Library Services

The Ingersoll Bowditch Medical Library serves the entire Faulkner Hospital community. In support of patient care, medical teaching programs, continuing medical education, academic affiliations and other knowledge based programs, the library maintains a clinical collection of the latest books in the specialties we serve, receives over 200 journals, and provides reference services, interlibrary loans, computerized access to clinical bibliographic and full-text literature. Since this is a non-circulating library, all materials must be used onsite.

The library provides literature or referrals for medically related questions. Most information can be found through our numerous electronic databases, textbooks, directories, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and physician/ hospital guides . Training is provided as requested or needed.

We provide individualized attention and instruction in a comfortable setting. We can customize our services as we continually assess the needs of our users and are proactive in our approach. Anticipating user needs are the foundation of the library's service.

Facilities

The library is centrally located on the 4th floor (across from the Chief of Medicine's suite and down the hall from the Chief of Surgery). The library's main room is open 24 hours per day, 7 days a week. The main room and office are staffed by library personnel, weekdays, from 8:30 am - 5:00 pm. The office, which houses a "Core Collection" of the latest books, is closed weekends and holidays. After hours access is available for hospital staff via the Security Department.

The library contains a clinical collection of texts, telephone and photocopier. The library also holds more than 200 different journals and maintains back files of at least 10 years or more. It receives four daily newspapers: The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Our seven computers allow the medical staff the ability to search various databases, including bibliographic literature, full-text articles, pharmacological information and patient information.

Computer Resources

Please click here to visit our Online Catalog.The library has developed universal access to electronic knowledge-based resources, i.e., PUBMED, the National Library of Medicine's database of journals and abstracts for over 19,000 worldwide journals. The library also has access to the Partners Healthcare Handbook which includes:

• UpToDate.
• Drug Information, including Micromedex.
• E-textbooks, including The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy.
• Clinical Topics and Calculators.
• Partners Hospital's manuals, guidelines, forms & documents, and websites.
• MDConsult, which includes full-text online books and the Clinics of North America series.

Donations

Donations of funds and resources are actively solicited for the library. The library has been extremely fortunate in receiving grants from various organizations and donors.

Our medical staff has provided extremely generous funding (including bequests and gifts) to the library every year and restricted funds have supported library functions over the years.

Contact Information

Director of Library Services
Cara Helfner, MSLIS
Phone: 617-983-7443
Fax: 617-983-7555
chelfner@partners.org