Staff members spend a considerable amount of their spare time on professional activities, serving on various committees of the Guild of Book Workers, the Metroplitan New York Library Council (METRO), the New York County Medical Society, and other organizations.
Consultations
The conservation staff has provided consultations to many academic and other institutions in the region interested in setting up conservation/preservation procedures. The conservation staff welcome questions on book and paper conservation topics; call (212) 822-7364.
The Library has been designated a resource center by the National Library of Medicine for preservation activities concerning New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. The Conservation/Preservation department maintains a regional preservation reference collection and regularly consults and assists with the preservation planning of other health service organizations participating in the National Library of Medicine's Regional Medical Library northeast program.
The staff holds frequent tours of the lab, and welcomes questions and consultations.
Preservation Needs Assessments and Planning
The New York Academy of Medicine, under contract to the National Library of Medicine, performed a preservation needs assessment of United States Health Sciences Libraries in 1989. A national sample of health sciences and other types of libraries having significant holdings of biomedical literature was studied to determine the status of library preservation programs.
The study was designed to determine the extent of preservation/conservation activity presently underway in the medical library community; to assess the medical library community's ability to participate in national cooperative preservation efforts; and, to evaluate basic preservation information and training needs. A needs assessment document was drawn up and distributed to over 800 libraries.
The resulting data were analyzed and returned to the National Library of Medicine. Recommendations for incorporating the findings into future national program planning were presented. (Preservation activities and needs in U.S. biomedical libraries: a status report. Brett A Kirkpatrick, Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 1989; 77(3):276-83.)
Microfilm Project
The Library is participating in the National Library of Medicine's Microfilming Project, the aim of which is to create archival copies of complete runs of important biomedical serials titles. To date, titles comprising volumes have been searched, located and shipped to NLM for microfilming.
Contact the Preservation Department at conservation@nyam.org
Library Patrons
Due to a planned renovation project, the Coller Rare Book Reading Room will be closed to readers from February 1, 2013. We anticipate that the room will reopen for use on June 1 2013.
Please contact history@nyam.org or 212-822-7313 with queries. We will do our best to accommodate readers and reference requests, but please note that some parts of the collection will not be accessible, response times will be slower and appointment times may be limited.
