Collection Equity Award

The Levy Library is a central place for learning and dialogue in the Mount Sinai community. A Collection Equity award would provide an amazing opportunity to invite our students, faculty and staff throughout the Health System to recommend titles and authors so that we can purchase additional print and electronic resources that will impact their lives as learners, care providers, and teachers. While we currently offer print and digital “Special Topics in Medicine” collections which invite our community to learn through access to emerging and historically marginalized voices and viewpoints on a variety of topics that play a major role in health, Special Topics compete for funding in a tight budget focused on expensive medical content. The Award would remove that sense of competition for scarce resources that may prevent learners from suggesting material that is not strictly biomedical. In addition to encouraging our community to suggest fiction, graphic novels, and other works reflecting their own interests and experiences, we have a wish list for three new topic collections: how medicine and health are portrayed in the arts, the impact of environmental concerns on individual and collective health, and the growth of artificial intelligence and its impact on health care and outcomes. Our collection development plan intends that these topics be explored in ways that amplify the voices and emphasize the concerns and perspectives of marginalized communities. Publicity around receiving a Collection Equity Award would center these concerns within the awareness of our community.