Happy New Year to our User Community and our Library Blog Readers. As 2018 fades into the background, I do want to spend a few moments recapping what I know was a great year for the library staff and share a few of our goals for this year.
At the end of January 2018, we launched a new discovery layer on our Website with the goal of improving the library user experience when accessing paid and vetted resources. The content management team, with support from other library staff, marketed this research tool that we named ONESEARCH. Mid-year, we sent out a client satisfaction survey to determine what our users liked and/or didn’t like about ONESEARCH, and in Fall 2018, we conducted usability testing to further explore our clients’ satisfaction with this tool. Feedback from testing formed the basis for one of our 2019 goals — to work with the vendor to implement suggested staff and client changes, wherever possible. We also published a series of blog posts to explain ONESEARCH functionality.
Another goal completed in 2018 was to add both current and retrospective content to Synapse (MSK Publications database). We now include bibliographic information for journal articles, books/book chapters, conference papers, and meeting abstracts dating back to 1995. In addition, we prepared and made available the online 2017 Synapse Publications Report. For 2019, our goal is to continue to add current and retrospective content to this database and to work on the 2018 Synapse Publications Report, where interested readers will be able to explore research activities of MSK authors via their 2018 published works.
In 2018, we also succeeded in adding new metrics to the Library Dashboard, a tool which allows for closer scrutiny of client usage activities for key library services and resources. At a glance, site visitors can make note of monthly walk-in traffic tallies, website visits, document delivery transactions, eJournal and eBook access counts, the number of MSK publications (works) indexed, and the number of research requests received by the informationists. We hope to further enhance the look and layout of our dashboard in 2019.
As we do every year, in 2019 we will continue to focus on the day-to-day operations of the MSK Library and on our commitment to engage our user community to better understand their information needs. Our mission and what drives us in our daily work is to proactively partner with our library users by delivering innovative services and targeted published content in support of quality patient care, research excellence, and ongoing learning for the progressive control and cure of cancer.
For any questions regarding our collections or services, don’t hesitate to ASK US! We look forward to hearing from you. Better yet, we look forward to supporting your research activities!
Donna Gibson
Director of Library Services