Winter 2010 Issue, Number 118, Publication Information

MIDLINE is published in electronic format four times a year by the Midwest Chapter/Medical Library Association. The newsletter archives are available at http://midwestmla.org/midline-archive/. Statements and positions expressed in this newsletter do not necessarily represent the official positions of the chapter, the chapter executive board or the editor. Contributions from all chapter members are welcomed and encouraged.
Contributions may be edited for brevity, clarity or conformance to style. The Medical Library Association Style Manual, available at http://mlanet.org/publications/style, provides guidelines for MIDLINE contributors. All copy should be submitted in electronic format to the editor, Elizabeth Smigielski, at emsmig01 at louisville dot edu. Photos should be submitted as .jpeg files.
Mailing address changes should be reported to: Rebecca Caton, Membership Secretary, at rcaton at midwestern dot edu.
The Midwest Chapter/Medical Library Association website is located at http://midwestmla.org.
Best regards,
Elizabeth Smigielski, Editor

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New Member Profiles (posted on 4/13/2010)

News flash! This posting is a new addition to this issue of MIDLINE – Ed.
Submitted by Mary Taylor
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Norene Allen is a Regional Account Manager for Swets. She works with libraries in Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin. Norene has an undergraduate degree in education from Kansas State University. She is originally from the metropolitan Kansas City area. Her personal hobbies include traveling, card making, and genealogy.
Roberta Craig is Coordinator of the Munson Community Health Library at Munson Health Care in Traverse City, Michigan. Her management responsibilities include collection development, medical research for customers, community outreach activities, and planning the community health lecture series. Her professional interests include consumer health and health and information literacy. Roberta received a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Illinois in 2004. Her personal interests include reading, walking, and theatre.
Roberta has two grown children who live in Rockford, IL, which is her home town. She states, “My background includes working in public and school libraries as well as medical library experience. I was managing a hospital library while I earned my master’s degree– that was a crazy busy time! I spent 2006-2008 working as a school librarian at an international school in China. It was a very rewarding cross-cultural experience. I am so happy to be working back in the medical field since I returned from China and especially enjoy being in the consumer health field as I have always been interested in this area of medical librarianship.”

Heidi Nickisch Duggan
is the Associate Director at the Galter Health Sciences Library of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois. Regarding her job, she states, “I hold the best job in libraries: I have the privilege to work at a well respected and supported library for a visionary director and with a talented, innovative, and committed staff. I am responsible for the library’s service areas and units and I lead staff in the development of new services, manage staff relations, and engage in future-planning and budgeting.” Her professional interests include library leadership, organizational change and communication, emotional intelligence, appreciative inquiry, emerging technologies, scholarly communication, and strengths development.
Prior to taking the position at the Galter Library in 2008 Heidi was Head of Access Services & Systems for the Lommen Health Sciences Library at the University of South Dakota’s Sanford School of Medicine. Heidi received an M.A. from the School of Library and Informational Science, University of Missouri-Columbia in 1991. She received an undergraduate degree in English with minors in German, music, and psychology from University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She anticipates receiving an M.S. in communication from Northwestern University this summer. A self-described “military brat,” she lived in seven states and countries and had made 10 moves before she went to college. She enjoys swimming, reads “voraciously (fiction fare: mysteries, funky young adult literature; non-fiction: anything leadership or organizational behavior and communication),” and enjoys taking in the Chicago area’s museums, restaurants, etc. with her husband, Tim Duggan, and their two children.
Mel Finkbeiner is a Library Technician at the Medical Library and College of Nursing Library of OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center in Rockford, Illinois. Her responsibilities include interlibrary loan, cataloging, shelf maintenance, research assistance, periodicals, and statistics. Mel received a B.A. in English and education from Midland Lutheran College. Her home town is Omaha, Nebraska. Her hobbies and interests include traveling, gardening, and wildlife.
Mary Pat Harnegie is the Medical Librarian at the Alumni Library of the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. Her responsibilities include acquisitions, collection development, and reference. Mary Pat received her MLIS from Kent State University in 2002. She has a B.S. in biology and political Science from Baldwin-Wallace College. Mary Pat is originally from Olmsted Falls, Ohio. Her interests include “knitting, reading, walking, and volunteering in local prisons and the city mission.” She states, “I am a dual career person: by morning licensed insurance professional (33 years with a well-known Ohio company), by afternoon: medical librarian, on weekends: public librarian with Cleveland Public Library system.”

