Library Holiday Gift Ideas

How would you like to give a gift that honors someone and benefits the Library collection at the same time?

• You can accomplish this with a donation of a book to the Library regular collection, or the History of Medicine collection. Donated books will have a bookplate that acknowledges the honoree and the donor. The honored person will receive notice of your donation.
• You can “adopt” a historical book in the History of Medicine collection through the Adopt-A-Book program of the History of Medicine Associates by paying for needed conservation treatment. Donors receive adoption packets with pictures of the books before and after treatment. Commemorative bookplates are placed inside the books indicating the donor and honoree.
• An excellent gift would be a membership in the History of Medicine Associates. The Associates are a support group for the Historical Research Center of the Library. They sponsor the Adopt-A-Book program, provide a yearly research grant to promote the history of the health sciences in Arkansas, and provide a lecture series at UAMS on the history of the health sciences. Each year a dinner meeting is held with an invited speaker. Members receive newsletters and an opportunity to participate in the various activities initiated and supported by the group.

For information on gift donations of books to the regular collection contact Mary Hawks, Collection Management, 686-6749, or e-mail hawksmarys@uams.edu.

For information on donations to the History of Medicine, Adopt-A-Book, or membership in the History of Medicine Associates, contact Margaret Johnson, 686-6733, or e-mail johnsonmargareta@uams.edu.

Margaret Johnson,
Head, Historical Research Center

Some Online Resources Temporarily Unavailable

The Library’s servers will be shut down from 9:00 pm on Sunday, December 22 until Thursday, December 26 at 7:00 am while utility ducts are being constructed for the new College of Public Health building next to the Library. The electricity will be turned off and on several times (unpredictably) for extended periods of time while the construction is being done, and we do not think that it would be wise to bring the servers up and down several times in one day, or to have employees here while there are no lights and heat in our building.

The unavailability of the servers means that the Library’s website, catalog, Ovid databases, online journals, and ILLiad and Ariel interlibrary loan systems will not be available. However, UAMS personnel will be able to access Ovid databases and the full-text journals we purchase through Ovid by requesting a password and ID from the Library (call 686-6734 before 6 pm Friday, December 20) and going directly to the Ovid website at http://gateway.ovid.com. Also, Medline and other National Library of Medicine databases are available at http://pubmed.gov. Unfortunately, online journals purchased by the Library from vendors other than Ovid will not be available during this time because they must be accessed through the Library's online catalog, which resides on one of the servers being shut down.

Also, UAMS faculty can always gain access to the Library when it is closed by calling the UAMS Police at 686-7777. Upon presentation of a UAMS ID, the police will lock the faculty member inside the Library. When the faculty member wants to leave, he or she can call the police and they will unlock the door. Materials may be checked out by following the instructions left on the circulation desk whenever the Library is closed. A sign with instructions about accessing the Library when it is closed is always posted on the front door of the Library.

This is the first time, in many years at least, that the UAMS Library will be closed for five days in a row. We originally made the decision to close these days because of low usage statistics during the holidays the past few years, because of limited staffing (we've cut 10 of our 48 positions in the past 3 years), because faculty can use the Library when it is closed, and because we thought all of our online resources would be available remotely as well as on campus. We did not foresee the problems with limited access to some of our online resources caused by the construction. We're sorry for the inconvenience.

If you have any questions, feel free to call Library Administration at 686-6730 or email ryanmaryl@uams.edu.

Mary L. Ryan
UAMS Library Director