Over the next few months, the Alumni Medical Library will perform a major journal shifting project during which all of the journal collection will be moved. The shifting project is necessitated by a need for additional space for the growing numbers of volumes within each journal title. Disruption to library users will be minimal, with journal volumes available for patron use at all times.

Journal Locations

The current journals will remain in their present location on the 12th floor of the library. The run of bound "A" journals that are located on the 11th floor of the library, will be moved to begin on the 12th floor, directly behind the current journals. Additional shelving space has been added to the 12th floor to accommodate these titles. The first half of the alphabetic range of journal titles will continue on the 11th floor. The remainder of the alphabetic range will be located on the 13th floor of the library.

Off-Site Storage of Pre-1966 Journals

In order to make space for continued growth of the current journal collection, the Library's pre-1966 journal volumes have been moved to an off-site storage facility. Pre-1966 journal titles were selected as the cut-off date because the MEDLINE system dates to 1966 and the Library's pre-MEDLINE journal collection is typically infrequently used. Articles from pre-1966 journals that are held in off-site storage will be available free-of-charge to Boston University and Boston University Medical Center faculty, staff, and students. Articles ordered Monday through Thursday, will be delivered to the Library the next day, and articles ordered on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday will be delivered to the Library on the following Monday. Yellow request forms for pre-1966 journals are available at the Circulation Desk, or requests can be submitted on the Library's ILL/photocopy Web page http://www.medlib.bu.edu/forms/illrequest.cfm.

WebPac, Boston University's online library catalog, will include the following message in the Location holdings box: pre-1966 volumes in Med storage – ask at Circ. Desk. This message will alert users that they can request pre-1966 volumes for next day delivery.

Titles Whose Complete Runs are Retained in Library

Due to heavy usage of some older journal volumes or course-related research projects that require frequent use of older journals, the Library will retain in-house, the complete runs of a limited number of titles:
Annals of Clinical Medicine
Annals of Internal Medicine
Archives of Internal Medicine
Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA)
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal
British Medical Journal
Dental Cosmos
Dental Items of Interest
Items of Interest
Journal of Dental Research
Journal of Experimental Medicine
Journal of Periodontology
Journal of the Allied Dental Societies
Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA)
Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
Lancet
Nature
New England Journal of Medicine
Pediatrics
Periodontics
Science

For more information about the journals shifting project, contact a Reference Librarian at 617-638-4228 or refquest@med-libwww.bu.edu, or contact Mary McKeon at 617-638-4253 or mamckeon@bu.edu.