Karen Nissen
is the Knowledge Management Specialist and CME Coordinator at Columbus Regional Hospital in Columbus, Indiana. She manages and provides all library services for clinical and medical staff, manages and coordinates all components of the continuing medical education program, participates on interdisciplinary teams, and supports medical staff and nursing research activities. Her professional interests include “integrating institutional (internal) and external information resources; health care innovation; [and] interdisciplinary research and learning teams.”
Karen is a 1987 graduate of Indiana University, Bloomington’s library school. She received her undergraduate degree from Buena Vista College in Storm Lake, Iowa, where she double-majored in psychology and philosophy/religion. Her home town is Hardwick, Minnesota. She calls herself a “generalist” in regard to her hobbies and personal interests, which include “time with family, time with friends, community volunteer work, computer games, and trying new activities (gardening, baking, etc.)” She adds, “I am coming into the medical library world after 20 years in the post-secondary academic librarianship arena. Any advice in the way of key web sites, books, thought leaders, journals, newsletters, etc., that I can use to get connected with medical and health librarianship would be wonderful! I would love to communicate with other librarians working in the (more rural than urban) community hospital setting.”
Sheryl Williams is senior audiologist at the Ohio State University Medical Center. She manages the newborn hearing screening program. She has an undergraduate degree in speech from Northwestern University and a graduate degree in audiology from Washington University. Sheryl received her MLIS from Kent State University in 2009. Her professional interests include consumer health. She enjoys working with technical services. She states, “I am looking forward to working in my new chosen field…I am currently still working as an audiologist, but I am interested in working part time in a small library or resource center. For the time being I am completing a project begun during my practicum, [cataloging] a collection of 1000 books at the African American Community Extension Center of the Ohio State University. This allows me to continue to use my cataloging skills.”
Her interests and hobbies include reading, needlework, knitting, crocheting, sewing, music, and theatre. This Gahanna, Ohio, native has been married for 25 years, and has four children aged 17-22 years, two dogs, two rabbits and bird.

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Member News

Compiled by Amber Burtis
Morris Library, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Ill
University of Minnesota -Twin Cities Hosts NLM Traveling Exhibit
Submitted by Lisa McGuire, Assistant Librarian, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

The Bio-Medical Library at the University of Minnesota -Twin Cities campus hosted an opening reception and study abroad information fair on Thursday, January 21 in conjunction with the arrival of the National Library of Medicine’s traveling exhibit, Against the Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health. Representatives from the School of Public Health and the Learning Abroad Center were on hand to talk to undergraduate and graduate students about international learning opportunities.
Later that evening, staff from the Bio-Medical Library moved the exhibit to a reception to announce the new Center for Global Health and Social Responsibility. Approximately 90 Academic Health Center faculty members and students were on hand to view the exhibit and listen to remarks by the medical school and public health school deans about the new center, which will work to improve global health systems and access through discovery, equity, learning, and engagement.


Community Health Informatics Project at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Receives Funding

Submitted by Elaine Hicks, Graduate Research Assistant, Community Informatics Initiative, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

The Community Health Informatics Project developed by chapter member Elaine Hicks received funding from The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Office of the Vice Chancellor for Public Engagement. The funding was the result of a competitive campus-wide RFP process in which faculty, students, and staff participated. The project supports effective collection, management and use of health data by harnessing multi-disciplinary expertise of UIUC faculty, preparing UIUC students to make significant contributions to the public health workforce, and building sustainable partnerships with health departments and community-based organizations whose mission is to protect and promote the health of Illinois residents.
Specifically, the award funds two graduate assistants who will help the Champaign-Urban Public Health District update and maintain their online health database and the newly-developed Health Map Online which adds geospatial data to health data to facilitate effective regional public health emergency response. Elaine is also the 2009 recipient of the MLA scholarship.

