The Voluntary Library Gift concept was brought to GW by former University President Trachtenberg. Mr. Trachtenberg felt strongly that it is important to provide additional support to the university library system, the backbone of any top tier learning institution. While it is common for colleges and universities to have a mandatory library/technology fee, GW has continued to make this $50 gift a voluntary donation.

The Voluntary Library Gift appears on your tuition invoice. While you may opt out, you should know that these funds are used to support important student resources in Himmelfarb. Last year, thirty-two new computer workstations were installed in the Library with student gift funds. Additional comfortable seating and study tables are on order for delivery by the beginning of the fall 2008 semester. In previous years, the Library has used these funds to upgrade wireless connections and purchase updated seating for study carrels. Library staff greatly appreciate your generosity and assistance in making Himmelfarb Library an even more inviting place to study. Thank you.

Betsy Appleton, Himmelfarb Library Serials Librarian, was chosen as the 2008 North American Serials Interest Group Horizon Award winner. The Horizon Award is annually awarded to a new information professional that demonstrates leadership potential in working with serials. To qualify for the Horizon Award, applicants submit an essay discussing the 2008 NASIG Annual Conference theme, “Taking the Sting Out of Serials.” Appleton’s winning essay will be published in the upcoming NASIG newsletter; a preview is available on the NASIG blog.

Appleton had the opportunity to attend the NASIG annual conference in Phoenix, Arizona June 5-8, and will be serving on the NASIG Public Relations/Publications Committee for 2008-2009.

Established in 1985, the North American Serials Interest Group, Inc. (NASIG) is an independent organization that promotes communication, information, and continuing education about serials and the broader issues of scholarly communication.

The last year has been a busy one for the Library. A new web page debuted that was designed to increase access to and ease-of-use for our growing collection of electronic resources. A portal for Research and Publishing was added to provide faculty and students with a gateway to topics such as scholarly publishing and funding sources. New workshops on research skills, poster preparation, and keeping current with electronic tools such as RSS feeds were presented. An information session on the new NIH Open Access Policy was held in March and links to important information on this topic added to the Library web page at http://www.gwumc.edu/library/portals/nihaccess.cfm. It has been a busy year for our faculty, staff and students as well. If you have not had a chance to explore our electronic resources or attend a workshop of interest, please give your liaison library (See the list below!) a call. Liaisons are happy to answer questions about our collections or demo a key piece of software. We especially look forward to working with faculty over the summer on placing reserves, scheduling orientations, and ordering textbooks for the fall semester. Hope to hear from you soon! Best wishes for a pleasant and productive summer!

Anne Linton, Director, Library Services
mlbaml@gwumc.edu

Greetings from the Himmelfarb Library to all new and returning students taking classes this summer! We know that summer classes can feel fast and intense, and we want you to know that we are here to help with your research needs. Here are a few tidbits we hope you will find helpful:

• Reference librarians are available and happy to help you conduct your research or find things in the library. Visit us in person at the main service desk, or go to the Ask a Librarian page for contact information, including how to Instant Message us.
• If your instructor has placed books on Reserve for your class, you can ask for them at the service desk. Reserve items can be checked out for 3 hour periods. Look up Reserves here by your instructor's name, or course name or number, or in the general catalog by the title or author. Please bring the call number to the Circulation desk.
• Our electronic databases, journals, and books are available 24/7 anywhere with internet access. Visit our off-campus instructions for more details.
• Scopus is a very large database you may want to try for your subject searches. It is an interdisciplinary database of citations from over 15,000 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to medical literature, it contains articles on a very wide variety of topics, which makes it particularly helpful for Public Health topics. Scopus also offers time-saving features, such as the ability to download multiple articles simultaneously.

These are just a few of the highlights. Himmelfarb offers many other electronic and print resources that may be helpful to you with your academic work. Please don't hesitate to ask us if you have questions.

We wish you well with your summer classes!

Every year, three to four hundred physicians take their own lives - the equivalent of two to three medical school classes. Struggling in Silence: Physician Depression and Suicide is a one-hour, high definition public television documentary, that is part of a campaign to explore the professional policies and the culture of stigma that prevent physicians and medical school students from seeking help for the common and treatable mood disorders that can lead to suicide.

Information about the documentary and campaign can be found at the website doctors with depression.

Struggling in Silence will be broadcast on WHUT Howard University Television on Channel 32 (analog), Channel 33 (digital), on Wednesday May 21, 2008, from 9:00pm-10:00pm.

If you are unable to watch the broadcast a copy of this program and the accompanying educational DVD "Out of the Silence" which has resource materials dealing with medical student depression and suicide will be purchased on DVD to be added to the Himmelfarb library collection later this year.

Fighting for Life is a powerful, sobering and emotional feature documentary portrait of American military medicine. The film combines three stories about Army medical care. First, it follows soldiers wounded in Iraq and their journey home through hospitals in Iraq, then Germany and finally Walter Reed in Washington D.C. Second, it tells the stories of American military doctors, nurses and medics working with skill, compassion and dedication. Third, it follows students at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, on the campus of the National Naval Medical Center, on their journey toward becoming career military physicians.

There will be a screening at the Carnegie Institute on Saturday May 17, 2008 at 4:30pm. Tickets price $10.00 available from the GI Film Festival.

Put your library fines to work for the community. For two weeks, April 27 - May 11, 2008, Himmelfarb will exchange Food for Fines. One dollar in current library fines will be removed from your record for every canned good or non-perishable food item you donate.

All items will be donated to Bread for the City, a local non-profit organization serving low income residents of Washington, DC.

Please note that we can only remove fines, not book replacement fees. A maximum of $20.00 in fines will be waived per person.

Contact the Circulation Desk at (202) 994-2962 for more information about the food for fines exchange.

The machine in the Library by the photocopiers where you add money to your GWorld card now also dispenses zero-value cards you can use for printing and copying.

Each card costs $1 and you can add the amount you need for printing or copying. These cards also work at Gelman Library, but cannot be used at retail locations accepting GWorld cards.

The faculty publications database will be unavailable on Wednesday April 30 from 8.00am until 12.00pm. This is due to maintenance to update the host server of the system. Service will resume in the afternoon on April 30, 2008. We regret any inconvienience this may cause.

Are you confused about what you are and are not permitted to do with articles you’ve published? Watch this two minute video on Author’s Rights produced by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC).