From the Director
Associate Dean and Director
Bernard Becker Medical Library
I am the first to admit that I vastly underestimated the staying power of the COVID-19 pandemic and the enduring changes that it has brought to our lives and work. The vision of everyone returning to work at the library is a distant memory, replaced by the new reality of a hybrid workforce and virtual services.
It is with great pride and sincere admiration of everyone at Becker Library that I have seen our library not only adapt to the new reality but thrive in it! The 2021 annual report outlines the successes our staff has achieved in the past year.
We have honed our skills in providing virtual meetings, training sessions, and lectures. Online books, journals, and databases, once taken for granted as a convenience, are now vital to education, discovery, and equity.
Reflecting on the accomplishments of the past year, and seeing the impact of our work on our community, it is clear that Becker Library is firmly establishing itself as the digital hub for essential information and services and, as part of the Office of Health Information and Data Science, is poised to have an even larger impact in coming years.
What you will see in our annual report is continued strong demand across all library services – with significant increases in the areas of research computing, data management and systematic reviews.
We intensified our efforts around science and health communication to help combat the growth of misinformation and public skepticism in science and medicine.
And finally, we reinforced our commitment to sharing and promoting our unique historical and rare book collections through virtual programming and increased digitization of archival items.
Our dedication to service remains unchanged although we work largely off-site and via Zoom. Please let us know how we can serve you best.