University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center

From the Desk of the Director

By the time this issue reaches you, an exciting new development will be emerging in room 2112 of the Domenici Center for Health Sciences Education.... the room will have been upgraded to support videoconferencing. Three "types" of internet-based conferencing will be working (we hope) and available for piloting:

While the technology should technically be installed, HSLIC staff training on the systems and procedures for scheduling and supporting the technology are under development. The addition of these systems within one physical facility is a first for UNM so we anticipate it might take a shakedown period to get things working smoothly. The equipment includes two high resolution large format screens with digital projection, and a new podium with state-of-the-art Crestron controller system for use by the presenter. Departments interested in piloting use of the technology should contact Ed Aalseth.

In the last issue of adobe medicus, I shared with you some factoids about HSLIC that included high rankings in comparison to our national peers in the areas of outreach activities, viewership of the library's web homepage, educational contact hours, and our success with grant-funded positions.

I also wanted to share some data where (due to legislative and HSC funding for collections) we are at the bottom of the list or below the mean in comparison to other U.S. academic health sciences libraries.

In addition, because of the small size of its physical facility, HSLIC must shelve 22% of the print collection in off site storage (30K volumes out of 135K). The small primary physical facility and associated remote storage are now almost full. This creates additional pressure to license electronic holdings versus buying print titles. The budget precludes us from meeting our peers, much less being a national leader in making resources available electronically to our users.

The above data, along with many others collected by our colleague members of the New Mexico Consortium of Academic Libraries (NMCAL) has resulted in a major initiative to bring these issues to the attention of the NM Higher Education Department; more information on this will appear in the next issue of adobe medicus.

Holly Shipp Buchanan, EdD
Associate Vice President for Knowledge Management & IT
hbuchanan@salud.unm.edu

FY07 Faculty Workstation Project

The FY07 Faculty Workstation Project concluded in June with the placement of two hundred new standard laptops and desktops. The project was delayed to include the new Microsoft Campus Agreement Program, which began deployment in August. The agreement provides campus-wide licensing of certain Microsoft products, including Microsoft operating systems and the Office Suite.

The Faculty Workstation Project supports the standards based computing model deployed at the HSC and assists departments with their equipment replacement programs. The FY08 project will begin in October 2007, and will again feature the newest high end standard devices, including the new Microsoft Windows Vista operating system and Microsoft Office 2007. Please watch for details about the FY08 program on the User Support web page beginning in October 2007.

Rick Adcock
Manager, User Support

New Mexico Tuberculosis Collection Now Available

The New Mexico Health Historical Collection at HSLIC recently made available the Carl H. Gellenthien Collection of the Valmora Industrial Sanatorium Records.

This collection represents New Mexico’s early entry into the nation’s “sanatorium movement” of health care providers and “lungers” migrating west in search of a cure from tuberculosis. The collection spans the eight decades in which the Valmora Industrial Sanatorium and clinic were in operation and includes the personal papers of the sanatorium’s two medical directors – William T. Brown (1870-1935) and Carl H. Gellenthien (1900-1989).

Included in the collection are business records, research data, personal papers, photographs, medical equipment and other artifacts, and a human skeleton. The collection is enriched by a related oral history with Dr. Gellenthien. Funding from the New Mexico Historical Records Advisory Board allowed for the inventorying, organizing, cleaning and re-housing the collection. In addition, a finding aid for the collection has been published on the Rocky Mountain Online Archive.

HSLIC will open an exhibit – Search for a Cure: Life at Valmora – featuring artifacts and photographs from the collection as part of Archives Week, a statewide celebration, in October 2007. Accompanying the exhibit will be a lecture by Jake W. Spidle, PhD, Professor of History at UNM. The lecture will focus on the sanatorium movement and its effect on New Mexico.

To find out more about the collection and events planned for October, visit HSLIC’s Special Collections website.

Laura Hall
Senior Program Manager, Special Collections

Literature Search Fee Increase

The rates the Library charges for librarian-mediated literature searches increased July 1. Rates are based on the average time per search multiplied by average personnel costs. Rates are approved by the HSC Financial Services Office.

Fees:

HSLIC reference staff provide literature searches on a wide range of topics, utilizing databases in all areas of academia. Contact the Information Desk at 272-2311 or via email if you would like to discuss the mediated search service.

Richard Carr, MLS
Coordinator, Reference & User Support Services

Writing a Grant Proposal? Don’t Forget HSLIC

The big NIH proposal draft is finally complete. Your case is brilliant and the project will generate several papers that will be published by important journals. As you check your budget… FTE, support staff, travel, conference costs, and equipment…you wonder, are you ready to go? HSLIC could help you answer that question. If your project needs new software or equipment, we may be able to partner with your team to ensure that your project has the resources it needs.

