The last day of operation for the venerable Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC) Library was December 19, 2008. Closing the WPIC Library is especially poignant for me, as I began my professional career in that library and served as its director from 1985 to 1995. The library was well-known in the local and national mental health community as a comprehensive collection with innovative services for professionals as well as patients and their families.
Since the library’s closing, HSLS staff members have begun the challenging task of sorting the collection and deciding which print materials will be retained and where they will be stored. With rare exceptions, only one copy of each book title will be retained. Books that have circulated at least once within past years will be moved to a dedicated location within Falk Library, while those that have not been used recently will be moved to the HSLS remote storage facility.
Since WPIC Library and Falk Library use difference call number systems, the book collections will not be merged, however new psychiatry books will be integrated into the Falk Library collection. Some books from the WPIC Patient and Family collection will find new homes in HSLS consumer collections at UPMC Shadyside or Children’s Hospital libraries, while others may be offered to nearby public libraries.
Print journals that are available electronically will be relocated to remote storage for archival purposes. Journal titles that are not available online will be moved to Falk Library (typically volumes published 1990-present) or to remote storage (volumes published before 1990). Bound journals from WPIC will be physically integrated with the Falk journal collection, so there is only one alphabetical sequence.
Books and journals with significant historical value will be integrated into Falk Library’s rare book collections. We will carefully preserve the historical photographs from WPIC in Falk Library’s special collections.
We ask for your understanding as we work our way through this daunting process. There are tens of thousands of volumes and other items to be evaluated, processed and relocated in a short timeframe. There will likely be periods when items are temporarily unavailable, or when the PITTCat record may not accurately reflect an item’s location or availability. Please be patient! We will do our best to provide access to requested books and journals, but it may take longer than usual.
For more information about WPIC Library, see the January 8, 2009 University Times article.