For Kathy Moeller, the new director of the University of Florida Borland Health Sciences Library, combing the world’s latest and greatest medical information for answers is fun.
“There’s really not a typical question in a medical library,” she said. “Public libraries have files of frequently asked reference desk questions, but because we’re dealing with individual physical conditions, the questions don’t repeat.”
Before joining UF in January, Moeller had a distinguished 30-year career in the medical library at Overlook Hospital, an 850-bed teaching hospital in New Jersey’s largest health system. There, she worked her way up from library assistant to director and started one of the first open-to-the-public consumer health information libraries. She earned a master’s in library sciences from Rutgers and was named a Fellow of the Medical Library Association. She also earned the Lifetime Achievement Award from the MLA New York/New Jersey chapter.
Then Moeller retired and moved to Jacksonville in 2005. A year and a half later the opportunity to direct “the Borland” – the Jacksonville branch of UF Health Science Center Libraries – lured her back to work.
The library was originally a public health library, and some of its collections go back to the 1800s.
“When the library evolved into the Borland, we took over the books from the City of Jacksonville, some of which are invaluable and not available anywhere else,” Moeller said.
Today, the Borland holdings provide excellent access to the medical literature.
“The virtual collection is wonderful, thanks to our access to the electronic databases and journals the Gainesville HSC library has concentrated on and maintained,” she said. “It’s just an amazing array of what’s there.”