In early March 2020, the MSK Library closed its physical space and with little planning moved to virtual services only.  Our world changed, both personally and professionally. Our work and the way we delivered services had to be reassessed for health and safety reasons. Simple requests, like a user borrowing a book, needed additional planning. Thankfully, we started years ago to curate and build a digital collection to accommodate researchers, clinicians, nurses, and support staff located at all MSK locations, not just staff based at main campus. In addition, our social media and web presence provided ways to connect with our users and Library staff took advantage of available videoconferencing tools to provide one-on-one consultations. Then in October, under specific guidelines, we were able to partially reopen the library’s space on Mondays and Thursdays.

While we were delighted to reopen, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the way we worked and supported our users. Given everything we have gone through, there is an opportunity to reexamine how we interact with clients, support the end-user experience, and perhaps seek new ways to deliver content, resources, and services.

This year we are embarking on a project to gather information from our user community (current and new hires) regarding our existing services and we plan to take time to imagine what else we could do to support the research and medical activities of the Center. I am very excited to work with my team to gather feedback from user polls and surveys, as well as organized focus group sessions and one-on-one interviews. The feedback we collect will form the basis of a strategic plan to help us chart the future of the MSK Library.

If you are interested in sharing your thoughts, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Let the conversations begin!

Donna Gibson
Director of Library Services

As we come to the end of a difficult year, I want to take a moment to reflect and highlight some of the accomplishments of the Library staff.

We were able to continue to develop our new Research Data Management Services by launching the MSK Data Catalog, adding a new Data Management section to our Website, and should be able to deploy the DMPTool by the end of this year. Each new offering supports the researcher in their data management and publication practices.

Launching the new ILLiad Document Delivery interface happened in early September, improving the user experience to a key service. This service expands the reach for our users to published literature that we do not have in the MSK collections. New features included: authentication enhancements, automatic user creation, fully accessible and responsive webpages, and decision support for request processing. We also celebrate a Document Delivery milestone with filling 400,000 client requests since 2009.

Synapse continues to be a well-used resource by many departments and divisions to track the intellectual output of their staff (authors). Enhancements this year included: adding three years of retrospective content, publishing the online 2019 Synapse Publications report, working with Synapse groups to enrich their result pages, and improving the workflow for the next NIH Core Grant progress report. Through Synapse we also set up a COVID-19 webpage showcasing all the works authored and co-authored by MSK staff. This page is continually being updated as new works are confirmed.

We conducted an initial exploration on improving user access to the Library’s content and are excited to be moving forward next year to further examine SeamlessAccess, a service designed to help foster a more streamlined online access experience when using scholarly information resources and collaboration tools.

COVID-19 created an opportunity for us to continue to promote our Virtual Library Services in support of incoming client requests.  We encouraged our user community to use our chat feature on our Website as a way to obtain immediate help.  Library staff leveraged video conferencing tools to host consultations with our users regarding their research questions and it became the top method for providing training and workshops about available resources.

Our focus next year will be to continue to explore ways in which we can connect with our user community in support of their research, patient care, and educational endeavors.  

To our Library users, we wish you a joyful and safe holiday.

Donna Gibson
Director of Library Services