Himmelfarb Headlines: Director's Desk

The FY25 budget cycle brought challenges which resulted in changes to Himmelfarb’s collections. To meet budget targets, we identified three book-heavy resources, AccessSurgery, AccessAnesthesiology, and MedOne Neurosurgery, and did not renew our licenses to these resources. While all three resources had some titles that received a good amount of use, the cost of the package compared with the total usage was high. AccessSurgery will remain available through June 2025 and AccessAnesthesiology’s access will continue until early May 2025, after which both licenses will expire. Our access to MedOne Neurosurgery has already ended. We also did not renew our license to NatMedPro and access to that resource will end in April.

Our access to e-books remains robust overall and you can search by title or topic using Himmelfarb's catalog and search tool, Health Info @ Himmelfarb. In addition, we may be able to acquire access to a specific title vs the entire collection or will do our best to identify alternative titles. For questions about book titles, please contact Himmelfarb’s Acquisitions & Resource Sharing Librarian, Ian Roberts (imroberts@gwu.edu), or you can suggest titles using our Purchase Request Form. For natural medicines information, search Lexidrug which provides both healthcare professional information and patient information via the Natural Products database. 

We also had to make some hard decisions regarding journal subscriptions. Titles that were not renewed were identified primarily using cost-per-use data and in consultation with the dean of each of Himmelfarb’s supporting schools. While we no longer have up-to-the-minute access to these journal titles, we do have access to the previously subscribed years, and in some cases, also have ongoing embargoed access via other platforms.

For full-text access to journals, use the database links on Himmelfarb Library’s website (e.g. PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, etc.) where we provide integrated full-text links. LibKey Nomad remains a terrific tool (an easy-to-install browser plug-in) that provides one-click access to PDFs and full-text access more generally, includes useful features like alerts regarding possible predatory journals and retracted articles, as well as alerting you to e-books accessible via Himmelfarb Library. And, you can search for individual titles via Himmelfarb's catalog and search tool, Health Info @ Himmelfarb, or use the Journals Search function.  For articles that aren’t available in Himmelfarb’s collection, request the article via our Documents2Go service which will deliver the article to you electronically.

While this was a challenging year for Himmelfarb’s collections, evaluating and improving what we provide is an ongoing pursuit. If you have questions about Himmelfarb’s journal collection, please contact Himmelfarb’s Serials Librarian, Joe McGraw (joseph.mcgraw@gwu.edu), or suggest titles using our Purchase Request

Laura Abate

Director, Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library

• Director's Desk
• What's New at Himmelfarb
• The Annual Himmelfarb Art Show
• Virtual Reality Headset and Apps Demos
• Lexidrug New Features
• Sustainable Development Goals Added to Scopus
• New Books at Himmelfarb
• Introducing Jeet Vora, Project Coordinator, GlyGen Database
• Faculty Profile - Interview with Miro Liwosz, Assistant Dean of Online Learning and Instructional Technology
• Student Profile - Meet Riley Decker, In the premedical post-baccalaureate program

• Himmelfarb Headlines (2009-present)
• Information Interface (1976-2009)