Levy Library Blog

Today is National Library Workers Day, a day to highlight the contributions of all library workers. The Gustave L. and Janet W. Levy Library and the Mount Sinai Health System libraries are staffed by over twenty people serving on the following teams: Access Services, Education and Research Services, Instructional Technology, and Licensing and E-Resources. These teams work together to ensure the Mount Sinai libraries are accessible for studying and learning and that they are places where students, faculty, and staff can request and receive library support services. The following locations have dedicated library staff to serve the wider Mount Sinai community: Mount Sinai Phillips School of Nursing, Mount Sinai West, Mount Sinai Morningside, and Mount Sinai Beth Israel/Downton.

The mission of the Gustave L. and Janet W. Levy Library is to support the educational, research and patient care activities of the faculty, students and staff of the Mount Sinai Medical Center. Our vision is to be the leading provider of biomedical information for the Mount Sinai Medical Center, using innovative and emerging technologies to facilitate medical education, research and clinical practice. None of this would be possible without the dedication and expertise of our library workers. Today on National Library Workers Day, please join us in celebrating our amazing library team!

For more information about our library locations, services and staff, see the links below:

• Levy Library: https://libguides.mssm.edu/about_us/levy-library
• Phillips School of Nursing Information Commons: https://libguides.mssm.edu/PSON
• Mount Sinai West Medical Library: https://libguides.mssm.edu/MSW
• Mount Sinai Morningside Information Commons: https://libguides.mssm.edu/MSM
• Mount Sinai Beth Israel Library: https://libguides.mssm.edu/MSBI_Library/home

For more information about National Library Workers Day and National Library Week (April 23-29), check out these links:

• National Library Week: https://www.ala.org/conferencesevents/celebrationweeks/natlibraryweek
• National Library Workers Day: https://ala-apa.org/nlwd/

Kerry McKee, MLIS (She/her/hers)

Associate Director, Public Services

Did you know that Tuesday April 5, 2022 was National Library Workers Day - a part of National Library Week. It’s a day we recognize the valuable contributions made by all Library workers, especially our own library staff members who continue to work hard to support our school, research, and hospital communities every day. Whether they are making journals, e-books and databases available to the public, promoting library services and engaging with our communities online, answering questions at the front desk, ensuring our physical spaces are clean and welcoming, protecting our collections, or participating in a variety of other remote services, our library staff members continue to dedicate their time and energy to ensure that the Mount Sinai community is supported.

On behalf of the Mount Sinai community who continue to share how much these resources and services mean to them, I wanted to express thanks and gratitude for the exceptional work that all our team members put in day in and out to keep our libraries going:

• Chandra Weaver joined the Levy Library team in 1986 (yes that’s over 35 years!) as a library assistant supporting our interlibrary loans unit and continues to oversee the daily operations of our borrowing service to this day. You can also findChanda at the Levy Library front desk helping patrons with a myriad of questions from printing to book recommendations.


• Jessica Walker joined the Levy Library team in 2008 as one of our Circulation Services library assistants. Jessica helps to ensure that library physical spaces, equipment, and facilities are maintained, helps answer questions at the front, and occasionally brings in candy for our patrons!


• Luke Clinton joined the Mount Sinai West/Mount Sinai Morningside Library team in 2018 as our Library OperationsCoordinator. You can find Luke managing our library spaces at MountSinai West and Morningside, and supporting both in-person and online patron inquiries. Luke also supports the daily lending operations for interlibrary loan services providing a valuable services to our shared resources network.


• Terrell Artis joined the Levy Library team in 2001 as a Library Assistant specializing in cataloging and continues to oversee the maintenance of our physical collections and technology equipment. Terrell also supports ours physical library spaces and helps patrons every day at our front desk.


• Angelyn Thornton joined the Levy Library team in 2017 as our Outreach Coordinator. From managing our social media channels to designing our digital and print communications, Angelyn has been instrumental in sharing the story of the library and engaging with our community about all the library services and resources that are available.

