The Wood Library is saying farewell to multiple longtime staff who are taking advantage of this year's retirement incentives. Among them is Library Research Specialist Kevin Pain, who has coordinated the Library's reference services for many years and more recently pioneered its highly successful Grant Editing Service. Before he retires at the end of this month, we interviewed Kevin to capture a little bit of the insight and institutional memory he has built over his nearly four decades at Weill Cornell.
What year did you start at WCM? February 10, 1986.
What jobs/roles have you held at WCM? Page (shelver), circulation desk assistant, cataloging assistant, all-purpose library assistant (Payne Whitney Clinic library), reference assistant, information specialist, and research specialist performing systematic reviews, grant editing, and general reference duties.
How has your work/your team's work changed during the time you've worked here? Two words: speed and connectivity. Started in the world of card catalogs, typewriters, and print journals; observed the transition to dumb terminals and database searching via modem and acoustic coupler; and now finishing in the age of AI and global networks.
The Library's Grant Editing Service
When did the Library's grant editing service start? March 15, 2016.
Do you have any wisdom or advice to share with future WCM grant-seekers? Embrace the three Cs: concision, clarity, and correctness. Write your complex ideas in the simplest prose possible.
Reference at the Wood Library
When did you take over as Library INFODESK coordinator? In the early 2000s.
How has reference changed at the Library during the time you've worked here? What was once a slow, methodical expedition in paper (Index Medicus, bound journals, reference tomes) initiated by reference desk visitors has now become a sprint across a web of online portals, search engines, and PDFs in response to email and chat requests. What has not changed (yet!) is the use of human expertise to find and deliver information to support the needs of healthcare providers.
Parting thoughts
What are your proudest accomplishments as a Wood Library/WCM employee? Never lost the motivation to find good answers to difficult questions.
What are you planning to do after retiring? Gardening, beekeeping, traveling to new places, and reading new books.
Anything else you’d like to share with readers? Learn to swim - metaphorically and literally - or drown in the seas of change.
We wish Kevin and our other retiring colleagues, Ron Phillips, Biomedical Communications Manager; Kenneth Watson, Production Supervisor; and William Fisk, PhD, Weekend Supervisor, Access Services, the best of luck in retirement! We will miss you.
News Category: News