With the cost of electronic access to specialized subject areas skyrocketing, partnering with research teams is one of the best ways to ensure that HSLIC’s collection remains deep enough to support Carnegie Research Tier One research. Let us help you find the right partner to get the most value for our collection dollar.

Your research methodology uses new Tablet PC’s for data collection and you’ve hired a database administrator (DBA) to run a database server. The equipment and people are in the budget. How about proper power, cooling and security for the server? Does your DBA also know how to manage and secure the underlying operating system using the most up-to-date industry best practices? HSLIC provides expertise to optimally manage servers for research groups and is continually updating its support and maintenance processes to be compliant with industry best practices. We can also provide efficient technical oversight/management of IT FTE and help structure application development.

Your project is unique in its field, but it also has potential to support similar projects in other disciplines. Funding agencies are always looking for more return from their investment. Have you considered consulting a biomedical informatics expert to explore the re-use and extension of the information or technology you are going to create? HSLIC has an informatics program which can provide this expertise, both while the grant is being prepared and during the project itself.

There are many types of partnerships, but the most successful are well planned with clearly defined expectations and resource allocation. Ample time invested up-front in planning typically results in more efficient partnerships with more flexible resources. Of course we’re always ready to assist in any way we can, but planning ahead and including us in your grant proposal ensures that you’ll get the support you need when you need it most.

Greg Gaillard
Deputy Director, TECHS

Identity Management IdM

One of the first questions often asked when the subject of Identity Management comes up is: What is Identity Management or IdM? Simply put, IdM is the management of the identity life cycle from creation, to termination. The life cycle of a user’s account (or a device like a workstation or printer) can have many changes over its lifetime. Addressing these challenges involves engineering information as it flows through an organization to meet the changing set of needs that link identity to information. As needs change so does the technology used to automate these often complex processes.

A group was commissioned by the new IT Managers Council, through the new IT governance structure to craft a charter on IdM. A charter was crafted, reviewed and endorsed and the next step is for a team to be formed to draft a proposal for a future state design. That design will be the basis for short and long term goals that will guide UNM on issues of Identity Management for the next 3 years.

Putting into place a comprehensive and effective IdM solution is about more than just technology. IdM is related intrinsically to information engineering and information security and privacy. Meeting these goals will require contributions from people across the organization. The vision covers a broad range of improvements which are identified in the charter, including: lower support costs, customer self care/service, and making departmental collaborations easier by providing a more cohesive and complete private internal directory. With IdM one can expect improved accuracy and reduced cost associated with the creation and revocation of accounts as well as better provisioning of access rights. These improvements will allow projects that require identity resources to scale more efficiently while maintaining acceptable standards for security and privacy.

To achieve these goals the charter identifies “information engineering” as a function of IT that is responsible for the quality, integrity and the improvement of the identity life-cycle. Reducing security vulnerabilities will be an outcome that will follow these efforts as account management standards become clear and enforceable. These new standards will make possible a “unified identity services application programming interface” which will simplify access and make enhanced collaboration with external constituents/affiliates possible.

For more information visit the CIO website, where information will be posted. Feel free to contact Barney Metzner, Manager of Systems and Security, with any concerns or input you might have regarding identities and how we might better serve your needs.

Barney Metzner
HSC IT Security Officer and Manager
IT Systems

*The photos of electronics on this page are of the HSLIC Blade Servers. The computer servers are integrated into all HSC services. These servers allow us to put more computing power into our data center at a lower cost per server, then traditional servers. One enclosure holds 10 servers and they take the same space that one traditional server would use.

Domenici Center Update

Work is now complete on remodeling the Domenici Center lower level into a 90 seat classroom, a 12 seat conference room, a Physical Therapy lab, and future coffee bar space.

Both the classroom and the conference room are equipped with an instructor PC, projector, screen, and whiteboard. The classroom and the conference room can be reserved via email. The Physical Therapy Program manages the PT Class lab.

Richard Carr, MLS
Coordinator, Reference & User Support Services

Native Health Database Upgrade

The Web Team is working with the HSLIC Native Services Librarian on a major upgrade to the Native Health Databases (NHD) application. The NHD is a database of articles on Native American health issues. The database covers current research as well as historical articles from previous centuries. The changes include a simpler search interface and a redesigned database. The upgraded database will be available in September.

Kevin Wiley
Manager, Systems & Programming