The Salt Lake City PTRC is part of the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah. The Marriott Library was first designated a PDL in 1984 – trademarks were not yet a part of the Patent Depository program. In subsequent years we were renamed a PTDL library, and now a Patent and Trademark Resource Center (PTRC). The Marriott Library has also been a Government Printing Office (GPO) depository since 1893; a U.S. Department of Energy depository; United Nations, European Union, World Trade Organization and UNESCO depository; and a depository for Utah State documents.
The University of Utah continues to vie with MIT for ‘Number One in the Nation’ in the number of new start-up companies based on university-owned technologies. We do so with about one-third the research dollars of MIT and other research universities, so our business statistics are excellent! A recent report on University of Utah startups may be found at:
http://unews.utah.edu/news_releases/university-of-utah-a-powerhouse-for-startups/
I have been one of the Marriott Library’s federal documents librarians and the USPTO representative since 1987, and a member of PTRCA and earlier associations since my first conference in spring 1987. I have served the Association as Treasurer; Chair of the Finance Committee; and Chair of the Association in 1999/2000. I was delighted to be selected as Thirteenth Patent Fellowship Librarian from 1996 to 1998 for the PTDL Program Office, which was located at that time in Crystal City, VA.
My primary assignment within the Marriott Library is with our Research and Information Services group in the Knowledge Commons, providing reference and research information services to patrons. I also provide more specialized patent, trademark and government information reference to our patrons in person, by phone, email, or web service. My other major responsibility is as team leader for our DOCMAP College and Interdisciplinary Team (CIT), which has replaced the physical Government Documents and Maps departments. Our DOCMAP team continues to develop our increasingly electronic collections of government information, and presents training in these resources and our legacy collections in print to patrons around the University campus and greater state communities.
The DOCMAP CIT was asked to begin weeding to reduce the footprint of our legacy paper collections on open shelves by about 30%, and we started on that project in December 2013. We will be deselecting items that are less used by our patrons; available in electronic format; or still available at the regional FDL library at Utah State University. In addition to freeing up shelf space, we hope the weeding will result in a more compact, interesting and ‘browseable’ federal documents collection.
During this past academic year members of all three libraries at the University of Utah joined forces to help students find the necessary information and resources needed for the Bench2Bedside Competition and other innovative programs on campus. Members of this new Innovation Committee have created and presented student orientations in our respective areas of expertise; pocket cards and flash drives with contact information and presentation templates; and information posted on the online software classroom system. We attend major activities throughout the competition to always remain available.
I still teach patent searching to students in various entrepreneurial programs; freshmen and upper division bioengineering design students; and participants of our major campus technology competition – the ‘Bench2Bedside’ competition. The B2B Competition is run by our Center for Medical Innovation (CMI), which has provided extra funding this year for two law school students to work with the B2B teams and do basic legal and prior art searching. More about the 2013 B2B Competition is available at:
http://healthsciences.utah.edu/center-for-medical-innovation/files/B2B%202013%20Competition%20Report.pdf
I regularly participate in the Tech Tuesday and Open House programs sponsored by the Technology and Venture Commercialization (TVC) Office – formerly our Technology Commercialization Office – which pursues patents for University-owned technologies and licenses resulting properties. As a result of attending the TVC programs I have met four additional professors this past year who have invited me to come and present on searching patent literature to their engineering or medical classes. The TVC itself asks me to train new interns and staff in their office, and I still participate in the Research Administration Training Series (RATS), for campus administrators and staff working with research grants. As a member of our Entrepreneurial Faculty Scholars ( http://efs.utah.edu ) I participated in the 4th ‘Translational Medicine Symposium, speaking as part of the Intellectual Property Panel.
Thanks again to the Marriott Library for recognizing the value of our PTRC status, benefits, and activities, and for continuing encouragement for me to participate in the PTRC Program!