We are thrilled to welcome Brendan Plann-Curley, MSLIS (He/him/his) to the Mount Sinai Sinai Health System Libraries team! Brendan is our new Reference and Instruction Librarian at Phillips School of Nursing at Mount Sinai and Liaison to the Levy Library. He provides research, education, and instruction services to the students, faculty, staff, and administration at the Phillips School of Nursing. He is expert in the areas of literature review and searching, nursing research, reference management, instructional design, and evidence-based practice in nursing. Brendan has a long track record of working in various roles within academic libraries in the New York area, and he especially enjoys working with nursing students and faculty. He holds a Bachelor's of Arts in Liberal Arts from The New School and a Master of Science in Library and Information Science with an Advanced Certificate in Archives from Pratt Institute.

Keep reading to learn more about Brendan:

What were you doing before joining the Levy team?

I worked as a reference librarian in the Birnbaum Library at Pace University for a little over 10 years. I did a bit of everything there including working closely with faculty and students in the College of Health Professions.   

Tell us a bit about your role and responsibilities with the library:

I am the Reference and Instruction Librarian at the Phillips School of Nursing at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, where I support the research and education needs of our community. I work in the Information Commons in the new location at 148 E 126^th Street in East Harlem. I also liaison with the Levy Library and help staff their reference desk one day a week.

What are you most looking forward to in your new role?

I am looking forward to getting to know everyone at PSON, my colleagues at Levy, our institutional history, and further developing my skills as a health sciences librarian.

If you could have a second career, what would it be?

Rock star, of course!

Favorite movie or TV show:

Lately I am a sucker for British mystery programs! I also loved watching The Beatles: Get Back.

What are your interests/hobbies outside of work?

Ever since buying a fixer-upper last year, my hobby has been DIY home improvement projects!

Be sure to say hello next time you see him!

Happy One-Year Work Anniversary to Kaci Resau, our E-Resources Manager!

Do you have a favorite resource that you access through The Levy Library? You can thank Kaci for that! In her role, Kaci is responsible for managing the behind-the-scenes library systems that help staff and patrons retrieve materials that they need to either do their job or their research. 

When asked to reflect upon her first year with The Levy Library, here is what Kaci had to say:

"During my first year, I really enjoyed getting to work on the licensing and technical services team. We worked behind the scenes to ensure our electronic resource holdings were up to date, findable, and accessible; with hundreds of thousands of resources, that was no easy feat! We also made enhancements to the discovery layer so that patrons could find and connect to materials more easily. We integrated the option for users to download directly from the discovery layer, when possible, instead of needing to click to a vendor platform to retrieve a PDF. As I move into my second year, I’m looking forward to building on these activities with my colleagues so that we can continue to improve the research experience for the Mount Sinai community."

We are so thankful to have Kaci on our team and look forward to what she in store for 2022!

Linda Paulls, MLIS 

Mount Sinai Beth Israel Medical Librarian

Consumer health information is information on health topics and medical conditions available to the general public at the layperson level, usually written in non-technical language. It’s estimated that 70% of U.S. adults search the web for health information.¹ Online information can influence health beliefs and health decision-making. Unfortunately, not all health websites are credible, accurate, or up-to-date. With so many seeking online health information, some less-than-credible or opportunistic websites can attempt to influence information-seekers for their own gain, rather than offer unbiased, evidence-based information. Some of these websites offer opinions not facts, while others are motivated by a sponsor or business with the goal of promoting something.

So, how can information-seekers identify a credible website from a bad website? Luckily, there is criteria for evaluating consumer health websites, sometimes referred to as the ABC’s of evaluating consumer health websites:

• Accuracy: Information should be based on facts from medical research, not opinion. Authors’ email address(es)/contact info, and credentials should be provided. Is this person qualified to write on this topic? Sources for factual information should be listed.
• Authority: Who created the website? Check the “About us” page. Check the website’s URL. The web address can provide information about the nature of the site. Websites from the U.S. government (.gov), a university (.edu), and health organizations or professional societies (.org) are considered reputable with no financial gain. In addition, author’s credentials and affiliations should be listed to demonstrate that he or she can write with authority on the topic.
• Bias/Objectivity: Information should be objective and free of bias. Is the purpose and intention of the site clear? There should be no advertisements, no marketing. Blogs are opinion-based, not reliable, authoritative sources.
• Currency: Is the information current? The date the website was last updated should be listed. If it contains links, are they up-to-date? 
• Coverage/Design: Is the site well-designed? It should be free of broken links, typos, spelling errors. These could be indicators that the site is not maintained, not up-to-date, or not from a credible source. You should be able to view information without fees or browser issues. 

