The Archives at St. Michael’s Hospital are excited to announce 80 newsletters from the Alumnae of St. Michael’s School of Nursing have been digitized! We invite you to experience the collection for yourself and share the collection with colleagues, family, or friends who might enjoy this historical content. These newsletters are filled with a wealth of information relating to the nursing graduates and Canadian nursing and healthcare history. Visit the collection here: bit.ly/smharchive. If you have any questions about the collection, please reach out to our archivist Teruko.Kishibe@unityhealth.ca
As we find ourselves spending more time at home, the need to engage with the world outside our walls becomes increasingly important. Here are some of the ways the team of Library Services are celebrating Black History Month (or Black Futures Month) virtually and remotely.
Join Wikipedia and add articles about the African-Canadians who inspire you most.
Our Library catalogue
Black History Month coincides not only with new stay at home orders, but also the migration of the University of Toronto Libraries and our library catalogue to a brand new platform. So while we are ironing out the kinks with our new library catalogue (which we’re excited to share with you, you’ll love it), we hope you enjoy and take advantage of the outside resources that highlight some of the ways our staff is celebrating Black history this February.
Happy New Year and welcome back to Library Services’ Library Link Newsletter! 2021 will be a big year for Library Services and we look forward to sharing all of the exciting things to come. Click on the newsletter image below to view a printable PDF edition.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out to hslibrary@smh.ca. Thank you, and happy 2021!
Welcome to Library Service’s newsletter! This is a special edition of our newsletter representing 2020 as a whole. All of the numbers you see below represent some of the accomplishments Library Services are most proud of! Please click on the newsletter or the file below to view a PDF version of the newsletter!
Since September 2020, the Library Services team has completed Phase 2 and is nearly finished Phase 3 of the Collection Harmonization Project. This work has involved the detailed analysis of all library resource subscriptions at our three sites; notably with usage statistics from 2017-2020, cost-per-use trends, overall cost, site-specific clinical specializations, interlibrary loan request statistics, and identified information needs based on the Needs Assessment Project (2019). Subsequently, building upon our evidence-based approach, we shared proposed collection changes with Education Council and received approval to proceed with cancelling and expanding licenses to library subscriptions. The results of this work are, firstly, a huge improvement for equity of access to library resources across the network, and secondly the establishment of a core collection of shared resources available to all of Unity Health Toronto staff and physicians.
In November we shared details about the changes for access to ClinicalKey at St. Joseph’s, and also previewed new databases which will soon be available to St. Joseph’s to supplement gaps in lost resources from that cancellation. We are very excited to share a glimpse of the new Library Services “core collection” of shared resources for Unity Health Toronto, listed below. These databases comprise the core collection of shared resources across the network.
Table core shared library resources available to all Unity Health staff and physicians, taking effect January 2021.
Many of these new library resources and changes will take effect in January 2021. These changes will also include expanded access to journal titles across the Unity Health Toronto network, and will be shared in January. The Library Service team will ensure to communicate all of these changes as far-reaching as possible to make certain that staff and physicians at all sites are aware of their new access to brand new resources.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns related to this work, about the new library resources, or to propose other new resources, please get in touch! Please contact Zack Osborne, Manager of Health Information & Knowledge Mobilization at zachary.osborne@unityhealth.to, or contact hslibrary@smh.ca.
Library Services is excited to announce the next steps in our efforts to harmonize and bring new resources to Unity Health Toronto. Since 2019 our team has been working towards library resource harmonization across the three sites to ensure equitable access to resources and library service across the network. If you’re interested in learning more about the library’s collection harmonization work and goals, please check out our blog post.
As part of the harmonization work, we analyzed collection usage data, consulted outcomes of our Needs Assessment Project (2019), prioritized clinical information needs across three sites, and identified gaps and overlap in the legacy library collections at all three sites. Based on a thorough cost-benefit analysis and with approval from Education Council, Library Services will cancel access to ClinicalKey at St. Joseph’s Health Centre. Staff, physicians, and students at St. Joe’s will be unable to access ClinicalKey after November 30, 2020. Those who had a ClinicalKey account will be emailed directly, notifying them of this update. Starting in January 2021, all St. Joe’s staff, physicians and students will gain access to a host of new databases and journals which will greatly enhance St. Joe’s electronic collection. Many of these platforms and journals will cover gaps in the literature previously identified by legacy collections.
