Category Archives: Director’s Reflections

Learn about the library from the Director’s perspective

International Open Access Week Has Arrived!

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Join the MSK Library in recognizing International Open Access Week being held October 19-25. We will be featuring five open access publications by MSK authors and will showcase one each day (Monday to Friday) as a Today’s Science Sparks on the Library Website. You can also browse the Today’s Science Sparks’ archives to find other open access articles.

International Open Access Week, a global event now entering its thirteenth year, is an opportunity for librarians and information professionals to engage with their communities about the benefits of open access and to increase awareness of the role open access plays in the scholarly communication ecosystem. This year’s theme is very timely, with a focus on “Open with Purpose: Taking Action to Build Structural Equity and Inclusion.”

If you want to learn more about other open access resources, please feel free to check out our Open Access LibGuide.  This subject-specific guide contains information about Predatory Publishing, Preprints, and Info for MSK Authors.

I would also like to highlight MSK-related COVID-19 research publications, as these works are publicly available to both researchers and interested readers. As of October 14, MSK authors have contributed 184 works and we see this number growing at a steady pace.

Finally, if you wish to further embrace the open access week experience, you can participate by following the conversation on Twitter during this time frame and tweeting your thoughts. Don’t forget to include the official hashtag — #OAWeek.

Donna Gibson
Director of Library Services

Coming Soon This Fall: MSK Library Reopening

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March 19, 2020 marked the day when the MSK Library closed its doors to our user community. While the physical space could not be accessed, this didn’t mean we were not available to support information requests from clients based at any location.  The moment we closed, our focus was on promoting and showcasing the Library’s digital resources and virtual services.

The Library will be part of the Reactivation: Phase B plan and we anticipate opening the Library to MSK staff in early October two days per week. In drafting plans to reopen, our goal is to work with leadership and internal departments to consider how best to balance the safety of the library team and our clients. Our reopening will include social distancing measures, clearly identifying seating arrangements for users, and an effective cleaning regime.

As a friendly reminder, the MSK user community, and our patients and their caregivers can continue to reach out to us via chat, phone, email, or by using one of the request forms on our ASK US web page.

As our reopening plan evolves, we will be posting important information on our Website and our social media platforms (internal and external).  Questions or comments can be directed to my attention — don’t hesitate to contact me!

Donna Gibson
Director of Library Services

Curious About the Total Number of Publications by MSK Authors in 2019?

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The 2019 Synapse Publications Report is now available to help answer this question! Compiled by librarians, this report provides an analysis and documents the publications produced by MSK researchers, clinicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals for the year in review. The final bibliography includes 5,130 works, comprised of references to research and conference papers, reviews, meeting abstracts, books and book sections. This represents an increase of over 11% from publications identified in our 2018 report.

Synapse is a public facing resource and the authoritative bibliographic database developed and maintained by the Library. Our ultimate goal is to track and showcase the wealth of knowledge attributed to Memorial Sloan Kettering.

I hope that by browsing the 2019 Synapse Publications Report, readers will gain a sense of the contributions made by MSK authors to the ever-growing body of scholarly research.

Feel free to send me an email and let me know what you think about this year’s report.

Donna Gibson
Director of Library Services