Anna Ercoli Schnitzer in the Spotlight for Community Outreach Work
Submitted by Anna Ercoli Schnitzer, Liaison/Disabilities Librarian, Health Sciences Libraries, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Anna Ercoli Schnitzer was highlighted in the January 11, 2010 edition of the University of Michigan’s online newsletter for faculty and staff. According to the article, Schnitzer “spends much of her spare time doing community outreach focused on raising awareness about disabilities. One of her projects is rallying support for animal training programs that help provide therapeutic dogs to people who need them most.” The article goes on to say that her “involvement with therapy dogs began five years ago, when she was part of a team organizing the annual Investing in Ability Week, a series of events sponsored by the U-M Council for Disability Concerns.”

Somber Message of Traveling Exhibit Reaches Many
Submitted by Elizabeth Smigielski, Assistant Director, Kornhauser Health Sciences Library, University of Louisville
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The Kornhauser Health Sciences Library at the University of Louisville recently packed up the 60-odd boxes containing the traveling exhibit Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race, on loan from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. The exhibition examines the role the pre-war German medical community played in the Nazi eugenics movement and the Holocaust. It also draws parallels to the American eugenics movement of the early 20th century.
The exhibit drew over 700 visitors during its three-month stay including several school groups and many from outside the University. In addition, the Library sponsored a lecture series on biomedical ethics which drew roughly 75 people at each of the four lectures. The exhibit was widely publicized in the local media as well as the usual campus vehicles. Michel Atlas, Kornhauser Library, reference librarian and long-time MWMLA and MLA member, coordinated the exhibit. The UofL School of Medicine Office of the Dean and the Louisville Jewish community leant their support for the exhibit.
Deadly Medicine was the second of two traveling exhibits hosted by Kornhauser this year. The summer brought us Changing the Face of Medicine: Celebrating America’s Women, a traveling exhibit sponsored by NLM, ALA, and National Institute of Health Office on Women’s Research. This exhibit traced the emergence of women in the medical field. As part of the exhibit activities, actress Linda Grey Kelley portrayed Elizabeth Blackwell in an engaging one-act play which was well-attended by students despite its Friday night showtime! Outreach Librarian Carol Brinkman coordinated the exhibit.
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Linda Grey Kelley protraying Elizabeth Blackwell in “A Lady Alone”, written by N. Lynn Eckhert, M.D.

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State News and Meeting Reports

State news compiled by Ximena Chrisagis, Chair, State Liaisons Committee
Fordham Health Sciences Library
Wright State University, Dayton, OH
Kentucky
Submitted by Mary Congleton
University of Kentucky Medical Center Library, Lexington, KY

The Kentucky Medical Library Association met on November 10, 2009 at Baptist Hospital East in Louisville for a business meeting, yummy snacks (provided by host Dina Burshteyn) and a CE program on disaster planning. Mary Congleton, Emergency Preparedness Coordinator for Kentucky, presented the NN/LM’s “10-Step Approach to Service Continuity Planning” to thirteen participants.

North Dakota
Submitted by Karen Anderson
Angus L. Cameron Medical Library, Trinity Health, Minot, ND

The spring meeting of the Health Science Information Section (HSIS) of the North Dakota Library Association is scheduled for April 30th, 2010 on the campus Jamestown College, Jamestown, North Dakota. Max Anderson, Technology Coordinator from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine Greater Midwest Region, will be instructing a CE course titled “Screencasting: Creating Online Tutorials. More information on this training opportunity can be found at http://nnlm.gov/training/screencasting/index.html


Ohio

Submitted by Bette Sydelko and Ximena Chrisagis
Wright State University Libraries, Dayton, OH

The Ohio Health Sciences Library Association (OHSLA) will meet on April 19, 2010 at Mt. Carmel in Columbus. Two MLA CE courses will be presented: Advanced PubMed by Holly Burt and Geeks Bearing Lite Gifts by Max Anderson.
Ohio also has several new representatives:

