Library Inspires Texas Visitor
ORLANDO, June 25, 2010 — The Harriet F. Ginsburg Health Sciences Library recently provided inspiration to a Texas administrator who is creating a college of medicine library from scratch in that state.
Keith Cogdill, regional director of information services at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, is visiting all of Florida’s medical schools to see how “post-Internet” libraries are transitioning into greater reliance on digital, rather than print, collections.
Keith spent a day discussing UCF’s experience as one of the nation’s newest medical schools to start from scratch. He reviewed library operations, staffing, space, collections and services with Library Director Nadine Dexter and her team.
“We’re learning a lot from you guys,” Keith said. “This is an important time for medical libraries as they transition into the digital era to become a foundation for medical education in the 21st century.”
Like UCF, the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine at the Texas Tech University Health Science Center in El Paso enrolled its first medical school class this fall. The state is now creating a second new medical school in Texas, this one in the lower Rio Grande Valley.
To prepare for the Texas opening, Keith received a grant from the Medical Library Association (MLA) to visit medical school libraries and determine best practices for starting a new library in the digital age.
Nadine explained that the MLA’s mission is to be a worldwide source of the most accurate, up-to-date medical information and to help individual medical school libraries network and learn best practices from each other. “It was an honor to share our experience with Keith as he helps to create an outstanding medical library for students, patients and doctors in Texas,” she said.