Student Support Librarian Program at UCHC

August 2007

Welcome, Class of 2011

The Information & Education Services (IES) librarians are highly-trained information specialists available to help you become lifelong learners and experts searchers of the medical literature. IES librarians have developed a special outreach training program entitled Student Support Librarians, designed specifically to support learning issues and critical analysis of the medical literature for in-coming UConn medical and dental students. We are here to act as information consultants, facilitating your transition as library users on a new campus, in a new setting and with differing information needs than an undergraduate. We believe it is vital to your success as practitioners and researchers to learn to utilize clinical resources like Medline, Access Medicine, E-Medicine, DynaMed, InfoRetriever, the Cochrane Library, Up to Date, PDA software and evidence-based sources.

Beginning with Fall 2007 semester, new students have an opportunity to meet with and establish a working relationship with librarian-instructors which will extend over their four-year clinical graduate education. Our goal is to provide education consulting and training in selecting key clinical resources, methods for developing effective search strategies and critical analysis as these support learning areas in the medical/dental curriculum, including problem-based learning and modern patient care decision support.

Lyman Maynard Stowe Library, a state-of-the-art academic medical facility renovated in 2005, provides an impressive group of current clinical resources. Following is a brief list of typical resources – available from both expert humans and expert systems - which are available to you: 1,500 medical and dental journals owned by UCHC ~ 260 health-oriented databases ~ Remote access to 30,000 journals and 3,000 databases from UConn Storrs Library ~ 6,000 electronic textbooks ~ 2,000 current audiovisual items ~ 460+ software titles on clinical topics in Computer Education Center ~ Technology staff to assist you with educational technologies such as Blackboard, BackPack, PDA or laptop/access issues.

Who are Student Support Librarians? What can they do for me?

IES Librarians are: Mr. Hongjie Wang, Ms. Kathleen Crea, Mr. Robert Joven and Ms. Triza Crittle. The main number at UCHC Library Reference is 860-679-2942 or email: StudentSupportLibrarians@uchc.edu. The librarians will provide one-on-one consulting services, and meet with you as often as you wish.

Each UCHC instructional librarian will meet with their assigned groups of medical and dental students (see below) in August 2007 in order to provide a brief, concise introduction to the many clinical resources available to members of the UCHC academic community.

Students whose last names begin with A – F will meet with Ms. Kathleen Crea on Friday, August 31 in the Computer Education Center (CEC) from 1:00pm-2:00pm. Her email is: crea@nso.uchc.edu
Students whose last names begin with G – M will meet with Mr. Hongjie Wang on Monday, August 27 in the Computer Education Center (CEC) from 1:00pm-2:00pm. His email is: wang@nso.uchc.edu
Students whose last names begin with N – S will meet with Mr. Robert Joven on Monday, August 27 in the Computer Education Center (CEC) from 2:00pm-3:00pm. His email is joven@uchc.edu
Students whose last names begin with T – Zwill meet with Ms. Triza Crittle on Friday, August 31 in the Computer Education Center (CEC) from 2:00pm-3:00pm. Her email is crittle@uchc.edu

Things the Student Support Librarians will not do…

The Student Support Librarians won’t… do a search for you (as a part of your clinical education is to become lifelong, expert searchers; however, we will work with you to provide guidance as to what to search using effective search strategies)… we won’t make photocopies for you… we can’t fax for you… we can’t fix your computer or set up e-mail or other computer accounts for you – our IT Help Desk is available at 679-4400 or contact CEC staff at 679-8872 to ask those types of questions.