  

Many consumer health websites choose to abide by the Health-on-the-Net Code (HON). The HONcode Symbol represents the code of conduct of the Health On the Net Foundation, one of the most widely used and best trusted ethical codes for consumer health websites. It is still advisable to evaluate website content even when the HONcode symbol is present.

For more information on evaluating consumer health websites, visit:

• The Levy Library Guide: Consumer Health Information, A Brief Guide: https://libguides.mssm.edu/consumer-health-information

• Medical Library Association (MLA): For Consumers and Patients, Find Good Health Information:  https://www.mlanet.org/page/find-good-health-information

• (National Library of Medicine) MedlinePlus: Guide to Healthy Web Surfing: https://medlineplus.gov/healthywebsurfing.html       

• AmericanFamilyDoctor.org: Finding Information on the Web, Finding Reliable Information: https://familydoctor.org/health-information-on-the-web-finding-reliable-information/?adfree=true

References

1. Sun Y, Zhang Y, Gwizdka J, Trace CB. Consumer evaluation of the quality of online health information: Systematic literature review of relevant criteria and indicators. J Med Internet Res. 2019 May;21(5): e12522. Available from DOI: 10.2196/12522

2. Kapoun, J. Teaching undergrads web evaluation: a guide for library instruction. C&RL News. 1998 July/August: 522-523. [cited 2021Nov4]. Available from https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/23707/31079

3. For health consumers and patients: find good health information [Internet] Medical Library Association (MLA); 2021 [cited 2021 Nov4]. Available from https://www.mlanet.org/page/find-good-health-information

4. Guide to healthy web surfing [Internet] MedlinePlus. U.S. National Library of Medicine; 2015 [cited 2021Nov4]. Available from https://medlineplus.gov/healthywebsurfing.html

5. The commitment to reliable health and medical information on the internet [Internet] HonCode patient/individual. Health on the Net; 2018 [cited 2021 Nov4] Available from https://www.hon.ch/HONcode/Patients/Visitor/visitor.html

Lily Martin, MLIS (She/her/hers)

Reference & Instruction Librarian

If you’re involved in publishing your research, you may be required (or prefer!) to publish open access (OA). Over the past decade, as open access publishing models have evolved, various subtypes of open access have been identified. These are often referred to by a range of colors, gems, or precious metals and can be a bit tricky to differentiate. Let’s take a look at some of the most common subtypes of open access and where you may come across them:

Gold OA:

One of the most common types of open access is referred to as gold OA. Publishing in this model typically involves paying article processing charges (APCs) which may be paid by (or in combination by) library/institutional funds, personal funds, or grants. This ensures that the final version of record of an article (that is, a final, peer-reviewed manuscript) is freely available upon publication at the journal’s website. If all of a journal’s content fits this model it is referred to as a gold OA journal.¹

Green OA:

Another common type of open access, green OA, is a bit more difficult to define as it may cover several different cases, but in general refers to versions of articles self-archived in an open access repository.² In other words, green OA may be a version of an article that is posted somewhere other than a journal website. Examples include accepted author manuscripts posted on PubMed Central, pre-prints posted on a pre-print server, or manuscripts posted on an institutional repository. Green OA, in many cases, requires authors to be responsible for depositing a version of an article in an open access repository.¹ However, the final version of record of the article will typically be behind a paywall on a journal’s website.

Diamond OA:

Diamond OA refers to a type of gold OA that does not require article processing charges or subscription fees. In effect, diamond OA journals are free for both readers and authors. Funding for these journals comes from outside sources, such as non-profit organizations, public funds, or elsewhere.³

Bronze OA:

Bronze OA refers to articles that are made free to read on a publisher website. This access may be temporary, however, as it is not guaranteed by author payment or contract.⁴ An example of bronze OA you may have seen recently is a journal making its COVID-19-related content open and accessible to everyone.

Hybrid OA:

At the journal level, some traditional subscription journals also give authors to option to publish individual articles open access. These are referred to as hybrid OA journals. Generally, in these types of journals, individual open access papers (paid for by APCs) appear alongside paywalled articles that the library provides access to via licensing fees.²

This is just a brief overview of the many colors of the OA rainbow, and as OA continues to evolve, these definitions may change. We may even see more OA models develop in the future!

