Librarians Lonya Humphrey and tatiana de la tierra of the Arts and Sciences Libraries coordinated the Libraries' participation in this year's University Preview Day which took place on Saturday, April 13, 2002. This annual event provides newly accepted students with an opportunity to visit the UB campus, oftentimes with their parents, and get acquainted with the University's programs, student services, and learning resources.

As part of Preview Day, the Libraries set up a display table in the Student Union, along with dozens of other UB departments. On display were various items that students could take as souvenirs, including brochures about University Libraries instruction services, campus maps, pencils, writing pads, and paper clips. A computer with a live Internet connection was also available for students to explore the UB Libraries' home page.

During the summer of 2001, Linda Lohr, Manager, History of Medicine Collection, and Sharon Gray, Head, Reference Education Services, Health Sciences Library, coordinated a project to create a searchable database of selected articles from the Buffalo Medical Journal. The Buffalo Medical Journal, published from June 1845 through 1919, contains reprints of articles published in other American and foreign medical journals of the time, and more importantly, original submissions by Buffalo and Western New York physicians such as case studies, editorials and articles.

The purpose of the project was to make the valuable and unique information contained in the Buffalo Medical Journal accessible to researchers interested in the medical history of Buffalo and Western New York in a single, searchable site on the Web. Through the Western New York Library Resources Council, a Regional Bibliographic Database grant funded creation of the Web search interface. Don Gramlich, Virtual Library Support Librarian, was the programmer for the project. Criteria for items to be indexed were: articles written by Buffalo and Western New York physicians; articles specific to Buffalo and Western New York health issues, hospitals, and discoveries; obituaries/biographical articles about Buffalo and Western New York physicians and nurses; articles about Buffalo and area medical history and the UB Medical School; and selected editorials by Buffalo Medical Journal editors.

Lynne Knaze, a reference intern from the Department of Library and Information Studies, set up the Access database and indexed the first four-and-a-half volumes. Dr. Corinne Jorgensen of the Department of Library and Information Studies agreed to have students in her Indexing class continue the work as a class project. The selection of keywords and appropriate MeSH headings was aided by the use of dictionaries of 19th century medical terminology along with print and online MeSH tools. Nearly 1,200 articles were indexed at the completion of the project which represents almost half of the total volumes of the journal.

Some intriguing articles retrievable via the database include: "Account of an Epidemic Fever which occurred at North Boston, Erie County, NY during the months of October and November 1843," Buffalo Medical Journal 1(4):91-95, 1845, in which Dr. Austin Flint traces an outbreak of typhoid fever to a contaminated well located in North Boston, NY. Dr. Flint also authored an account of the famous lawsuit arising from Dr. James Platt White's use of an actual pregnant woman to demonstrate childbirth to his students at UB's Medical College: "Demonstrative Midwifery. Report of the Trial: The People versus Dr. Horatio N. Loomis for Libel. Tried at the Erie County Oyer and Terminer, June 24, 1850. Judge Mullett, Presiding," Buffalo Medical Journal 6(3):175-183, 1850.