  1. Lisa McCormick of the Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati is OHSLA’s newly appointed representative to the Ohio Collaborative for Clear Health Communication. The Collaborative is a program of the Ohio Statewide Area Health Education Center (AHEC) (http://medicine.osu.edu/orgs/outreach/AHEC/Pages/index.aspx). As representative, Lisa will serve as a conduit for communication and health literacy initiatives between the collaborative and the Association, local library groups, health sciences and hospital libraries, and library science educational programs in Ohio.
  2. Mike McGraw of the Cleveland Health Sciences Library is Ohio’s Regional Advisory Committee (RAC) representative to the GMR; his two-year term began in June.
  3. Mary Pat Harnegie from Cleveland Clinic Alumni Foundation Library is OHSLA’s current “representative on the Ohio Council of Library and Information Services (OCLIS).
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News from MLA

Submitted by Pamela C. Rees, AHIP, Midwest Chapter Council Representative
State Library of Iowa, Des Moines, Iowa

MLA’s New Association Management System Now Available

The Medical Library Association has a new web-based association management system (AMS) that gives members improved online access to MLA services. You can now log in to your account on MLANET and renew your membership for 2010 and receive instantly a receipt to print out for your records. If you have already renewed, you have been added to the new system and you will receive an email when your payment is processed. If you need help, please contact Membership Services via email (mlams2 at mlahq dot org) or by phone at 312.419.9094 x11 or x13.
For institutions needing a print invoice to submit to their accounting departments, a tip from President Connie Schardt, AHIP: select your institutional invoices and add them to your shopping cart, then select “check out” and print your shopping cart. This solution also works for a merged invoice with multiple section memberships for individuals. You are also welcome to contact Membership Services for a merged invoice copy. Please note that MLA’s check remittance address has changed and is now:

Medical Library Association
Department 4627
Carol Stream, IL 60122-4627

With the new AMS service, you can also:

• Change your membership type, if needed
• Update your subscriptions (i.e., change between electronic and print JMLA or MLA News)
• Retrieve your password and change your user name and password
• Update and expand your contact information, including multiple email addresses
• Determine which information you wish to make visible in the membership directory
• Search the updated membership directory
• Opt out of MLA-FOCUS and other email communications
• View information on your MLA membership and payment history
• View your current leadership positions
• Search leadership rosters
• Sign on to your account and the MLANET members-only area through a single sign on
• Shop through the new online store

Get ready for MLA ’10!
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Online registration is now open for MLA’10 “Reflect and Connect,” May 21-26, 2010 in Washington, DC. Meetings, exhibits, and accommodations will be at the Hilton Washington, 1919 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC. For the first time, all registrants will have online access to audio recordings of most annual meeting sessions Preliminary programs have been mailed out to MLA members. For more information, go to the meeting web site: http://www.mlanet.org/am/am2010/index.html
History of MLA Chapters
Did you know that the Medical Library Association has been in existence since 1898 when the first meeting was held in Philadelphia and that MLA chapters did not come into existence until the late 1940′s through the 1970′s? For more information, check out Chapter Council’s “A Timeline of Important Events“. You will also find chapter histories located here including one from the Midwest Chapter which formed in 1950.
NLM Journal Donation Program
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If you are planning to weed print journals, please consider offering them to the National Library of Medicine through its Journal Donation Program. The goal of this program is to ensure that NLM’s holdings are as complete as possible. This has the potential to help all libraries in the long term from disasters affecting electronic holdings or regional print archives.
2010/11 MLA Election Results
On December 10, 2009, the 2010/11 MLA election results were certified and notarized by Survey and Ballot Systems, MLA’s election contractor. There were 1,296 ballots cast (via web voting and paper ballots) from 3,275 eligible members. The election had a participation rate of 39.75%. By comparison, the 2009/2010 election had a participation rate of 42.37%.
The successful candidates listed below will assume office at the conclusion of MLA ’10 in Washington, DC.

