I just got access to my new CyberTools for Libraries catalog. Now begins the task of playing with the system. Exploring, testing, trying to push it and me to our limits. While I am playing, I have the small matter of adding/importing approximately 3,000 book titles from my card catalog into the lovely system. I am very happy. It was a lot work to get this system for me and for three other hospitals within my hospital system. The four hospitals have had card catalogs and have been maintaining a union card catalog and I thought it was important that all four of us move together to the online world. The folks at CyberTools were wonderful and very patient as we worked at getting all four hospital libraries on board.

As happy as I am to have CyberTools and to start working on a new online system, I still feel a little left out. I had approached some OhioLink librarians about possibly getting into OhioLink through my larger hospital system. I was denied. I was told that we were not an educational institution therefore we could not be a part of OhioLink. However our hospital has residents, interns, and medical students from all over (including OhioLink institutions) who work and learn here and should have access to the same resources as their brethren at other facilities in the state. But, so be it, according OhioLink I am not an educational institution.

What perplexes me is.... How is it that Cuyahoga County Public Library and Westerville Public Library are OhioLink members? They are not educational institutions. To be fair those public libraries do not have access to all of the same OhioLink resources such as EJC. But they are a part of OhioLink and they do have access to other areas such as the catalog. Why are they allowed to participate when they are not educational institutions? Why is it alright to allow a public library into OhioLink but not a hospital library?

Please know that I am not specifically criticizing OhioLink or the fact that these public libraries were able to be a part of great system. While academic and public libraries form interesting and great consortias we hospital libraries seem to always be left out of the loop. I am not talking about hospital libraries such as Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, etc. Those hospitals are like the giant elephant in the living room. I am talking about the regional and community hospitals that have maybe one or two librarians. We may not have the same amount of money as the giant elephants, but does that mean we should be forgotten or excluded? Even when we take the initiative to try and participate we are sometimes excluded.

When larger library systems such as academic or public discuss consortias or partnerships I sometimes think hospital libraries are always the bridesmaid and never the bride.