Wendt Library serves the departments of Engineering, Computer Science, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, and Statistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The PTDL representative is Nancy Spitzer. Amy Kindschi, Head of Faculty and Student Services, also provides patent searching expertise. Amy will be attending the training seminar in April this year. Other Wendt librarians who help out with teaching patents are Anne Glorioso, Annie Rauh, Lia Vellardita and Diana Wheeler.
Nancy and Amy teach patents searching in numerous undergraduate and graduate classes in Engineering Professional Development, Mechanical Engineering senior design, and in Biological and Chemical Engineering. For the first time this year we gave two sessions of patents and trademark searching in a business class called “Technology Entrepreneurship.” In November Nancy gave a presentation at a local public library on patents inspired by Ben Franklin’s inventions, and the history of the patenting in the United States, as part of programming for the traveling Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary exhibition.
The number of reference consultations for walk-ins, email, chat and phone has held steady (84 in 2010) and we also continue to do a brisk business with hits on our Patents and Trademarks research guide and other web pages (2600 in 2010).