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, as trademarks were not yet a part of the depository program. In subsequent years we were designated a PTDL library, and have also been a federal (or 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 state depository library for Utah documents.
I have been one of the Marriott Library’s federal documents librarians and the PTRC representative since 1987, and a member of PTDLA since my first conference in spring 1987. I have served the Association as Treasurer; chair of the Finance Committee; and Chair in 1999/2000. I was delighted to be selected as the Thirteenth Patent Fellowship Librarian from 1996 to 1998 for the PTDL Program Office in the previous Crystal City location.
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 our patrons,
in person, by phone, email, or Web-based RefTracker services. My other major responsibility has been serving as team leader for our DOCMAPS team, which now replaces the two former physical locations called Government Documents and Maps. Our DOCMAPS team continues to develop our increasingly electronic collections of government information, and presents training with these resources to audiences around the University campus and in the community.
Earlier this year I received an invitation to join the Entrepreneurial Faculty Scholars on campus, and contributed to a two-day workshop on ‘Translational Medicine.’ I continue to teach patent searching to campus entrepreneurial students; freshmen and upper division bioengineering design students; and participants in two U of U campus technology competitions – the ‘Bench2Bedside’ and ‘Invent!’ competitions – which offer funding and business development awards for winning teams. I continue to present to campus research administrative staff working with research grants; and this year’s cohort of interns working in the Technology Commercialization Office.
For the second year in a row the University of Utah has been nationally recognized as ‘Number One in the Nation’ for the number of new start-up companies based on university-owned technologies, and with about one-third the research dollars of No. 2 MIT and other research universities, so our business creation statistics are exceptionally cost-effective. Perhaps as a result of our success we lost the director of our Technology Commercialization Office, who was lured away to another university this past year.
Thanks again to the Marriott Library for recognizing the value of our PTRC status and benefits, and for continuing to fund my participation in this year’s Conference! See you all soon..