HSL arranges on-site tours for students, faculty and staff, alumni, and other interested individuals. Contact Pamela M. Rose at 716-829-5722 for more information.

Background

The oldest library in the University Libraries system with a rich history, the Health Sciences Library is located in Abbott Hall on the South Campus. For details of the locations of our collections, offices, computer and study areas, view the marvelous floor plans courtesy of Donna Serafin, Web Design and Support Specialist, UB Libraries.

The original building constructed in the 1930s housed the Lockwood Memorial Library until 1978 when the library and the name moved to new quarters on the North Campus.

The current entrance is through the addition constructed in 1986 when the renamed Abbott Hall was renovated specifically for HSL.

Our primary clientele include the faculty, staff and students of five of UB's Schools: Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Dental Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Public Health and Health Professions, but we also serve the entire UB constituency as well as the Western New York community.

HSL is also a Regional Resource Library through the National Library of Medicine network, and maintains partnerships with a variety of other local and regional organizations and programs.

Hours

The Library is open seven days a week during the semester. General hours are Monday-Thursday 8am-12am, Friday 8am-9pm, Saturday 9am-9pm, and Sunday 12pm-12am. Hours for the Robert L. Brown History of Medicine Collection and the Digital Media Resources Center are posted separately, as are our semester break and holiday hours.

Services

HSL offers a variety of services and access to resources both in the library, through the HSL Web site, and through the BISON online catalog. Our growing electronic resources collection offers thousands of e-journals, e-serials and databases linked from the web page. Affiliated users can also access the HUBNET information system.

HSL provides workshops which emphasize both traditional and electronic resources as well as the critical ability to evaluate information for problem solving and decision making. Contact Information Management Education (IME) for more information. Distance learning users can also obtain reference and document delivery services, and a distance learning classroom is located on the lower level.

Interlibrary Loan/Document Delivery services are also available for local library resources through UB Document Express or, for items not owned by the University Libraries, through our ILLiad system. Contact the Informaton Delivery Service (IDS) for more information.

Support for wireless as well as 28 open-port connections are provided within HSL. Patrons visting the library must have the appropriate card loaded on their laptops in order to take advantage of the wireless connections. A PDA Sync Site is available within the Digital Media Resources Center for medical students to sync with the server in the Office of Medical Computing. Support for PDA users is also available through our Resources for Mobile HSL page.

Reference staff are available to assist patrons with library research Monday-Friday from 9 am-9 pm, Saturday from 11 am-5 pm, and Sunday from Noon-7 pm. Users can also get help via telephone at 829-3900, or through askHSL.

Collections

Anyone in the world can visit our Library and use our collections and computer resources on-site.

HSL continues to maintain an impressive collection in addition to our vast electronic resources, with over 1500 current print journals over 121,000 print books.

Housed within the Robert L. Brown History of Medicine Collection, users interested in historical materials can browse:

• over 13,000 volumes of pre-19th century books
• historical journal volumes
• over 175 instruments, sets of instruments, and artifacts in the Edgar R. McGuire Historical Medical Instrument Collection

The Health Sciences Library was founded, along with the medical school in 1846. A chronology developed by Lilli Sentz, former Curator, lists significant events and librarians from HSL's founding through 1995.

Equally interesting is the history of HSL's current location, Abbott Hall on the South Campus of the University at Buffalo. Originally named Lockwood Memorial Library, the building was a gift of Thomas B. Lockwood (1873-1947, a Buffalo attorney), and his wife, Marion Birge Lockwood, in memory of their respective parents, Daniel N. Lockwood and George K. Birge. The building was designed by eminent architect E.B. Green and built at a cost of $500,000. A brief summary of the building's evolution resides on the University Library Archives Web site.

E.B. Green modeled the original elegant building after the Villa Rotunda by the Renaissance architect Palladio. When renovated for HSL in the mid-1980s, great care was taken to preserve the original reading room, which patrons entered after climbing the impressive stairway and passing through the beautiful stone columns.

Green designed the now named Austin Flint Reading Room as a replica of a room in Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, England. Tthe room features English oak paneling and a huge fireplace with an intricately carved mantel modelled after a mantel in England's Canonbury Tower. All the wood in the room was carved by the Lipsett brothers, immigrants from Germany who worked for the Kittinger Company, a famous Buffalo furniture manufacturer who constructed furniture for the White House,

The twin antique chandeliers were originally constructed in the 1840s and electrified in the 1930s when they were installed here. Green was demolishing the Tudor mansion of John J. Albright (which he also designed) in 1935 during the same time he was overseeing the building of Lockwood. He chose to salvage not only the chandeliers but also the stone balustrade, which still graces the original front of Abbott Hall. A bit more background on Albright with photos of his mansion can be found on the Western New York Heritage Press web site.