Blogs

Cushing/Whitney Medical Library welcomes Melissa Funaro as the Library's new Evening/Weekend Supervisor & Reference Librarian.Melissa has worked in the Collection Development and Management Department at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library for 7 years. She’s been active in the Connecticut Library Association, Connecticut Association of Health Sciences Librarians and recently presented at the New England Technical Services Librarians’ annual conference.This position is a shared position between Access and Delivery Services (ADS) and Curriculum and Research Support (CRS).  While supervising the evening and weekend ADS staff,  Melissa will also support CRS by teaching classes and providing advanced reference service in the evenings and on Sundays.  Melissa received her Master of Library Science degree from Southern Connecticut State University in 2009.  She also holds a Master of Science, Horticulture degree from West Virginia University.She will assume her new job responsibilities on May 1, 2014.

The Medical Library’s 2012-2013 report is now available online.   The report highlights a number of recent projects, including: Integrating library resources and services with those of the Hospital of St. Raphael (HSR) after its acquisition by  Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH); Helping Yale researchers comply with the requirements of NIH Public Access policy; Training YNHH nurses in evidence-based practice, thereby helping YNHH attain ANCC Magnet Recognition Program status; and Tailoring classes to help meet ACGME core competencies. Browse the Annual Report to learn more about these and other initiatives.

Since its opening in June 2010, the Cushing Center has become a destination of interest to many visitors including students from area schools, members of the Yale University and the New Haven community, medical students, physicians, and writers worldwide.   As of page 126 of the guest book, visitors have come from at least 33 US states and 46 countries including places as far away as Tasmania and Madagascar. Last year we provided guided tours to over 2,300 visitors, while many others ventured into the center on their own.The center is open to all: Sunday:  9:30am-8:00pm Monday-Friday:  8:00am-8:00pm Saturday:  10:00am-7:00pm If you don’t have a Yale ID you’ll need to show a picture ID at the library circulation desk to borrow a proxy ID. Tours are offered: Thursday: 2:00pm & Friday: 11:00am & 2:00pm.   Guests meet in front of the library circulation desk. For tours beyond these hours, contact terry.dagradi@yale.edu The Cushing Center is located in the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library at 333 Cedar St.  From the library entrance, walk straight down the hallway to the Information Room.  Take the stairway on the right and walk down two flights.  The center entrance is on the right.

The Perfect Man recently acquired by the Historical Library  on view in the Cushing Rotunda Join us for an exhibit tour of selected acquisitions with curator Susan Wheeler Wednesday, February 19, at 12 noon In 1895, the original bodybuilder Eugen Sandow was proclaimed “the perfect man” by Dudley Sargent (YMS 1878).  In 1827, former slave Belfast Burton was paid tribute by his patients and mentor in a rare broadside testimonial circulated in Philadelphia.  In 1871, J.J. Woodward shared the first micrographs taken in sunlight with the Surgeon General.  In 1891, Victor Emile Prouvé employed the most delicate coloring to render opium’s intoxicating sleep state in an art print distributed through subscription portfolio.   In 1902, James Haran, British medical officer in newly founded Nairobi, attended all the victims of plague (the first of many outbreaks) leaving complete case records.   In 1922, artist Käthe Kollwitz created pro bono a poster announcing public events during Anti-Alcohol Week in Schöneberg, a locality of Berlin. In 1978, Rachel Romero and the San Francisco Poster Brigade plastered the city with activist art “To Hell with their Profits:  Stop Forced Drugging of Psychiatric Inmates” produced for the Mental Patients Liberation Movement. These and other acquisitions are on view through May 2, 2014.  They are a small sampling of the substantial number of acquisitions through endowment made by the Historical Library, Cushing\Whitney Medical Library.

Stephen Malawista had been associated with the Yale School of Medicine for over 50 years until his death last fall. His research bridged rheumatology, cell biology, inflammation, and infectious diseases. As a colleague Gerald Weismann said of him, “One might call him one of the most original, wide-ranging, and persistent biomedical researchers of his generation. He has made an unusually large number of original contributions, working in a rather unorthodox fashion. Rather than moving in a strictly linear fashion, his work has branched and regrouped as it progressed over many years.”  Malawista is best known as the co-discover of Lyme Disease. Through the work of his team on the elucidation of all aspects of the disease and its treatment, Yale and Yale-New Haven Hospital have long been a major center for Lyme Disease research.Malawista was born in Manhattan in 1934 and graduated from Harvard and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University. He first came to Yale in 1958 for residency training under Paul Beeson, but he interrupted his residency to study inflammation and gout as a clinical associate under B. N. La Du and J. E. Seegmiller at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases (NIAMD). After completing his residency at Yale in 1963, he served as a special NIAMD fellow at Yale under Aaron Lerner.  He became a member of the faculty at Yale in 1966 and served as Chief of Rheumatology for 21 years.Before he died, Malawista gave his manuscript papers (the Malawista Papers) to the Historical Library. The Malawista Papers contain correspondence with editors, reviewer reports, drafts of articles, photographs, and handwritten notes.