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January 8, 2009

WPIC library closed

After 66 years, the library at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic has shut its doors. Dec. 19 was the final day for patrons — mainly faculty, researchers or family members of WPIC patients — to walk into the library to use the collection of works on psychiatry and behavioral sciences.

“There is a loyal core who like to come to the library,” said Barbara Epstein, director of Pitt’s Health Sciences Library System, of which the WPIC library was a part. But, she said, library users have become scattered with more and more faculty in remote offices, so “fewer and fewer have been using the on-site library,” she said.

Neither WPIC president Claudia Roth nor psychiatry department chair David Kupfer would comment on the reason for the library closure or plans for the space it is vacating.

Thousands of volumes of books, bound journals and other materials from the library will find new homes at HSLS’s Falk Library in Scaife Hall, in storage or perhaps in other libraries. Her goal is to complete the move by the end of March, but exact plans for dismantling the collection are still in progress, Epstein said. HSLS has another moving project in the works as its library at Children’s Hospital prepares to relocate to the new hospital campus in April.

During the transition, print materials from the WPIC library will be available upon request (via HSLS for affiliates of UPMC and the Schools of the Health Sciences; or through the University Library System for other Pitt patrons), although there may be brief periods when certain portions of the holdings will be unavailable.

“We’re still coming up with a timeline and a plan of attack,” Epstein said, noting that there is an art to moving a library. Movers, for instance, need to realize that materials are sequential and can’t simply be jumbled together. Space calculations must be made to ensure print materials fit on the shelves. Planning is key.

“It’s going to be a big job,” said Epstein, who has moved libraries before but never has closed and dismantled a collection.

In addition to the physical work of moving the materials, the technical aspects are daunting as well. Sorting mainly will be done electronically, although some physical sorting will be required also.

Reports will be run to determine which books are used or not used. Duplicates will be culled and little-used works will be sent to the HSLS storage facility in Lexington Technical Park, Epstein said.

Because the history of psychiatry is comparatively short, many seminal works were published in the early 1900s. Historical gems such as first editions will be sorted out for special consideration. The National Library of Medicine also may be offered some materials, Epstein said. “It is our challenge and obligation to be responsible about this,” she said, adding that the national library — the world’s largest medical library, affiliated with the National Institutes of Health — could be a perfect home for some of the materials.

Earlier in her own library career at Pitt, Epstein spent two decades on the WPIC library staff. “The library, especially when it was new and shiny, was a focal point for the WPIC community,” Epstein said, recalling it as a space for many receptions and events. “It was a big recruiting tool,” she said, noting that prospective hires always were shown through the collection, which was highly regarded in its field.

She worked closely with former WPIC librarian Lucile Stark from 1975 to 1985 before succeeding her in the position. During that time, Stark envisioned a larger library and raised funds that enabled it to triple in size. “I give her credit for the library. It was a wonderful collection that was in a cramped, dark space,” Epstein said, recalling how some of the books in the collection prior to the 1981 expansion show damage on their spines — testimony to how patrons had to pry them from the shelves, they were squeezed together so tightly.

Stark foresaw changes to libraries on the horizon and designed a library to last 10 years, Epstein said. Indeed, changes came: card catalog cabinets now are used to hold audiocassettes, computer labs came and went and videotape viewing areas became obsolete.

With some readjustments, the expanded library lasted 25 years instead of merely a decade.

“Now it’s overdue for the next phase,” she said.

—Kimberly K. Barlow

Filed under: Feature,Volume 41 Issue 9

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