President-elect
Gerald (Jerry) Perry , AHIP, Director, Health Sciences Library, Anschutz Medical Campus, University of Colorado-Denver

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Jerry Perry, our new President-Elect of MLA!

Board of Directors (2010-2013)

  • Marianne Comegys, Library Director, Department of Medical Library Science, LSU Health Sciences Center-Shreveport, Shreveport
  • Rikke Ogawa, AHIP, Emergent Technologies Coordinator and Health and Life Sciences Librarian, Louise Darling Biomedical Library, University of California-Los Angeles

Nominating Committee

  • Margaret Bandy, AHIP
  • Janis F. Brown, AHIP
  • Gary D. Byrd, AHIP, FMLA
  • Rebecca Davis, AHIP
  • Jacqueline D. Doyle, AHIP, FMLA
  • Lynn M. Fortney
  • Thomas W. Hill
  • Anne M. Linton, AHIP
  • Katherine Stemmer Frumento, AHIP

Mary L. Ryan, AHIP, FMLA, MLA’s 2009/10 immediate past president, will chair the Nominating Committee.

MLA Connections Blog
Instead of having an MLA Presidential blog this year, the MLA Board is establishing the new MLA Connections blog. This blog will provide an easy way for all board members and MLA members to communicate with each other about issues of importance to MLA. While it appears that many of MLAs activities happen around the time of the MLA annual meeting, work goes on throughout the year. MLA-FOCUS is one way that the association communicates with the membership about these ongoing activities. However, the board wants to communicate interactively among the board, MLA members, and headquarters staff and to be able to quickly inform all members about important association activities.
The blog may include updates on issues important to the profession, presidential priorities and major initiatives, annual meeting information, questions about MLA, the board and presidential activities, and activities of committees, task forces, chapters, and sections. The blog will also be used to respond to MLA-related postings on members individual blogs, instead of just commenting on the blogs. The board encourages all members to join in an ongoing dialog about activities and issues of importance to the profession and association. If you find the information on MLA Connections interesting or helpful, please share the link with your colleagues. http://connections.mlanet.org/

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Call for Papers and Posters: 2010 Annual Meeting in Madison, Wisconsin

Submitted by Brian Finnegan, Chair, Program Committee, 2010 Midwest Chapter/MLA & WHSLA Conference
G.E. Magnin Medical Library, Marshfield, WI
The Program Committee invites proposals for contributed papers and posters for the 2010 joint meeting of the Midwest Chapter of MLA and the Wisconsin Health Sciences Library Association in Madison, Wisconsin from September 24-28 at the Best Western Inn on the Park. Put on your walking shoes and join us in the heart of Madison.
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The conference theme of “Step Up, Step Forward” lends itself to a variety of topics. Share how you have advocated for your patrons, been involved in improving literacy, overcome current financial challenges, or improved collaborations beyond the library. How have you provided new and exciting ways to delivery library services, used technology within and outside the library walls? How is what your are doing now provide a glimpse of the future for libraries and library services?
Papers and posters may highlight practical problem-solving approaches, document collaborative efforts or outreach activities, describe innovative programs, or report on research in librarianship, resources or services. Contributed paper and poster topics are as unlimited as your imagination.
Contributed papers will be presented on Sunday, September 26th and Monday, September 27th at both morning and afternoon simultaneous sessions.
Posters will be on display on Monday, September 27th from noon until 6:00 pm. Presenters should be available to discuss their posters during the poster reception from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm on September 27th. Take a look at the abundant and varied posters presented last year for inspiration.
For contributed paper proposals and poster proposals, submit a 250 word abstract of your paper or poster. Include your name, position title, address, phone number and email address. The abstract should be emailed to finnegan dot brian at marshfieldclinic dot org or mailed to:

Brian Finnegan
G.E. Magnin Medical Library
Marshfield Clinic, 1000 North Oak Ave
Marshfield, WI 54449-5460

The deadline for abstract submission is June 30, 2010. Notifications of paper or poster acceptance or rejection will be made by July 16, 2010.

