Perkins, Medical Center Libraries Partner to Offer Global Health Resources

Duke University Libraries

Photo by Duke University Libraries

Published November 9, 2010, last updated on March 20, 2013 under Education News

As global health gains momentum as a field of study, research and practice, Duke University’s Perkins Library and Duke University Medical Center Library are working collaboratively to support the broad range of global health activities at Duke with a growing collection of high quality information resources. 

Faculty, researchers, staff and students have access to a wide array of electronic journals and books, global health databases such as PubMed and Web of Science, and can draw on the expertise of two global health librarians and a data/GIS specialist for help. The unique library services partnership between Perkins Library and the Medical Center Library complements DGHI’s mission to work across disciplines to develop innovative solutions to global health challenges.

“The interdisciplinary nature of global health research requires knowledge and awareness of the hundreds of other resources available at Duke. That’s why it’s so crucial that there is a team offering library support to the Institute and those working within global health at Duke,” said Megan von Isenburg, associate director for public services who serves as the liaison to Global Health and Graduate Medical Education at the Medical Center Library.  “The partnership is a wonderful match to the interdisciplinary work being done at DGHI.”

von Isenburg works directly with faculty, clinicians, residents, staff and students from DGHI and the Hubert-Yeargan Center for Global Health to locate and use information about global health-related clinical care, research, teaching and learning.  The Medical Center Library offers access to a diverse collection of e-journals and booksinteractive maps tracking disease, country-specific tool sets, relevant global health reports and statistics, as well as clinical resources to support patient care and evidence-based practice.

For non-medical global health information that relates to the social sciences, Perkins Library also has a growing collection of online resources, and is under the management of Global Health librarian Diane Harvey, who heads Library Instruction and Outreach. Faculty, researchers, staff and students can access 10 essential global health databases and hundreds of others (such as sociology, economics, and political science) that relate to global health,  e-journals, global health web resources, country-specific background information, global health films, and citation and research management software.  Harvey works one-on-one with students and faculty on their global health research questions, ensures they can find the information they are looking for, and she also teaches library instruction sessions for several global health courses.

The vast amount of available global health resources can be a bit daunting to a student, clinician or researcher looking for information, which is why von Isenburg and Harvey encourage people to save time and ask for help. 

“We have access to so much research literature, and we can help users locate information efficiently, and we are always scanning the literature, reading blogs, and talking with other global health librarians to keep up with new resources,” said Harvey of the services at both Perkins Library and the Medical Center Library. “I recently worked with a first year Master of Science in Global Health student who had been searching fruitlessly for a week. After working with her for 20 minutes she was on the right track to identify useful information.”

The Perkins Library also has a department dedicated to data and GIS services, which may be useful for global health research. Under the leadership of Joel Herndon who heads data and GIS services for the Perkins Library system, a staff of librarians can help Duke students, faculty and researchers identify useful datasets and help them use data packages, such as Stata and GIS software such as ArcGIS.  Herndon and his staff are also available for data/GIS consultations.

The full text of many library resources are available online, allowing users to access information at Duke as well as in the field.  Global health librarians have also leveraged new internet technologies, such as Skype video and call conferencing and an iPad and Kindle loaner program, to meet the growing needs for accessibility to information resources and library staff while working in the field.

In an attempt to facilitate the sharing of global health library resources on a larger scale, Harvey says Duke is working to develop a working group of local global health librarians, and would like to network with librarians at member institutions across the US that are part of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health.