Patient Library Supports the Hospital's Community for 70 Years
Recognizing the need for a comprehensive resource, Margaret "Peg" Hannigan, a retired Marine Corps Major, began organizing a patient library, which opened in January 1955 in a "quiet, but not too bright" room on the fifth floor of the hospital. The new library was home to 700 donated books and popular periodicals. By the time Hannigan retired six years later, the library had grown to more than 4,000 carefully curated hardcover books and 54 periodicals.
As the library continued to evolve during the 1960s, it added new features, like displaying artwork produced by local artists and hosting a popular children's hour. In the 1970s, Red Cross volunteers began taking a roving book cart to patient rooms to help bring the library's resources directly to the bedside.
In the 1980s, the Patient Library was on the move, literally. It relocated to the 14th floor of Building 10 into space that was formerly the hospital's sundeck. The library shared the floor with a separate playroom for pediatric patients, an arts and crafts room, a gym with basketball courts and the Clinical Center chapel. The hours of the library expanded to include Saturdays.
In the next decade, the library again expanded to stay open on federal holidays and added therapeutic materials to the collection, including a "health and coping" section featuring current book selections as well as a broad range of NIH pamphlets and brochures. The library also moved into the digital age with two computers and a scanner available for patient use.
In 2005, under the management of librarian Marie Kaplan, the patient library moved to its current location on the 7th floor of the Clinical Research Center, just off the atrium. Innovations continued with a 24/7 reading room outside the library, a bilingual (English and Spanish) online catalog and technical assistance for patients and caregivers who needed help accessing the NIH guest wireless network.
The library's collection increased to 8,000 items, including materials in various languages, Xbox games, DVD movies, tablets, phone chargers, Bluetooth wireless speakers and even musical instruments. Digital resources such as e-books, e-audiobooks and online streaming meditation programs were also added to the library offerings.
Open seven days a week, the library now hosts a Sunday "Read to a Pup" program featuring therapy dogs, a twice monthly evening concert series and seasonal monitoring of one of the "bluebird house trails," a collection of birdhouses on the Bethesda campus.
Chuck Sellers, the husband of a Clinical Center patient said, "To me the library has been a ‘shelter from the storm.' Always offering friendly, smiling, cheerful greetings and exemplary service…Having a good book to read on the nights when sleep just would not come was great comfort."
Entering its eighth decade, the Patient Library continues to innovate while always remaining centered on its core mission of serving the needs of the patients and their family members.
"Our paramount hope is that the patient library will continue to be a welcoming place of respite, learning and enjoyment for Clinical Center patients and their caregivers for years to come," said Kaplan.
The library plans to hold a special commemoration during National Library Week - April 7-12.
- Donovan Kuehn