: For Students, Faculty, and Staff 
We’re celebrating 2024 with a look back at our favorite stories of the year that feature the innovative, meaningful, fun, and purpose-filled work at the Health Sciences Library and the Wangensteen Historical Library of Biology and Medicine.
10. We looked beyond the numbers.
With over 485K in-person and online visitors, 2,463 reference questions answered, 200 course integrated instruction sessions reaching 6,300 students, 209K views of our library guides, and 30 outreach sessions, the Health Sciences Libraries were able to connect individuals and teams to our spaces, information resources, technology, tools, and expertise to advance teaching, learning, research, and care.
Medical School Faculty Dr. Priya Sury and Wangensteen Curator Dr. Emily Beck talk to the UMN Regents at a visit to the Health Sciences Library.
9. We thought broadly about what “counts” as scholarship.
Our expanding collections offer graphic medicine novels, diverse authors and content from 600 years of health’s history and present, and virtual reality experiences to expand notions of what counts as scholarship, whose voices matter, and what ways of knowing and learning are valued.
New Virtual Reality experiences help students practice with less risk, understand the patient experience, and learn important soft skills.
8. We met students where they were at, and let them lead the way.
With a focus on student success and wellbeing, the Libraries saved health sciences students $1.17 million through affordable content, provided 16 miles of 3D printer filament so students could create everything from custom adaptive equipment to 3D models of patient scans for surgical planning, and offered tea & treats to encourage students throughout finals.
Students leave words of encouragement for each other at our end-of-semester Tea & Treats event.
7. We advanced health practice.
Our librarians and curators partnered with faculty to co-author over 30 publications and presentations that advance health practice, covering broad topics including pediatric obesity, oral health, pain modulation, antibiotics in surface water, and more!
Librarians bring their expertise as co-authors of systematic reviews of the literature.
6. We made wellness a priority.
We’re proud to have opened a new Wellness Room. This technology-free room is designed to promote calm and focus, and to accommodate meditation, quiet reflection, personal prayer, and wellness — and was booked 224 times since it opened in March 2024.
Our new wellness room includes fidget toys, mats, and more. It is open and available for use by all UMN students, instructors, and staff.
5. We championed the next generation of health providers.
The amazing staff in the Health Sciences Library Makerspace and Virtual Reality Studio are creating active learning experiences for our future orthopedic surgeons and neuroscientists, thanks to a partnership with The Perry Initiative and Go4Brains.
Students practice repairing a fractured femur with metal rods at the Health Sciences Library Makerspace.
4. We celebrated 10 years of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies.
The Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies (IJPS) was the first journal to publish on the Libraries Publishing platform in 2015. This collaboration between the Health Sciences Libraries, the UMN School of Nursing, and the Center for Partnership Systems in California has been going strong ever since. This year, we celebrated 10 years of collaboration, scholarship, and the reimagining of partnerships through the journal’s 24 issues, 230 articles, and 330 authors who are advancing the field.
Nursing faculty Dr. Teddie Potter celebrates 10 years of scholarship on partnership studies.
3. We helped students understand the patient experience.
Thanks to the Libraries’ new Embodied Labs virtual reality experience, geriatric education specialist Christina Cauble partnered with library experts to give students a first-person view of Alzheimer’s, sparking rich conversation and deeper understanding.
Alatheia Proue uses the Embodied Labs app in the Virtual Reality Studio to learn about dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
2. We prompted deep reflection about how health’s history can inform evolving practices.
Artist-in-residence funding from the Research Innovation Office brought together an artist, a bioethicist, and two curators from the Wangensteen Historical Library to recontextualize the pregnant body through their Disembodied Reembodied exhibit and related events. This research led to big questions and broad conversation as the team worked to understand and question how women’s bodies have been depicted over time — centering art in the exploration of values in medicine, while strengthening existing Libraries partnerships and opening doors to new ways of knowing, captured in the Disembodied Reembodied online exhibit.
Curator Lois Hendrickson discusses how the depiction of the female body in historical texts has lasting impact.
1. We had so much fun!!!!
Across all of our meaningful work at the Health Sciences Libraries in 2024, we centered partnership, learning, and belonging as we collaborated to expand conversations around health and healthcare. From all of us to all of you — thank you for a wonderful 2024.
Your colleagues and partners at the Health Sciences Libraries.
