNC budget, including the Bain Report, are also available online.

Journal Cancellations at UNC University Library

An earlier Carolina Curator post noted the journal cancellation review at the UNC Health Sciences Library, but the UNC University Library is also undergoing a similar process. Approximately 640 titles are being proposed for cancellation. The list of titles is available for review online, and patrons can request that titles be retained by contacting the library by noon on Friday, August 28, 2009.

Exhibitions at UNC Health Sciences Library

There are a variety of physical and online exhibitions to check out at UNC Health Sciences Library at the start of the 2009-10 academic year. In the first-floor lobby display cases are the following three exhibits:

:: Great Minds, Great Finds: Explore Library Collections -- A survey of historical texts, images, instruments, and artifacts drawn from Special Collections at the library, representing the five professional schools in UNC Health Affairs: Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Public Health

:: New Books in the History of the Health Sciences -- A selection of recent acquisitions, including such titles as The Making of Mr. Gray's Anatomy, Pioneers of Cardiac Surgery, Frontier Medicine, Sex, Sin and Science: A History of Syphilis in America, and Medicine under Canvas: A War Journal of the 77th Evacuation Hospital, among others. All are available in the library for check-out from the circulating collections or for perusal in the Special Collections Reading Room.

:: The Sam W. Hitt Medicinal Plant Garden at UNC Health Sciences Library -- Mr. Hitt served as library director from 1976 to 1986 and the medicinal plant garden in his honor is located at several locations around the library building. There is also on online exhibit of the garden, which includes a photo gallery and descriptions of its many growing plants.

In the new exhibition cases located near the User's Services desk are two additional exhibits, which are described in entries on this blog:

:: Operation Coffee Cup and Socialized Medicine

:: The Bicentennial of Louis Braille [1809-1852]

Other exhibits that are available online include the following:

:: UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health: Meeting the Public Health Challenges of the 21st Century -- This exhibit highlights both current initiatives and the history of School, and features audio, video, and photographic images.

:: History of the Health Sciences Library and UNC Health Affairs -- This exhibit traces the development of the library as well as the five Health Affairs schools.

Information about a number of other exhibitions at HSL and at UNC & UNC Libraries is available in the Exhibitions section of the Special Collections web site.

The images above are from the Hitt Medicinal Plant Garden online exhibit; the plants, from left to right, are: Garden Coreopsis (also called Moonbeam); Bee-Balm; Catnip; and Eastern Purple Coneflower. Lynn Eades, HSL Web Development Librarian, photographed all the plants.

Microforms at the Health Sciences Library Can Now Be Digitized

The UNC Health Sciences Library has recently upgraded its microform reader to permit the easy digitization of both microfilm and microfiche. Located in the Audiovisual / Microforms section in the basement of the library, the new equipment (at right) can quickly create high-resolution scans of any microform document (see image below). Digitized files can be copied to flash drives, CDs, or emailed. The new digital option replaces the previous microform printer, and there is no charge for scanning.

HSL holds significant microform collections, including Early American Medical Imprints, 1668-1820, a set of 1,680 important titles (click here to browse) in the history of medicine that was acquired by Special Collections. The collection, which includes books, pamphlets, theses, and broadsides, is based on the 1961 bibliography by Robert B. Austin, and contains most but not all of the works therein. In addition, a number of periodical titles have been included that were selected from Myrl Ebert's article, "The Rise and Development of the American Medical Periodical, 1797-1850," published in the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 40:243-76, July 1952.

This article was also the title of Ms. Ebert's master's thesis at Columbia University, and she become the librarian for UNC's Division of Health Affairs Library in 1952. Ms. Ebert served in this capacity until 1976, and further information about her tenure can be found in an online exhibition; a brief audio clip is also available online.

Other microform collections at HSL include:

:: History of Nursing: The Adelaide Nutting Historical Nursing Collection [browse titles]
Includes more than 1400 monographs and documents concerning the history of nursing, medicine and hospitals, from the 15th through the early 20th centuries; publication dates range from 1603 to 1937, with the bulk having been issued in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

:: Calendar of the Letters of Florence Nightingale

See also nine letters in HSL Special Collections that have been digitized and made available online.

:: Primary Sources for the History of Pharmacy in the United States [browse titles]

Contains 85 titles covering the entire spectrum of pharmaceutical literature, including laws, lectures, textbooks, drug and equipment catalogues, formula books, and botanical and herbal materials.

:: Transactions of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (1793)

:: Quarterly Summary of the Transactions of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (1841-1844)

:: Summary of the Transactions of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (1844-1874)

:: Transactions of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (1875-1937)

:: Transactions & Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (1938-1971)

:: UNC Theses and Dissertations [browse titles on microfiche]

Theses and dissertations by UNC students are available in multiple formats, including bound volumes, microforms, and electronic files. A guide to researching UNC and other theses and dissertations is available online; information on those found in the Health Sciences Library is available here.

Since 2006, the majority of theses and dissertations at UNC have been published electronically, and are accessible online. In addition to being searchable by title, author, and keywords, these texts are also browseable by school or department, discipline, and faculty advisor.

Pictured below is a broadside from the Early American Medical Imprints, 1668-1820 microfilm collection (Austin 755). Entitled "Progess of Vaccination in America," it lists the number vaccinated and the number of tests for small-pox by state between 1802 and 1815. A manuscript note states: "February 1816, Plymouth, Mass."

Dr. Benson Wilcox: Surgeon, Scholar, and Benefactor

Dr. Benson Wilcox, a long-time friend and supporter of the UNC Health Sciences Library, and in particular, its Special Collections, is now featured in a donor profile on the library's web site. A North Carolina native and UNC alumnus, Dr. Wilcox is an avid bibliophile who over the years has donated over 1,400 volumes to the library as well as established an endowment fund for the acquisition of additional works for the collections. He is also Professor of Surgery and Emeritus Chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery in the UNC School of Medicine and the author and editor of several books himself, including the Surgical Anatomy of the Heart, which has been translated into Japanese and Chinese.

The oldest book that Dr. Wilcox has donated to the library's collections is a 1526 edition of the Works of Hippocrates, and one of the most recent titles acquired through his endowment fund is Thomas Percival's seminal work, Medical Ethics; or, A Code of Institutes and Precepts, Adapted to the Professional Conduct of Physicians and Surgeons, published in 1803. Another endowment purchase, a papier-mâché heart designed by Dr. Louis Thomas Jérôme Auzoux (1797-1880) and fabricated circa 1870, was described in this blog's Valentine's greetings earlier this year.

Dr. Wilcox has also been honored by fellow UNC alumnus R.B. Fitch, who has created a trust that will ultimately endow the Benson R. Wilcox Distinguished Professorship in Cardiothoracic Surgery. Details of the gift are available on the Department of Surgery's web site and in the UNC Medical Bulletin (inside front cover, Spring 2009). This issue of the Bulletin, on pages 2-7, also contains an article entitled, "An Affair of the Heart . . . and Lungs: Twenty Years of Heart and Lung Transplant at UNC Hospitals," which recounts the remarkable and rapid growth of UNC's heart-lung transplant program. In 1988, Dr. Wilcox recruited Dr. Michael Mill, the present Chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, to help establish the program.

Depicted below are the title pages from the Works of Hippocrates (1526) and Percival's Medical Ethics (1803), which are housed in HSL Special Collections as part of the Wilcox Collection.