Editor’s Note: Every other month, we publish the profile of a member of Doody’s Library Board of Advisors (LBA). The LBA has guided the development of our company’s library services since our inception. With gratitude, this month we present the profile of Michelle Kraft of the Floyd D. Loop Alumni Library at Cleveland Clinic.

 DEI: Where do you currently work and what is your position?

MK: I am the Director of the Cleveland Clinic Health System Libraries, which includes the main campus of the Cleveland Clinic and eight community hospitals.

DEI: Provide a one-sentence description of your library and its services.

MK: We are multifaceted library system that serves academic researchers and students as well as community caregiver teams of physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals.

DEI: When did you start in medical librarianship? What was your position? With what institution?

MK: I got my start in medical librarianship at the University of Missouri, J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library, while I was library school graduate student. I found working in a health sciences library to be a rewarding challenge. Upon graduation I became a medical librarian at the Cleveland Clinic where I focused on reference and electronic resources.

DEI: Name two of the most important issues facing medical librarianship today.

MK: One important issue I see in medical librarianship is the challenge of showing our value to the institution, not in terms of collections, but in terms of services to the institution and how the library can help the institution achieve its goals. It is very difficult to assess the value of helping doctors and nurses with patient care, there are no CPT codes for library services. Yet, it is vital to our survival to determine and demonstrate our value.

Another important issue in medical librarianship is the Napsterization of scientific articles via SciHub. In my opinion, publishers, libraries, and patrons are all responsible for the situation we are now in. SciHub is illegal and rife with security concerns, yet it shed a light on the difficulties of obtaining scientific journal articles. I believe that SciHub will instigate a fundamental change in how we can all access scientific articles in an easier, legal, and mutually profitable way, similar to how Napster changed online music.

DEI: Why do you volunteer to serve on Doody’s Library Board of Advisors?

MK: I enjoy working with other librarians and Doody Enterprises to explore ways of providing quality information to our users.

DEI: What is one thing you want to make sure all librarians know about Doody’s services?

MK: Doody’s is a useful, unbiased method for finding the best titles for collection management. The people reviewing the materials are professionals with knowledge and experience in their fields, providing expert reviews you can trust.