McGoogan Library staff host Fontenelle students

At the showcase of antique doctor’s bag and instruments are, from left, Tia Vanderpool, Destiny Gamble, Shonte Gamble and Ariel Howard.

For the past five years, the UNMC McGoogan Library of Medicine has been a major supporter of the Fontenelle Elementary School library. Initially, the staff sponsored Fontenelle under the Adopt-A-School program, but in 2000, staff members focused their interests on assisting the school’s library.

As a result, the McGoogan Library has contributed more than $1,000 in books each year.

This month marked another first for the partnership when Fontenelle students visited the campus specifically to tour the Library of Medicine. The April 15 visit by 24 third- through sixth-graders – all but the third-graders were student council members – was an opportunity to celebrate National Library Week (April 10-16) by giving the children a tour of the largest health science library in Nebraska.

National Library Week, sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA), is observed each April to honor the contributions of the nation’s libraries and librarians and promote library use and support.

In the mid-1950s, research showed Americans were spending less on books and more on radios, televisions and musical instruments. The ALA and the American Book Publishers Association formed the National Book Committee in 1954. The committee’s goals were to “encourage people to read in their increasing leisure time,” “improve incomes and health,” and “develop a stronger family life.”

UNMC and Fontenelle faculty include from left, Karen Brooks, Darci Coolidge, Fontenelle instructional facilitator; Deborah Clinkscale, Fontenelle library paraprofessional; Teresa Hartman, head of education, McGoogan Library; Mary Helms, and Heather Brown, associate professor, McGoogan Library.

In 1957, the committee developed a plan for National Library Week and with help from the National Advertising Council, the first National Library Week was observed in 1958 with the theme, “Wake Up and Read.”

“Sharing with the Fontenelle kids is just fun for our staff and it really helps out the school,” said Mary Helms, associate director for library resources & technology at the McGoogan Library of Medicine. “We do several types of fund-raising activities each year, including a well-received book sale in the spring. Campus staff, students and faculty are very supportive of the efforts to help Fontenelle each year.”

Starting with the Library’s acclaimed mosaic wall, which rises three flights of interior stairs, the Fontenelle children visited numerous display cases that held everything from antique surgical instruments and doctor’s bags to turn-of-the-century pharmaceutical bottles and moulages – anatomical pathology wax specimens made in the 1940s.

Kody Ullrich was impressed by the wax moulages.

Moulage is a French term for a mold of a lesion or defect used as a guide in applying medial treatment or in performing reconstructive surgery, especially on the face. The moulages are molded wax on a plaster base and were made by David Rhea, a laboratory assistant in charge of tissue processing for the UNMC Department of Pathology. The 107 wax models offer vivid details of injuries and disease ranging from diabetes-related gangrene in the feet, shot gun wounds in the arms, melanomas and carcinomas to arteriosclerosis and psoriasis in virtually every part of the body.

The kids probably explored the library’s training skeleton and were fascinated by the details in several rare medical books shown by John Schleicher, head of Special Collections.

“What the McGoogan Library does for our kids is priceless,” said Karen Brooks, Fontenelle’s librarian and media specialist – a 31-year veteran of the Omaha Public School system, including 22 years as a teacher. “We receive books from McGoogan that are crucial to the quality of education materials our library can provide. State-of-the-art science books and sets of encyclopedias, for example, can be really expensive.”

John Schleicher shows off some of the McGoogan Library’s rare book collection.

The elementary library especially needs science books and books written for and by minorities, Brooks said. “Fontenelle has a very high population of students of color who need to see themselves reflected in advanced learning materials,” she said.

She praised the McGoogan Library staff for coming to Fontenelle’s rescue two years ago. “Due to major building renovations, we had to box up the entire school library and place it in storage. Unfortunately, the storage facility didn’t fully protect our boxes. Our books got wet and we didn’t even know about it until we unboxed the books in preparation for the new school year. We had lost more than 50 percent of our inventory to water damage. The McGoogan library staff really stepped up and immediately helped replace a large number of very important science books. We’re still rebuilding our inventory, but we’ve come a long way, thanks in large part to support from the McGoogan Library.”

From left, Fontenelle students Brianna Miller, Brent Sweet and Linda Nguyen with the training skelton.

At the end of the tour, the McGoogan Library staff presented four boxes of books to the school, as well as a goody bag of school supplies to each student.

Anyone interested in helping the on-going effort to build Fontenelle’s school library inventory should contact Mary Helms at 559-7099 or Karen Brooks at 457-5905.