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Medical Library Facts & Figures

Overview

Standard language for NIH and other grant applications

Yale’s collection of 15 million print and electronic volumes is housed in 15 libraries, including Sterling Memorial, Beinecke, Marx, and Bass libraries, as well as many other school and departmental libraries, such as the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library on the medical campus.

The Medical Library serves the biomedical and health care information needs of the Yale New Haven Medical Center including the Yale Schools of Medicine, Nursing and Public Health, with a rich collection of 23,000 electronic journals, 110 databases, 410,000 print and electronic books, and dozens of clinical reference tools and evidence-based practice resources, giving users immediate access to research and clinical information. Overall, 25 professional staff and 15 technical staff support the research needs of a clinical, research, and educational enterprise of over 20,000 users. 

Our medical librarians are part of the academic health sciences team, fully invested in improving skills and competencies for the management and utilization of health information in a rapidly changing healthcare setting. Our librarians have expertise in conducting research, mostly systematic reviews with faculty, and serve as institutional resources to provide authoritative information resources for clinical care. Specialized services include bibliometric analysis, copyright and scholarly communication advice, research data services, and a Bioinformatics Support Hub with specialized software and two scientist-librarian trainers.

The Medical Library provides access to:


366,600
print volumes

50,000
e-books

23,000
e-journals

110
databases

 

Bioinformatics Support

The Medical Library's Bioinformatics Support Program provides free access to state-of-the-art commercial bioinformatics software programs and databases for the mining, analysis, functional annotation, and visualization of Next Generation Sequencing data. It also provides free individual and group instruction and consultation on how to use these programs, as well as many other public databases, data repositories and online tools.

Each semester the Bioinformatics Support Program coordinates a series of popular bioinformatics/big data training sessions that include presentations from faculty, vendors, and graduate students on methodologies and tools for the analysis and annotation of data. The Medical Library also collaborates with the Yale Research Computing Center to secure the necessary support for those instruction sessions that require hands-on exercises with big data.

Free Software:

  • Partek Flow: A set of packages for the full analysis of RNA-seq data from FASTQ Files to the list of differentially-expressed genes. It also provides tools for the early stages of other omics data (e.g. DNA-seq, CHIP-seq)
  • Qlucore Omics Explorer: Statistical tools for the analysis and visualization of highly dimensional data including proteomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, and methylation data.
  • TRANSFAC (geneXplain):  A suite of tools and matrices for transcription factor analysis, including annotation and visualization of regulatory regions.
  • Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (QIAGEN): Knowledge base that contains tools for the functional annotation of high-throughput omics data.
  • MetaCore (Thomson Reuters):  Knowledge base that contains tools for the functional annotation of high-throughput omics data.

High-Performance Workstation

A high-performance PowerStation GX2 is available in the CWML to the Yale community. This workstation has both open source and commercial bioinformatics software installed for the analysis of big data.

  • 8 x Total Intel Xeon E5-2620v4 Processor Cores / 2.1 GHz
  • 16 Total Cores with Hyperthreading Enabled
  • 1 x Xeon E5-2620v4 Processor
  • 64 GB of High Performance DDR4 2400 MHz ECC Memory
  • 240 GB Solid State SATA III (SSD / for OS)
Clinical Support

The Medical Library is the library for the Yale New Haven Hospital, currently the largest hospital in the country. To support this clinical enterprise, there are five dedicated clinical librarians at the Medical Library. They teach in residents’ and fellows’ didactic programs, find information for patient care, support education in the clinical environment, and provide support for Graduate Medical Education.

They meet with clinicians wherever and whenever is most convenient for clinicians: in the operating room suites, intensive care units, radiology reading rooms, or anywhere in the clinical environment. We also support dietitians, occupational therapists, chaplains, and many other functions across the hospital.

Education Support

Our librarians are deeply integrated into the schools of Medicine, Nursing, Public Health, both the Physician Associate and Physician Assistant Online Programs, and with Graduate Students in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences program. Additionally, each student has a Personal Librarian who serves as a personal contact for research and library-related questions throughout their specific program. A personal librarian is able to recommend resources, instruct students in new technologies and databases, and guide students to specific materials as their research and learning needs change throughout their education.

Our librarians also serve on committees making curricular decisions and policies, partner with and support faculty and trainees in research and education scholarship, and teach in the YSM, YSPH, and YSN curricula.

Research Data Services

The Medical Library's data services program offers training and consultation sessions designed to help biomedical researchers learn skills they need to research in computationally robust and data-heavy environments. The Data Librarian enables faculty, students, clinicians and researchers to leverage data resources to the fullest, and advises on acquisition and management of datasets for biomedical, clinical, and health sciences research. The Data Librarian is the in-house expert on the research data management cycle, and helps researchers manage their data and navigate the data landscape.

The data services program also embeds the library in other groups across the Yale Medical community, including IT, the research cores, the Yale Center for Medical Informatics, the Center for Biomedical Data Science, and the Center for Biomedical Innovation and Technology, and others.

Modern and Historical Spaces

Library Instruction Classroom (SHM L 111)

Intentionally designed to facilitate a broad range of instructional experiences, the Library Instruction Classroom offers modular furniture, two moveable screens, and laptops for participants. Brightly lit and modern, the space is a welcoming environment for up to eighteen students.

  • Mac and Windows laptops
  • Two large screen TVs
  • White Boards

24/7 Computing & Study Space (SHM L E10)

The Medical Library's 24/7 room ensures students and researchers have access to computers, printing, and quiet study space no matter the day or time.

  • Mac and Windows computers including specialized software
  • Scanners and BluePrint Printer
  • Adjustable height tables and soft seating

 Cushing Center Conference Room (SHM L G07)

Located within the Cushing Center on the G-level, the Cushing Center conference room provides a meeting space for up to 20 individuals.

  • 70” LCD display
  • PC computer
  • Connections for laptop computers
  • Videoconferencing system
  • White Board

Information Commons

The Information Commons features 30 workstations, with 24 Mac and PC computers and 6 Bring Your Own Device stations, as well as seating and tables throughout.

5 Study Rooms

Each study room provides a quiet, collaborative area for groups of up to 8 to collaborate. Each room is equipped with a Mac mini, wireless connection, HDMI connection, large monitor, and whiteboards.

9 Classrooms

All classrooms are fully equipped with computers, wireless connection, HDMI connection, large monitors, and whiteboards.

Wellness Room 

The Wellness Room is located on the first floor of the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library in the Morse Reading Room. The room features a soft chair, clean rugs, and a large window with beautiful light.