Mission and Profile

See our current annual report.

The Biomedical Libraries consist of the Dana Biomedical Library on the Medical School's Hanover campus and the Matthews-Fuller Health Sciences Library (MFHSL) at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC). Our mission is to provide health and life sciences information resources and services that advance research and scholarship, education, and patient-care activities of Geisel School of Medicine, DHMC, The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice (TDI), the Dartmouth College Department of Biological Sciences, and The Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science.

The Biomedical Libraries' core priorities are:

• information: providing health and life sciences information that advances research and scholarship, education, and patient-care,
• education: developing and implementing programs to train and educate faculty, staff, and students in the skills needed to effectively find, evaluate, and manage health and life sciences information, and
• collaboration: partnering with our clients, being familiar with their needs, and providing and promoting resources and services that meet those needs.

The Libraries consist of the Dana Biomedical Library on the Medical School's Hanover campus and the Matthews-Fuller Health Sciences Library (MFHSL) at DHMC, and feature public computers, scanners, and printers; wireless network access; individual and small group study space; and a computer classroom (at MFHSL).

The Libraries have a significant digital presence via the web at http://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/biomed/. Clients of the Biomedical Libraries also have use of the extensive resources and services of all of Dartmouth's libraries ( http://library.dartmouth.edu/ ).

The Libraries provide an extensive array of information resources, including printed and digital books and journals, databases, clinical decision support tools, indexes, computer programs, and audiovisual materials. The Biomedical Libraries spent $1.72 million on information resources in FY2011. The print collections of the Biomedical Libraries contain approximately 92,000 physical book volumes and 152,000 serial volumes. Digital collections are extensive, including access to about 4,400 digital biomedical journals and many clinical decision support tools, full-text information resources, and digital books. Some of the notable digital resources available include full-text clinical information such as UpToDate, MD Consult, and Books@Ovid; indexes of the medical and scientific literatures such as PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Web of Science; evidence-based medicine resources such as Clinical Evidence and the Cochrane Library; and full-text collections of journal literature in multiple academic disciplines such as Elsevier Science Direct, Lexis Nexis, ProQuest and EBSCOhost.

The Biomedical Libraries' staff comprises 22.35 FTE, including eight librarians and other professionals (see the Libraries' organization chart in the annual report). The staff actively partner with clients to offer a full range of services to help them become skilled in finding, interpreting, managing, and applying information. Services include in-depth research support, comprehensive education programs, and delivery of information and literature directly to users' computers. We focus on direct and effective communication with our clients about services, information resources, and other library matters.

In addition to service to DHMC, several members of the New England Alliance for Health ( http://www.neahllc.org/ ) contract with the Biomedical Libraries for information services--Central Vermont Medical Center (Barre, Vermont), Cooley Dickinson Hospital (Northampton, Massachusetts), New London Hospital (New London, New Hampshire), and Weeks Medical Center (Lancaster, New Hampshire).