Starting January 2021, all staff, physicians, and students at St. Joe’s will have access to:
If you require access to any resource for which the library does not have a subscription, Library Services can acquire articles through our interlibrary loan service. For more details, see our interlibrary loan page here: https://bit.ly/SJHCILL. If there are any resources you believe the library needs, please feel free to make recommendations here: https://bit.ly/Libfeedback. As always, if you have and questions or concerns, please email the library at library@stjoestoronto.ca.
Thank you for your continued collaboration. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we work to ensure equitable access for all of our Unity Health Toronto sites.
Welcome to the November Newsletter! We have an exciting edition for you this month: we have updates to our Anti-BIPOC Racism collection, a new Hold Pick-up service is now being offered at St. Joes, our Library hours have changed, and much more! Click on the newsletter below to view a PDF version of the newsletter for more details. If you have any questions please reach out to hslibrary@smh.ca. Happy November!
Starting November 2, Hold Pickup service for library material will be available at St. Joseph’s Health Centre! This includes print books and journals in our main collection, as well as titles from the Leadership Collection and new Anti-BIPOC Racism collection. Holds can be retrieved from the Library during open space hours.
Below are instructions to place your Hold Pickup:
1. Find the item(s) you want to borrow
First, use our St. Joe’s library catalogue to find the item(s) you’d like to borrow by searching here:
To pick up your requested item(s), please visit the Library at St. Joe’s (Sunnyside Building, 1st floor east), and locate your item(s) on the Hold shelf next to the Library office.
When returning the library item(s) you borrowed, please use the drop-box located by the library entrance in the hallway.
This form and service are intended for staff, Physicians, researchers and learners at St. Joseph’s Health Centre. If you’d like to request Hold Pickup for St. Michael’s Hospital, please use a different site-specific form found here. If you have any questions or would like clarification, please reach out to library@stjoestoronto.ca and we will be happy to help.
After requesting recommendations from staff, physicians and learners and conducting their own extensive research, our Library team is introducing 30 new books to Unity Health Toronto’s library system. All books will be focused on the topics of dismantling systemic racism and white supremacy, systems of oppression and discrimination and anti-BIPOC racism.
This new resource will be named the Anti-BIPOC Racism Collection. The scope and inclusion criteria that largely determined which books were selected include titles relating to health professions, a focus and relevance to Canada and a publish date within the last ten years. There will be three copies of each book at Unity Health; one available at each site’s library.
“This year, we saw a demonstrated need for greater understanding and social change with regards to anti-racism,” said Zack Osborne, Manager of Health Information and Knowledge Mobilization at Unity Health Toronto. “As an organization and as individuals, we felt a responsibility to make changes where we can and to facilitate access to learning related to anti-racism, equity and social accountability.”
This collection, which is expected to arrive later this month, will be constantly evaluated and evolving to reflect recommended books, the addition of books that are constantly signed out and new books that should be added.
Examples of some of the new books that will be arriving are: “Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor” by Layla F. Saad; “Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth” by Dána-Ain Davis; and “Strong Helpers’ Teachings: The Value of Indigenous Knowledges in the Helping Professions” by Cyndy Baskin. The full list of new books arriving in October can be found in this the Library Services blog post.
“We felt that adding the Anti-BIPOC Racism Collection to our library will help amplify BIPOC narratives and experiences, promote self-directed learning and dialogue, and impact changes in non-BIPOC individuals to confront white supremacy and help become anti-racist,” said Osborne.
The Library team at Unity Health that created this collection is composed of Osborne and his colleagues Karen Devotta, Library Technician; Teruko Kishibe, Information Specialist/Archivist and David Lightfoot, Information Specialist.
The article by Selma Al-Samarrai, Communications and Public Affairs, Unity Health Toronto
