Katy Nesbit, coordinator of education services in the Edward G. Miner Library at the University of Rochester Medical Center, died on May 22, 2003, after a courageous yearlong battle with cancer. She was also a faculty member in the Division of Medical Informatics in the university's School of Medicine and Dentistry (SMD).
Katy was born on November 18, 1954, and grew up in the village of Fairport, NY, a suburb of Rochester. She graduated from St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY, in 1977 with a bachelor of science degree in biology. After receiving her master's of science in library science from Simmons College in Boston in 1979, Katy began her career at the Countway Library of Medicine at Harvard. In 1984 she accepted a position as reference librarian at the Miner library. It was during her tenure in this post that Katy's keen interest in search systems evaluation, as well as her love of teaching and curriculum development, surfaced. These are reflected in articles that she wrote during the period 1987–1990 [1–4].
Among Katy's most significant achievements were:
integrating the teaching of information management skills into SMD's new “Double Helix” curriculum
developing the “Nesbit filters” for evidence-based medicine (EBM) searching in MEDLINE and CINAHL
collaborating with medical school faculty members and with Jan Glover, librarian at Yale's Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, to conduct funded research on evaluating students' EBM skills
Katy and Jan twice received the MLA Research Section's award for their work in this arena, but due to Katy's ill health they were unfortunately unable to complete the manuscript that would report their research findings. Katy also drew upon her nationally recognized teaching expertise while leading workshops offered by the American College of Surgeons and the New York Chapter of the American College of Physicians.
Katy found her involvement in MLA to be a sustaining element in her life. Over the years she served as:
chair of the Upstate New York and Ontario Chapter (1990–91), whose history she edited [5]
vice-chair of the Chapter Council (1995–96)
chair of the Public Services Section (1994–95)
chair of the Continuing Education Committee (2001–02)
instructor for MLA CE courses
In each role, she found a home for her talents and her commitment to the world of medical libraries, together with a desire to publicize developments, as reflected in an article that appeared in a British journal [6].
Katy's life in Rochester revolved around her work, her garden, her cats, her dear friends, and her mother, Beryl, who remained her close companion for all the years Katy lived in Rochester. Among her MLA colleagues she found lifelong friends, who cared deeply for her, visited her, traveled with her (especially to her favorite vacation spot, Disney World, dubbed by her “the Happy Place”), and admired her mind and her heart. All who knew Katy valued her clear thinking and her unwavering devotion and determination. We are grateful for our time with her; she enriched the lives of many.
Footnotes
Readers are encouraged to inform MLA headquarters or the associate editor for obituaries when they become aware of the death of a colleague. The policy and procedures for including obituaries in the JMLA are available at http://www.mlanet.org/publications/jmla/.
References
- Nesbit K, Sollenberger J. Searching and finding: end-user training in the health sciences. Bookmark. 1987 Fall; 46(1):51–54. [Google Scholar]
- Nesbit K, Sollenberger J. Evaluation at the University of Rochester of BRS Colleague Disc: a MEDLINE CD-ROM product. In: MEDLINE on CD-ROM: National Library of Medicine evaluation forum. R. Woodsmall, B. Lyon-Hartmann, and E.R. Siegel, eds. Medford, NJ: Learned Information, 1989:135–152. [Google Scholar]
- Nesbit K. BRS/Links to the future: online hypertext is born. Online. 1990 May; 14(3):34–35. [Google Scholar]
- Nesbit K. CD Plus MEDLINE. CD-ROM Professional. 1990 May; 3(3):61–65. [Google Scholar]
- Nesbit K. ed. Moments of distinction: a history of the Upstate New York and Ontario Chapter of the Medical Library Association. Rochester, NY: Upstate New York and Ontario Chapter/MLA, 1999. [Google Scholar]
- Nesbit K. Distance learning for MLA's centennial! Health Libr Rev. 1999 Dec; 16(4):243–248. [Google Scholar]