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Free Lunch Award for Chapter Sharing Roundtables Lunch at MLA 2010

Submitted by Clare Leibfarth, President-Elect, Midwest Chapter
University Libraries, Kent State University, Kent, OH
If you are planning to attend MLA ’10, consider applying for a Chapter Sharing Roundtables Award. Two lunches valued at $54 each will be awarded to support attendance at the Chapter Sharing Roundtables lunch on Tuesday, May 25.
To apply for a free lunch, fill out an application form including your short essay on the topic “Why I Deserve a Free Lunch.” Essays are evaluated on the basis of “conciseness, creativity, humor, pathos, and/or neediness.”
THE APPLICATION DEADLINE IS APRIL 5, 2010!
Hope to see you there, hungry and ready to share!

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Interview with Carole Gilbert

Interview by Jason Young
Genesis Medical Center, Davenport, IA
Carole Gilbert, the chapter’s 2006 Distinguished Librarian of the Year, was born while her father was interning at Norwegian America Hospital. She notes that her mother’s hospital stay of fourteen days cost $12.35 because her dad received a discount. Growing up in Toledo, Ohio, she was the eldest of three and the only girl. Both of her brothers are physicians.
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Carole Gilbert


She and husband Bill have three children and five grandchildren. She was a stay-at-home mom who worked at a number of jobs (alterations and repairs for a dry cleaner, making costumes for a local theater) until her son went to college. She worked in inventory control for a local lawn equipment dealer and went to Wayne State University’s library school at night. She enjoys reading, quilting and high school football and spend lots of time going to her grandson’s sporting events and at her cottage in northern Michigan. Over thirty years, she worked in three hospital libraries. Carole has served the chapter in many capacities, including parliamentarian, president and chapter council representative.

You’re no longer working in a hospital library. What are you up to these days?

Last summer, I taught an acquisitions course to students in the library technician program at Oakland Community College. I loved teaching, and fortunately they have asked me to continue. Unfortunately, the class only meets once a year, from mid-May to mid-August, but I have also been asked to put the class online. That’s a totally new thing for me. I have never even taken a class online. The Library Council would like the class to be as interactive as possible, so if anyone in the Midwest Chapter has done this I’d sure like some tips. I am still editing Journal of Hospital Librarianship and that takes a lot of my time, but it is exciting to note that we are just starting Volume 10.
How did you get interested in librarianship in the first place?
I sort of fell into it! My son was starting college and my youngest child was being bused to a new school due to the renovation of our local elementary school so she was gone all day, no longer coming home for lunch. The time was right and I knew I needed to go to work after being a stay-at-home mom. Talking with a friend (who happened to be a librarian at General Motors), I said I had no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, but I had promised an undergrad professor and my dad that I would someday get a master’s. My friend said, “With your background, you should be a medical librarian.” My response: “What’s that?” But the rest is history. There was one semester that we had three of us in college!

How did you come to be editor of the Journal of Hospital Librarianship?

My journey as editor of Journal of Hospital Librarianship (JHL) really began when I was asked to be a hospital libraries column editor for Medical Reference Services Quarterly by Sandy Wood. We were on the MLA Board together and roomed together for board meetings, so we became good friends. Bill Cohen, owner and publisher of Haworth Press, decided that there should be a market for a journal for hospital librarians since there was nothing like that available. He asked Sandy to recommend someone to start a journal for hospital librarians, and I was it! I had no idea what I was getting into since I had done very little publishing let alone editing. But I’m always up for a challenge, so I agreed to do it.
How long does it take you to publish an issue start to finish?
JHL is a quarterly journal. It has an editorial board and a group of column editors. All of us look for articles all the time – at meetings, conferences, on MEDLIB-L, wherever we can find them. Feature articles come to me via email and once I receive them I send them to members of the editorial board for peer review. Columns are solicited by the column editors and reviewed by two reviewers. Feature articles are reviewed by at least two editors.
It is hard to put an actual time on the editing/submission process, but generally I get the articles 4 to 6 weeks before my deadline. During that time, I read and edit every article and put it in a holding file. About ten days before my deadline to the publisher, I start putting the articles and columns into CATS, the Taylor & Francis production department database. This usually takes a couple of days depending on whether or not I have all the material needed for submission, including copyright releases, mailing addresses, etc. So I guess the answer to the question is, after I submit the issue to the publisher I take a couple of weeks off and then start all over again!
In your opinion, what’s the biggest challenge facing hospital libraries today?
MONEY! Hospital librarians need a lot of money to keep up with technology, and hospital administrators do not understand that. The medical staff understands – at least partially – but physicians no longer have the power they once had. I have seen first had what has happened when librarians and/or libraries are eliminated, and it isn’t pretty!
What must hospital librarians do to stay vital?
I’m not sure I can answer that question. I believe that we just have to keep plugging along, keeping up to date and adapting as the health care environment changes. We need to be out there, teaching, being proactive, taking on new roles. But even that may not be enough. Administrators who are satisfied with what they can find on the Internet think that is enough for everyone. Perhaps it will take another “Hopkins affair” to open their eyes, but I’m not sure even a huge tragedy will be enough for some of us.

