The health sciences library offers refuge to students and faculty, and it’s one of few places on upper campus.
Just south of the School of Medicine is the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library.
Open 100 hours a week during the semester, the library is a comfortable facility to socialize, study and “decompress,” says Wayne Peay, library director.
Available materials serve the educational, research and clinical needs of health professionals, students and researchers at the U, says the library Web page.
From the page, medlib.med.utah.edu, students can access the online catalog-a computerized database.
The catalog allows students to print electronic material or multimedia owned by the library. It contains records of books, journal titles, audiovisuals, theses, reserve items, government documents and multimedia located at the library.
Besides document access, the library is one of the only two real community spaces in the Health Sciences Center, Peay said.
The other is the crowded and noisy cafeteria.
“Right now, we’re the community’s educational facility, where every student and faculty member can feel at home. We’re all about service,” Peay said.
Garth Garrison, a medical student, comes to the library four or five times a week, most recently to study for his board exams.
Dallon Jones, a public health student working on his master’s, says he enjoys using the library’s computers. He’s been able to find books on cancer for his research and had a thesis from another university sent there.
Some of the functions of the library will change in a few years when the new Health Sciences Education Building, directly to the south of the library, is completed.
“It will surely change the library,” Peay said. “It will have a much larger student social environment.”
But according to Peay, the library will still offer students a quiet place to study and the library faculty will be needed to assist with technology going into the new building.
When the education building was designed, students insisted on a bridge connecting the two facilities, Peay said.
The Eccles Library is unique in that it is a science library.
The staff is much more focused on health sciences. Their knowledge and expertise are much deeper in those areas. Peay predicts their services will be needed more than ever in the coming years, as colleges like the College of Nursing admit more students.
The library includes three levels, with the entrance on the second. The public service areas of duplication, circulation, reserve, interlibrary loans and reference can all be found on that level.