We have 24 new eBooks for you this month. Titles include:
Newly published on the Library website is the Library Services Complaint Policy and the Library Services Complaint Procedure.
For more information, please contact either Chris Gaspard, Associate Director of Liaison Services, sifuentes@uthscsa.edu, or Andrea Schorr, Associate Director of Resource Management, schorr@uthscsa.edu.
The UT Health SA Briscoe Library proudly welcomes Matt Hayward, who officially joined our team on August 1 as part of the Librarian Liaison Services. Matt will serve as the liaison for the School of Nursing, collaborating with both faculty and students to integrate library resources into their academic, research, and clinical endeavors.
Matt brings a wealth of experience, having spent the past six years as the Scholarly Resources/Health-Sciences librarian at the University of Texas San Antonio Library. He holds a master’s degree in library science from the University of Alabama, complemented by an M.S. in Clinical Psychology from Auburn University. His academic background also includes a B.S. in Chemistry and a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Alabama.
When he’s not having fun writing complex search queries for students and faculty, and it’s not 104°, Matt likes to spend his time outdoors especially with his white heeler Eddie. He enjoys exploring the Texas Hill Country and other scenic destinations through overlanding, hiking, biking, kayaking and is an avid nature photographer. As a lifelong learner, Matt is also an ardent DIYer and loves tinkering with things from computers to carpentry to complex auto and home projects.
We look forward to Matt sharing his expertise with our faculty, learners, and staff. Let's extend a warm welcome to Matt Hayward as he embarks on this new chapter with us at UT Health SA Briscoe Library.
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Did you know, once upon a time, San Antonio was a place where those suffering from throat and lung diseases were suggested to come to heal?
Europe had a long history of physicians suggesting a change in climate to patients suffering from consumption (tuberculosis) and other respiratory maladies. Southern France, Spain, and areas of the Mediterranean were often recommended for their temperate and drier climates. The belief was that wet or cold air would worsen the disease and that spending time outdoors was greatly beneficial to healing.
In the late 1800s San Antonio began to be a similarly suggested spot in North America. One book Queer, Quaint Old San Antonio: Its Climate in Throat and Lung Diseases, published in 1895 by Dr. C. E. Fisher, was one guide for travelers seeking rest and recuperation. The book extensively covers the health benefits of the area, some of the local sights, such as San Pedro Springs Park, the historic missions, and the hill country, and lauded life and activity spend outdoors.
San Antonio's climate was compared to that of Florida and California, places with long summers and mild winters that assured patients could be outdoors more. The text claimed San Antonio had a superior climate to both as it lacked "the coolness and damp evenings" of San Diego and was "free from the moisture and malaria" of Jacksonville. The amount of sun was also touted as extremely important to treatment as "The invalid requires sunshine much as does the hot-house plant" and the patient here could be outside from dawn to dusk.
Most importantly was purity of atmosphere, suggesting the dryness of the air was a chief factor in curing lung disease. One fact to prove the clarity of the air was how far distant one could see on a clear day. The book even went so far as to claim that "Wounds heal with wonderful rapidity" due to the 'aseptic' features of the air in the area and sufferers of asthma and chronic bronchitis were also encouraged to visit. Other important factors taken into account were the general steadiness of temperature, low humidity, the altitude of the area, and geographical features such as the lack of swampy land and fogs.
Climate wasn't the only thing that drew health-seekers to the area. Around the same time, Texas began to be known for its mineral springs, one of which was here in San Antonio. Mineral springs, or hot sulphur wells, featured waters over 100F and were touted not only for their curative bathing properties but also as drinking water. Claims of the day say that bathing here could help rheumatism, gout, eczema, ulcers, chronic blood diseases, kidney and liver diseases, and "female complaints". Advertisements touted the advantages of Texas springs over locations in other states.
These hot baths were owned by the Texas Hot Sulphur Water Sanitarium Company, who ran the Hot Wells Hotel and Bathhouse, in what is now the Hot Wells area of San Antonio. Tourists flocked to the luxury spa to reap the health benefits of bathing and recreation in the sunshine, the hotel reaching its heyday around 1910. World War I saw the decline in interest and after changing ownership, the hotel burned down in 1925. Today, the site is owned by the city and is run as a public park and cultural center.
If you'd like to view the library's copy, contact Diane Fotinos, Archivist in the P.I. Nixon Medical Historical Library.
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Briscoe Buddies was a program started by library staff in 2018 to provide therapy dogs for library and other campus events. Many of you may remember founding Briscoe Buddie members June (Basset Hound), Angel (Golden Retriever), and the youngest member-in-training Bartholomew (French Bulldog).
This was all thanks to pet parents Dana Whitmire, Andrea Schorr, and Melissa DeThorne respectively. As the youngest member of Briscoe Buddies, Bartholomew’s participation was unfortunately cut short by COVID, but he did make an appearance as a puppy in October 2019 at a student Halloween event giving out free hugs. Since that time, he has completed added training to serve as a companion at public library children’s reading programs.
At home, he has his own way of relaxing or posing for the occasional candid shot. He is truly a talented dog with a gift for human connection.
If you have a special pet that you would like to feature in our monthly newsletter, please contact Kelley Minars at minars@uthscsa.edu.
On July 17, the library took part in the Research Townhall, a campus event hosted by the VP for Research. The event highlighted presentations on various data systems and software used for managing, organizing, migrating, and storing diverse research data.
The library's presentation focused on the upcoming launch of a new data repository for the UT Health San Antonio research community. This repository, to be introduced in the fall, will be hosted by the Texas Digital Library and managed by the library. Its purpose is to aid the university research community in meeting data sharing requirements, promoting data citation, and fostering collaboration and reproducibility. It will serve as the preferred repository for generalist data.
Mark your calendar for another Research Townhall on October 17 at 10:00 am, where the library will contribute to discussions about open access and predatory publishing. This virtual townhall promises to be an informative session.
Critical Praxis in Student Affairs: Social Justice in ActionSusan B. Marine and Chelsea Gilbert
Student affairs work--like higher education--is fundamentally about change. Principally, the change work performed by student affairs practitioners is about supporting the growth and development of individual students and student groups. Increasingly, that work has called for practitioners to become more active in working to change higher education so that it lives up to its radically democratic, inclusive ideals. This means adopting new strategies to transform student affairs staff, students, and institutions, and drawing on insights from critical, liberatory theories. This text represents an effort to describe and document these practices of intentionally centering critical theories.
Check out the book through EBSCO Ebooks, provided by the Briscoe Library.
Did you know the library has ebooks? Browse our collections that cover everything from the health sciences to literature.