What will the hospital library look like in five years?

It will be interesting to see what the hospital library will look like in five years. I believe that some print materials will have to be maintained, at least for emergency situations where loss of power happens. But who knows? Maybe we will all be carrying Kindles or something similar at that point.
What is your greatest professional accomplishment?
I would like to believe that my contribution was the impact I had on the lives and training of more than 3,000 young doctors, nurses and allied health professionals in training as well as hundreds of other medical professionals. I know I helped save some lives over the thirty years I was a practicing hospital librarian, and that is intensely gratifying.

What is your greatest personal accomplishment?

My greatest personal accomplishment was rearing three wonderful, talented children, who have all become accomplished members of society and of their professions, and who have provided me with five grandchildren, all of whom are well on their way to being contributors to their own generation.

What was your first job in the libraries?

My first job was as the librarian at the Henry Ford Hospital School of Nursing Library. I loved working with the nursing students and with a great boss who let me “do my thing.” But that’s another story!
Who are your heroes?
I don’t know if she would consider herself a hero, but the professor who taught the medical libraries curriculum at Wayne State University Library School certainly had an impact on the way I practiced. And my father, a family practice physician, and my mother (a pioneer who went to dental school in the early 1930s when women were not supposed to do such things), who encouraged me to try lots of new things and never told me I couldn’t do something just because I was a girl.

What book(s) are you currently reading?

I have a huge collection of books on the Civil War that I promised myself I would read after I retired. I’m working my way through them. I also like historical novels (I majored in history in college), mysteries and books about quilts. Right now I am reading a novel about England in the 1100s. I don’t read a lot of nonfiction, but occasionally something I hear about on the radio or television or see in the bookstore will strike my fancy and I’ll read it. The last nonfiction book I read was about autism.

If you weren’t a librarian, what else can you imagine yourself doing?

Interestingly, I started out as a junior high school teacher. Now, after fifty years, I am back teaching again and enjoying it. But being a hospital librarian was my dream job, and I miss it every day!

Is there anything that others might be surprised to know about you?

During World War II, my father was stationed in the Panama Canal Zone at the Albrook Field Medical Dispensary. After VE Day, we were allowed to join him and I celebrated my eighth birthday two days after arriving in Panama. I have always wanted to go back, so in February my husband and I are taking a cruise to Panama, where we will get to tour the city and go through the canal.

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Librarians Have an Important Role in Health Care

