The Sparks Medical Library staff is dedicated to providing access to the highest quality medical information for its users. Located on the third floor of the UAB Health Center facility at the Huntsville Regional Medical Campus, the Sparks Medical Library offers an attractive, comfortable, and quiet space for faculty, students, family medicine and internal medicine residents, and staff to work, study, check out materials, browse the latest print or electronic journals, use in-house library computers or their laptops with wireless access, or to just take a few moments to unwind and relax in front of the large picture window. In addition, non-UAB affiliated health professionals, students from other colleges and universities, and others from the North Alabama area may utilize library in-house resources. Library staff strive to provide friendly and helpful service to all customers.
The library is available 24/7 to all medical students, pharmacy students, family medicine residents, full-time faculty, and some volunteer faculty physicians. Library staff (one professional librarian and one library assistant) are available Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
If instructional sessions are needed on how to use or access medical informational resources, the librarian can be available after 5 p.m. on weekdays and on the weekend, by appointment.
An in-house print collection of the most current core clinical textbooks is available in all clinical specialties offered on the Huntsville Campus. Check-out of these materials is allowed by medical students, residents, and faculty. The Audio-Digest Foundation's CD-ROM series in family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics/gynecology, pediatrics, and surgery are available for check out. Approximately 85 print journal subscriptions are maintained for in-house use. A display shelf with the most current issue of several of the journal subscriptions is conveniently located near the library entrance.
Multiple copies (generally six) of some exam and review books, such as, the Blueprints, Pre-Test, NMS, and High Yield series, for which a subject exam is given at the end of each clerkship, are added to the book collection for check out by medical students and family medicine residents.
All UAB affiliated users with a BlazerID and password have access to the electronic resources at Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences. Access is available from any computer or other device with electronic access anywhere in the world 24/7. This means that UAB Huntsville Campus students, residents, faculty and staff are not limited to use of only the physical resources available within the walls of the Sparks Medical Library. With a few key strokes, the world of medical information resources that all major universities currently provide access to are available. All of the best medical literature and evidence-based searching tools are subscribed to. A few of the many electronic resources available 24/7 through Lister Hill's Library site:
- Pub Med
- ClinicalKey
- Scopus
- Cochrane Library
- Embase
In addition, third and fourth year Huntsville-based medical students have individual subscriptions to UpToDate arranged for them by the Associate Dean's Office so that searching can be done from any computer, whether at home, hospital or preceptor's office.