Interested in learning more about your open access publishing options? Visit our Open Access Guide!

References

1. Holley RP. Open Access: Current Overview and Future Prospects. Library Trends. 2018;67(2):214-40.
2. Hinchliffe, LJ. Seeking Sustainability: Publishing Models for an Open Access Age. [Internet] The Scholarly Kitchen; 2020 [cited 6 October 2021]. Available from: https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2020/04/07/seeking-sustainability-publishing-models-for-an-open-access-age/
3. Fuchs C, Sandoval M. The Diamond Model of Open Access Publishing: Why Policy Makers, Scholars, Universities, Libraries, Labour Unions and the Publishing World Need to Take Non-Commercial, Non-Profit Open Access Serious. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society. 2013;11(2):428-43.
4. Piwowar H, Priem J, Larivière V, Alperin JP, Matthias L, Norlander B, et al. The state of OA: a large-scale analysis of the prevalence and impact of Open Access articles. PeerJ. 2018;6:e4375.

Kaci Resau, MA, MLIS (She/her/hers), E-Resources Manager

I am a plant lover, and luckily, I was born with my great-grandmother’s green thumb. Anytime I visit a new city, I always explore whatever gardens or forests I can find. So, when I heard that the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew was releasing a podcast series, I knew I had to listen.

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew aims to protect biodiversity while supporting sustainability. Currently, the gardens preserve 8.25 plant and fungal specimens and 200,000 botanical illustrations. In 2020, Kew released a new podcast, “Unearthed: Mysteries from an unseen world,” hosted by ethnobotanist & broadcaster/writer, James Wong. The 8-episode podcast (to date) series looks at how fungi and plants play a role in everything from crime-solving, to body healing, to new laws. Most of the podcasts are about 30 minutes, with a few around 1 hour. It’s a great listen for a commute or while you’re taking a walk.

Listeners can learn about how a zombie fungus can make ants explode, how the Kew was able to help solve a murder by identifying a plant that the murderer used to kill their spouse, food safety, plant/fungi based medical cures, and the seedy underbelly of plant culture via plant trafficking. The podcast brings in horticulturists, toxicologists, climate change experts, and more. My favourite episode focuses on ecocide (the destruction of natural environment by humans deliberately or negligently) and whether or not it is a crime.

Give this podcast a chance and you’ll surely look at plants a lot differently – plus, that James Wong is a fun-gi!

“Unearthed: Mysteries from an unseen world” can be downloaded directly at https://www.kew.org/about-us/virtual-kew-wakehurst/unearthed-kew-podcast or wherever you find your favourite podcasts. You can learn more about Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, here.

Ed Jessup, Public Services Librarian

Urban exploration and photojournalism makes for a great combination when presenting images of inner city decay, blight and sometimes surreal takes on architecture from a bygone era. The implications of this type of journalism are vast. The written word can explain a great deal but sometimes an image can capture something that words just cannot do justice. Photojournalists specializing in images through urban exploration are, in a large way, holding up a mirror to society, and capturing images that create a lot of intrigue and discomfort in to viewers. Nobody does this better than photojournalist and activist, Seph Lawless.

Seph Lawless is a burgeoning photographer, artist and activist who has really pushed the boundaries of urban exploration and photojournalism to really give people a very strong picture what is happing in America. Through his work, Lawless has really brought to the forefront how disposable things are in American culture and society. He work really points out the irreverence Americans tend to have for the past, preferring to move on, leaving ruins in its wake.

Seph Lawless has been quoted on ABC news as saying, “I want Americans to see what is happening to their country from the comfort of their suburban homes and smart phones.” If anything positive has come from our electronic world, it’s the ability to reach people in their comfort zones and force them to think and evaluate things. So my resource recommendation from beyond the stacks is Seph Lawless’s website. Here you can get a smattering of his iconic and sometimes disturbing images of the sometimes not so distant past. His photo galleries of abandoned shopping centers, storm ravaged theme parks, majestic decomposing architecture in Detroit and other places, will peak the viewer’s curiosity. More importantly his images will make the viewer ruminate on our priorities as a society.

Lawless S. SEPH LAWLESS : OFFICIAL WEBSITE. Seph Lawless. https://sephlawless.com. Published 2016. Accessed May 19, 2021.