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 Patent Depository Library (PDL) in 1984; rebranded as a PTDL library; and most recently we have become one of the Patent and Trademarks Resource Centers. We have also been a federal depository library since 1893; a U.S. Department of Energy depository; United Nations, European Union, World Trade Organization and UNESCO depository; and one of the state depository libraries for Utah documents.
I came to the Government Documents Division of the Marriott Library since January 1987, and have been a member of the PTRCA and earlier associations since my first USPTO Annual Conference in spring 1987. I have been elected and served our Association as Treasurer and chair of the Finance Committee for a number of years; and as Vice-Chair/Chair in 1999. I was delighted to be the Thirteenth Patent Fellowship Librarian from 1996 to 1998 for the PTDL Program Office, as it was then called, in Crystal City.
My primary assignment now at the Marriott Library is with our Knowledge Commons, providing reference and research information services to our patrons. I also provide specialized patent and trademark reference to patrons by appointment, by phone, email, or through a web-based reference service. I continue as the team leader for our DOCMAPS team, which now replaces the two former physical departments called Government Documents and Maps. Our DOCMAPS team is still actively developing our increasingly electronic collection of government information, and presents training to audiences around the University campus and throughout the community. During this past year we were finally able to acquire the Digital Congressional Serial Set for campus researchers!
In August 2012 I presented a virtual workshop on ‘Searching U.S. Patents, Foreign Patents, and Trademarks’ as part of the Six-State Virtual Government Information Conference, held primarily for government documents specialists throughout the six-state Intermountain area. A recorded archive of the 90-minute program is available on the Conference website at:
http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/govpubs/conference/6state/schedule.html
A link to my presentation is the first program in the yellow box for Thursday, August 9th, 2012.
Last year I received an invitation to join the Entrepreneurial Faculty Scholars on campus, and contributed to a two-day workshop on ‘Translational Medicine’ that will be held again later this February. I continue to teach basics of intellectual property and patent searching to campus entrepreneurial students; freshmen and upper division bioengineering design students; and participants our campus technology competition, the ‘Bench2Bedside’ Competition. I also present to campus research staff working with research grants; and this year’s cohort of interns working in programs sponsored by our Technology Commercialization Office, such as the Student Start-up Center and the Foundry.
Thanks again to Administration of the Marriott Library for recognizing the value of our participation in the PTRC Program towards the climate of innovation and excellence at the University of Utah!