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Medical Librarians Visit Doha, Qatar

Daniel E. Cleary

Diana Delgado and Helen-Ann Brown, information services librarians, and Octavio Morales, head of Library Computer Services, at the Weill Cornell Medical Library in New York City, traveled to Doha, Qatar, in February to consult with the librarians of the "Distributed eLibrary". The eLibrary supports the Middle East campus of the Weill Cornell Medical College, now in its third year of providing pre-medical and medical education to the international community of Qatar and the Arabian Gulf region.

Diana presented a detailed report to the medical faculty and library professionals on open access publishing, an area that she actively promotes and teaches here in New York City. She also consulted extensively with the library's Web master and computer services staff. Helen-Ann’s focus was on evidence-based medicine (EBM), assisting librarians there with their participation in that aspect of the curriculum. She led a workshop for library staff in which she developed a clinical case to demonstrate the curricular approach to creating the standard EBM-searchable question. The group then participated in a critique of the course evaluation instrument used. This course, required of first-year medical students, provides in-depth bibliographic instruction and analysis of clinical study taught within the framework of real-life doctor/patient scenarios. Octavio assisted in streamlining the process of interlibrary loan between the Doha and New York City medical libraries. He also assisted with modifications to the eLibrary's Ariel server, which will allow users to create ILL requests via the Web.

This trip by medical library professionals constructively contributed to an ongoing commitment to sharing knowledge by both the medical college and the libraries in support of the educational mission of Cornell.