The member libraries and organizations of the Library Consortium of Health Institutions in Buffalo (LCHIB), which cooperate in developing and strengthening health information resources and services to support patient care and consumer health, the education of health professionals, administrative decision making, and research, are celebrating the Consortium’s thirtieth anniversary, having established it on August 16, 1982.
Described as “an outstanding example of consortial organization” (1), LCHIB includes the health sciences libraries of the Great Lakes Health System: the University at Buffalo, Erie County Medical Center and Kaleida Health; the Catholic Health System of Western New York; the Hospital Library Services Program of the Western New York Library Resources Council; and the VA Health Care Upstate New York (VISN2) network of five Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals.

The Library Consortium is primarily recognized for managing its HUBNET (Hospitals and University at Buffalo Library Resource Network) Web portal of biomedical resources.  Launched in 1993, HUBNET is an invaluable tool for an estimated 10,000 users, including students and faculty of UB as well as physicians, nurses, allied health and administrative professionals at the various clinical sites throughout the region.
For the past ten years, LCHIB’s Executive Director Martin Mutka, a 2006 recipient of a Buffalo Business First ‘Health Care 50’ Award, has worked with content providers to offer a group purchasing program for additional medical libraries and academic institutions with health related programs. This distributorship network now currently serves more than 65 hospitals and 15 colleges and universities across New York State and is poised to grow further as organizations continuously seek to improve access to evidence-based information in a cost-effective manner.

(1) Joan Schlimgen, Jeanette McCray, Gerald J. Perry & Lynn Flance, (2001): Considering a Consortium?, Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 20:3, 69

For more information:  Martin E. Mutka, MBA, MLS (716) 829-5757 or mmutka@buffalo.edu

 

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