Category Archives: Director’s Reflections

Learn about the library from the Director’s perspective

Celebrate International Open Access Week 2022 with the MSK Library

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International Open Access Week will be taking place October 24-30, 2022. Join us as we celebrate this year’s theme, “Open For Climate Justice” and seize the opportunity to help us raise awareness on how open access can support climate justice, as well as other areas of research interests.

The MSK Library promotes Open Access by adding relevant open access journals to our curated list of eJournals, managing the SKOAP fund which helps MSK authors who need financial support for article processing fees, and sharing information about this important topic to keep our interested library users in the know!

Synapse is another way we bring attention to open access publications. Visitors to the site are able to discover which open access journals MSK authors publish in by locating in the citation record the orange button (e.g., Synapse work record). Synapse is our public-facing and authoritative bibliographic database showcasing the intellectual output of all our researchers.

Throughout this week, the MSK Library will be featuring open access publications by MSK authors and will share one each day (Monday to Friday) as a Today’s Science Sparks on the Library Website. If you are curious about past Today’s Science Sparks, you can browse the Archives. In support of Open Access if you find a Today’s Science Sparks that has been marked as Open Access, feel free to click on the Tweet icon next to the highlighted paper to easily share this publication on Twitter.

Finally, another way to participate in the open access week experience, you can follow the conversation on Twitter, as well as share your thoughts. Don’t forget to include the official hashtag — #OAWeek.

If you have any questions about Open Access, don’t hesitate to contact me!

Donna Gibson
Director, Library Services

October is National Medical Librarians Month!

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Join us in celebration and to recognize the contributions of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Library team who continue to provide research and information to our physicians, nurses, pharmacists, students, and other healthcare professionals across the Center and all our MSK locations.

This year’s theme, Make Better Decisions Faster: Consult Your Health Information Professional, focuses on how we deliver value by providing evidence-based research and published literature in support of patients’ treatments and outcomes.

If you have a story to share where a Library staff member has had a positive impact on your work, feel free to let me know. In addition, you can review our Services webpage to learn more about what we do.

Donna Gibson
Director, Library Services

Available Online: Virtual Connections, MSK Library Report 2020 – 2021

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I am delighted to present to our readers and library users our Library Report, highlighting staff accomplishments for 2020 and 2021. This report celebrates many of our successes and marks our progress over the last two years. We highlight key improvements to our operations and services, share client impact stories and metrics, and showcase library staff’s publications. 

I am particularly proud of the client impact stories we selected to write about – how we listened to library users and MSK staff to craft our Library Strategic Plan and roadmap for the next three years, reimagined services to address workflows impacted by COVID-19, transitioned to an online training model, supported the Global Cancer Disparity Initiatives, continued to assist MSK authors, and shared information about the rise of preprint servers. 

I hope this report will serve to spark interest in MSK staff to take a few moments to explore a new resource, service, or call us to collaborate on a team project. If you want to learn more about the MSK Library or the services we provide, do not hesitate to contact me.

Donna Gibson
Director, Library Services