The Hardin Library for the Health Sciences serves the combined information and research needs of the Colleges of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health, the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics (including related allied-health education programs), and the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology. The mission of the Hardin Library is to disseminate health sciences information to the students, faculty and staff of the University of Iowa in support of education, research, and health care, and to preserve the scholarly record for the future.
Hardin Library for the Health Sciences is part of the University of Iowa Library system. The Library, built in 1974, combined the previously separate medical, dental, pharmacy, nursing, and speech pathology collections. In 1988 the library's name was changed from the Health Sciences Library to the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences in honor of Dr. Robert C. Hardin, long time College of Medicine Dean who was instrumental in planning and raising funds for the facility. The present collection contains more than 370,000 volumes while users have local access to over 14,000 periodical titles. In addition to housing these collections, the library has a large amount of space for research and reading, and can accommodate over 800 users. [See also: Hardin Library for the Health Sciences - a Photographic History]
The Hardin Library employs 11 librarians, nine library assistants and support personnel, and approximately 18 FTE student workers. Staff members provide a wide array of services and functions including selection, acquisition, technical processing, electronic/traditional reference, document delivery, circulation, electronic/traditional reserve, bookstacks maintenance, interlibrary loan, mediated database searching, and web development. In addition, a growing number of education programs are provided to both students and faculty. This service area will continue to expand as library staff members play an increased role in providing information skills within the formal curricula of the health colleges. The growing complexity and volume of information needs has also prompted staff to initiate formal research consultation services which are available to all library users on an appointment basis.
The University of Iowa Libraries is a member of several consortia: the Research Libraries Group (RLG); the Iowa Computer Assisted Network (ICAN); the National Network of Libraries of Medicine; the Iowa Council of Health Sciences Libraries, and the Resource Sharing Network for the CIC Institutions (the Big Ten and the University of Chicago). Through these relationships, faculty and students at the University of Iowa have superb access to materials held at other institutions. Such networks also allow the Hardin Library to extend its services to other libraries throughout Iowa and the rest of the country. Last year, the library received and filled just under 29,000 interlibrary loan requests from other institutions.
Selection of all library materials is performed by a Collection Management Librarian with input as appropriate from faculty and staff.
Users needing electronic access to the health science information are well served through Ovid which provides access to 15 health related databases; MD Consult; UpToDate; StatRef; and thousands of electronic periodicals. All of these resources are available from anywhere on campus and remotely via the Internet
As part of the University of Iowa Library System, the Hardin Library uses InfoHawk the Aleph 500 integrated library system from Ex Libris. InfoHawk includes records for all monographic works and currently received Government Documents.
Public access workstations within the Hardin Library reference area allow users onsite access to a variety of local databases and remote information resources (including the Internet).
The Hardin library is also home to the Information Commons, located on the second floor. This facility is a central support and delivery venue for courseware development, classroom instruction, health-related research, and independent learning. It boasts several high-end multimedia development workstations, two networked 50-seat electronic classrooms, information research workstations for searching health-related databases and the Internet.
The Hardin Library supports a publicly available World Wide Web Site (URL: http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin). The Hardin Web site provides a wealth of information on electronic resources as well as access to library services such as online searching, reference, interlibrary loan, and on-campus document delivery. As a health sciences library within the CIC consortium, the Hardin Library is also taking an active role in the development of HealthWeb, a cooperative Web development project which draws on the expertise of Web and subject experts from Big Ten libraries to create a site which provides organized access to evaluated non-commercial, health-related, Internet-accessible resources.