Mr. John Maupin Jr. D.D.S, the president of Meharry Medical School knew that the three-leveled library needed to be updated. “It lacked updated materials, services, resources, technology, aesthetic properties and ….was 22 years old." He also knew that the students were going to nearby Vanderbilt’s Eskind Biomedical Library (EBL) for resources.” Collectively, the students, faculty, alumni, consultants and the president, developed a shared vision of what they wanted and needed in a library. Next, Mr. Maupin went to Vanderbilt’s Medical Center for help. The result was another opportunity for collaboration between both schools. They had come together before in 1999 to improve “the educational, scientific and clinical programs at both institutions.”
A five year plan was developed by Vanderbilt’s (EBL) and Meharry Medical School .The end result would be a “state of the art information center. It would include: “modernizing the operation of the [current] library, train staff, execute physical renovations, upgrades, and recruiting a library director by 2010…. A $20 million dollar capital campaign would fund the project.”
“In April [2005], the team launched a digital library, making more than 2,000 electronic journals, books, databases and Web sites available to the Meharry community. Also, at the beginning of the 2005 academic year, the library extended its operating hours”
Three years has passed since the beginning of the collaborative project between Meharry Medical School and Vanderbilt’s Eskind Biomedical Library (EBL). What are the recent developments and how has the search for a new library director been going in 2008? Answers to these questions will be in the next posting.
Pasley, J. (2005, Nov. ,11). Meharry library renovations aims to create modern information center. The Reporter. Retrieved on July 28, 2008 from http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/reporter/index.html .
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8 comments:
Wow, the benefits of collaborations are limitless. The collaboration between Meharry Medical School and EBL is proof; the results of the project are amazing. It sounded like Meharry was in dire need of an update and they accomplished just that. The renovations mentioned appear to be mostly at Meharry, what if any updates did EBL receive?
Maricela Martinez
It is interesting that two of the initial improvements included online databases and extended hours. There was a trend to go online in the earlier part of this decade as well as to provide better services for users. Sounds like a bank--extend hours, go online. I wonder how the costs of implementing online databases in a library to that of renovating the actual building compare and which offer users more service?
Good blog, Violette. Collaboration can do so much good as Maricela noted. I also appreciated Angelica's post about the relative costs and benefits of physical renovations vs provision of online items. In general, provision of items should be less expensive and probably has greater impact on more people. However, the needs of the people in the community or campus also need to be considered. Often libraries are the only facility offering study space as well group learning space. More later...
It seems the library was in need of a renovation if students wree going to the EBL for resources. A library should provide relevant materials and services for its' clientle. The digital library added in 2005 seems a bit late compared to other universities
It's good to know that the two schools were able to work together to improve the library. Too often it seems that competition for resources is an impediment to collaboration. It seems to have worked very well in this case. Looking forward to your next post describing new changes to the library.
It was refreshing to see how the training of staff was mentioned a couple of times in your posting. While new computers, work spaces, and other necessities are wonderful, the need for competent and effective staff cannot be overlooked.
I find it ironic when a university builds a big, beautiful building and then cuts back on staff to run it! Unfortunately, UNLV and the state of Nevada are currently having those issues.
I took medical imaging last maymester. The images being produced are amazing. I wonder if the renovation not only included journals, etc but a library of up to date images for the students. The new Toshiba 360 CAT scanner does a whole organ at once, no splicing, and over time. Therefore one can see the actual blood flow and spot blockages from a scan without any invasive procedure. Now a library of that kind of images would be great for a medical school.
It is interesting that renovations of a physical library space inevitably go hand-in-hand with upgrades of a library's digital collection. It was also interesting that part of the library's renovation plan included finding a new library director instead of promoting someone internally. Maybe they were looking for someone who had experience with library renovations.
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