BU Medical Campus Library
The Alumni Medical Library serves the Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, Graduate Medical Sciences, and School of Public Health. The library occupies 30,000 square feet on the 11th, 12th, and 13th floors of the Boston University Medical Campus (Chobanian & Avedisian SOM) Instructional Building (L).
The Reference Desk, located on L-12, is staffed by Master of Library and Information Science (MLS) or equivalent degree prepared librarians Monday through Friday, from 9 am to 5 pm. Reference and research assistance are available on a drop-in basis, by appointment, or via email at refquest@bu.edu. Access Services staff provide circulation services, including access to course reserves, interlibrary loan articles and books, and 3D anatomical models.
Students, faculty, and staff may access licensed online resources 24/7 on or off campus via the library website, using their BU login name and password authentication. Alumni Medical Library collections may be accessed through the Library Search Tool, the BU Libraries’ 700+ databases, and the Alumni Medical Library’s 120+ online quality-filtered subject guides. Collections consist of 25,000+ books in the circulating and course reserves stacks; 29,000+ volumes of bound print journals in Chobanian & Avedisian SOM storage; 6,800+ e-journals; and 12,700+ e-books. Evidence-based medicine resources include ACP Journal Club, BMJ Clinical Evidence, Cochrane Library, DynaMed, and JAMAevidence. Streaming visual resources include Bates’ Visual Guide to Physical Examination and JoVE scientific experiments videos.
In addition to the resources of the Alumni Medical Library, Chobanian & Avedisian SOM students, faculty, and staff have access to the BU Libraries’ collections, comprised of 1.9 million books, 248,000 serial titles, 152,000 media titles, 111,000+ serials, 2 million+ e-books, and 49,000+ media titles. Students, faculty, and staff may request physical items from any BU library free of charge via an Interlibrary Loan Form and access the BU Libraries’ electronic materials online any time or place.
Beyond the BU Libraries, Chobanian & Avedisian SOM students, faculty, and staff have access to the catalogs and materials of members of the Boston Library Consortium (BLC) libraries, including Tufts University Hirsh Health Sciences Library; Harvard University Countway Library of Medicine through its dual role as the Boston Medical Library; and extensive materials through the Alumni Medical Library Interlibrary Loan (ILL) Service, which participates in resource sharing throughout the US.
Chobanian & Avedisian SOM librarians provide a broad range of educational programming, including Chobanian & Avedisian SOM I and II, Integrated Problems, Critical Thinking Labs, and Family Medicine Clerkship curriculum-integrated information retrieval, evaluation, and management skills classes. The Assistant Director of Library & Information Management Education also codirects the 2-unit Graduate Medical Sciences (GMS) Introduction to Biomedical Information course. The library’s education program emphasizes lifelong learning, information literacy, and skills specific to seeking, critically evaluating, and managing information.
The Alumni Medical Library offers 790 seats; approximately 1,000 power connections, including 400+ in the dual-purpose L-1101 Testing Center and study space; 139 ethernet connections; 29 wireless access points throughout the library, classrooms, and computing labs; 80 student computers across three computer classrooms; 45 computers in two public computing areas; and laptop loaners for students experiencing technical issues. Laser printers, scanners, and photocopiers are available on every floor of the library, as well as printers in the McNary classroom R-107 and the L Building basement. MyPrint, a BU ID-based system, provides a print allotment per term to students, faculty, and staff.
L-12 is predominantly used as student study space, with large study tables, individual study carrels, public computers, printers, scanners, soft seating, and a group study room. The library’s L-13 Quiet Study floor renovation was completed in February 2019. This floor provides 226 student study seats, including four group study rooms and two tutor rooms. The renovation provided new HVAC systems, lighting, flooring, furniture, and increased accessibly-focused restroom facilities, including one gender-neutral restroom.
The dual-purpose L-1101 Testing Center, redesigned in 2014, is a 220-seat testing center and study space. L-11 also houses the Library Computing Services, including the Library Computing Help Desk and Student Laptop Support Services. The Library Computing Help Desk supports courses requiring technology integration and provides student laptop software installation, VPN client configuration, Windows and Mac updates, virus-scanning software updates, and removal of viruses and spyware.
