Motto: “In constant pursuit of honouring the needs and interests of the user, to undertake the responsibility of persistently developing one’s professional and human relation skills, to show a keen interest in the evolution of information technologies, to seek new health-related information sources so as to establish professional complicity with the user conducive to an excellence of the rendered services”. 

Historical Framework

The history of the FMUL CDI-Library has developed over a period of almost two centuries, thus, intersecting with the history of medical education in Portugal. Its illustrious students and teachers, who decisively contributed to the patrimonial and intellectual value of this library, are worthy of mention. They entrusted their own personal libraries to the FMUL CDI-Library, to ensure their preservation, maintenance and availability to their learners. The legacies of Simão José Fernandes and Sousa Martins are two of such examples.

Its origins date back to 1815, when the Surgical Library was established at the Royal National São José Hospital, by request of assistants and practitioners enrolled in the subjects of Anatomy and Surgery. The inauguration of the building in Campo de Santana in 1906, for the teaching of theoretical subjects, which also hosted the Library, and later on, the inauguration of the Medical School in Santa Maria Hospital, which has hosted the Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon (created in 1911) and its library since 1954, are some of the main events to have marked its history.

Proud of its past, but with eyes fixed firmly on the future, the CDI-Library team sets out to contribute to increasing the quality and competitiveness of teaching/learning and research, by implementing action strategies in line with the defined objectives for FMUL, and in accordance with the levels of excellence and quality promoted by ULisboa.

Currently, the Library and Information Area is shared by two centres: the Biblioteconomy/Historical Archive centre and the Information Diffusion/Digital Library centre. The scientific and technical coordination of these centres is managed by Chief Librarian Professor António Vaz Carneiro and Librarian Susana Henriques, respectively. The adopted management model counts on the involvement of all team members, without whom the proposed levels of excellence and quality could never be attained.

Mission
To organise, manage and disseminate bibliographic resources and document sources by means of information methods and technologies universally used by library and documentary sciences, thus constituting a core for knowledge and its dissemination. Hence, through its action, an important contribution will be made to education, research and decision-making in medical practice, and also to cooperation in national and international networks and projects, to the benefit of the entire CAML scientific community.

Vision
To be viewed as a national and international reference, an example to be followed in its action methodologies and constant update, with particular emphasis on the client – the user of such documentation and information.

Values

o Institutional Commitment – to constantly assess information needs and demands throughout the life-span of the institution, under the orientation of a code of conduct based on confidentiality, responsibility and stringency, structured around the underlying premise to safeguard health issues and the human being.
o Credibility – to promote information standards of quality, pertinence, scientific evidence and stringency with a view to attaining renown of the library and its respective team.
o Innovation – to develop new services geared towards users’ needs, by observing changes and responding to challenges so as to potentate their research.
o Cooperation – to work on the basis of users’ needs and respective interests by interacting with the various stakeholders.

Areas of Action

Biblioteconomy/Historical Archive:
o Planning and control of acquisitions
o Management of collections
o Technical treatment – Cataloguing, classification and indexation in the ALEPH18 catalogue, within the scope of SIBUL [Integrated Library System of the University of Lisbon] o FMUL scientific production archive in the UL Repository
o Preservation and Conservation

Information Diffusion/Digital Library:
o Assistance and reference
o Research and Training
o Cooperation and Marketing
o Digital Library

Available Services: o Study rooms
o Multimedia rooms
o Home Lending
o Interlibrary loans
o Reference service: bibliographic search; biometric studies; academic work support
o User training
o Photocopying, printing and scanning
o Remote access via VPN

Future Challenges

Within the current scenario, the emerging challenges, while characterised by a need for innovation and restraint, also call for an unavoidable adaptation of the services on offer, shifting towards an increasingly more integrated and resource-sharing economy.

Within this context, the need to plan a new university library model has emerged, since it is an active and essential tool for making available support resources required by the academic environment.

Framed by the technological world in which digital globalisation is a reality, the CDI-Library has defined investment in the availability of electronic resources as a fundamental strategy. Hence, printed collections have progressively and sustainably been replaced by a largely electronic collection.

This option makes it possible to access and consult the available resources from outside the Library’s physical space, namely by means of its homepage, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, which can be accessed from any part of the world, via VPN (virtual private network), based on the motto: “The Library is with you, wherever you are”.

Investment in online resources has, on the one hand, encouraged preference, on the part of the user, for digital formats while on the other, it has increased a feeling that support is required in order to consult the databases.

Therefore, in addition to the investment in technological resources, it is essential that investment in training the users should be considered, so that they may become more autonomous and better able to collect information and acquire knowledge.

It is within this scope that the CDI-Library offers a training programme, in accordance with its available resources and the specific needs of several user groups – undergraduate and postgraduate education students, doctors and researchers.

On the one hand, the training programme sets out to present and disseminate the existing services and resources and, on the other, to further develop each of these areas, providing users with the tools for researching, retrieving, analysing and managing information, thus investing in the development of info literacy skills.

Since the training developed by the CDI-Library services is not a part of the curriculum, it is integrated in the training programme of the curriculum unit Evidence Based Medicine, and also functions in collaboration with the Lisbon Academic Medical Centre PhD Programme.

The Training Project aims to guarantee that all users, from a very early stage, are able to recognise not only the available resources, but also acknowledge the importance of developing skills for information retrieval and management. Particular attention will be given to first-year students of the MIM [Integrated Master’s Degree in Medicine] so that their learning process and academic experience are maximised.

In order to ensure the constant update and quality of the rendered services, it is crucial that partnerships and collaboration with other congenerous libraries and national and international networks specialised in the handling and diffusion of health documentation and information be established. An important example of such collaboration is with the APDIS – Portuguese Association of Health Documentation and Information, which has its secretariat in the FMUL VDI-Library, as is also the EAHIL – European Association for Health Information and Libraries, of whose International Council the FMUL CDI-Library is a member.

Many challenges lie ahead. The CDI-Library will continue to invest in the quality of the rendered services, in the profitability of its resources, in the constant update and development of skills, so that it maintains its status as a renowned library on both national and international levels, an example to be followed in its action methodologies and constant update, with particular emphasis on the client – the user of such documentation and information.

LIBRARIAN SITE

Susana Henriques
susanahenriques@medicina.ul.pt