Submitted by Linda Walton, Associate University Librarian and Director for the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences
Diminishing Disparities and Improving Information Access
As the continuing debate over health care reform raged across the country this summer, librarians from the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences quietly began working to provide health information access to the uninsured and the underserved in Iowa. Through a collaborative project with the Community Engagement Function of the University of Iowa Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS), computers will be installed at four Iowa community health centers in Davenport, Waterloo, Des Moines, and Sioux City. These communities were targeted based on the number of underserved populations in the area. In addition to providing hardware to the clinics, Hardin librarians will train both consumers and staff on accessing quality consumer health information.
The project, which earned a $30,000 grant from National Network of Libraries of Medicine Greater Midwest Region, has four primary objectives: developing a Web site with consumer-focused health information; installing Internet-accessible computers for consumers in the waiting rooms of the four clinics; training health professional at the clinics and online consumer health information resources ; and demonstrating consumer health information resources in the four communities to local patients and families.
Working closely with the research coordinators at the four community health clinics, Chris Childs, Outreach & Education Librarian at Hardin, will create a LibGuide website with information resources that are appropriate for the targeted communities, including language and health concerns. LibGuides are a web 2.0 content management and library knowledge sharing system that allows users to email questions directly to a librarian, in this case Chris. You can see an example of a current consumer health guide at http://guides.lib.uiowa.edu/consumerhealth.
When the computers are installed in the four clinics, Chris will travel to each location and conduct an interview with staff at the clinics. These meetings will inform his understanding of the important health issues in each community so he can target quality resources to their patients. After the LibGuide is built, he will return to the clinic and train the staff on using the new information tool designed for their clinic.
For the final part of the project, Chris will return to each clinic to present a consumer health information workshop with patients and others in the community. The clinic research coordinators already offer these types of community-wide consumer health sessions. Topics are very practically focused and have included diabetes management or smoking cessation.
At the conclusion of this 18 month project, we hope that the people in four of Iowa’s most diverse and disparate communities will have a better understanding of their health issues and be more active in their own health care or the care of a loved one.

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President’s Message, Elaine Skopelja

Librarians Are Knowledge Managers
Elaine Skopelja MALS, AHIP
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I have been thinking a lot lately about knowledge management (KM), perhaps because I have been on so many committees lately at the Indiana University School of Medicine (Faculty Development, Community Relations, the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI) Hub Team, etc.). Although they are quite diverse, they all have one thing in common – a varied membership of professions across the medical, bioresearch and IT fields. I can’t tell you how much information that I have gained over the last few years just by listening to these folks and kind of quietly analyzing their information resources and needs.
Serving on committees and working with departments was just as valuable while I was employed in hospital libraries. There is just NO substitute for hearing what people in the field have to say about their jobs, how they approach information-gathering and what they use for resources. Using the opportunity to ask them questions and perhaps gain an invaluable contact is another plus. Librarians generally work with many different institutional areas and specialties and are in a position to hear about information solutions in one department that might work in another. We often have a head start on acquiring that “institutional memory” which is a big part of knowledge management. This familiarity with users also helps considerably with performing better and more efficient searches.
We should not be afraid to start using the KM concept, even if we still (proudly) call ourselves librarians. Maybe organizing internal reports or assisting/consulting with departments in tagging (aka indexing or cataloging) their own documentation is a way in which we can contribute. How about working with the organizational intranet? How about recommending and/or helping faculty, researchers and administrators to change their file cabinets of papers into electronic libraries by using EndNote or other bibliographic software? There are many ways to apply KM principles to the job that we already perform. Perhaps just referring to these types of projects “knowledge management” will give this work the cachet that you seem to need nowadays to become cool (or cooler as the case may be!).
Exactly how to use this information to create, organize and distribute useful content AND promote your library and its services comes immediately to mind. Nowadays there are a lot of technical formats to promote the library, so many that it can be extremely confusing. But we need to carefully pick a few formats to become comfortable with, and then do our old-fashioned job of selecting and/or creating, organizing and distributing external and internal knowledge to use with new technologies and formats. On her blog Lorri Zipperer offers several excellent classes in knowledge management in the past and has some unique ideas on the roles of libraries and librarians. I have been to several great sessions on digital repositories myself in the past few years.
Attending meetings such as Midwest Chapter MLA meeting in Madison this September, MLA in Washington this May, or your state meetings will provide you with numerous opportunities to learn about some new technologies, gather ideas from other librarians and talk to software creators and providers. As a member you have access to the Midwest Chapter/MLA Listserv to communicate with the many expert librarians in our group. Use it to ask questions, share information and network with colleagues.
A few weeks ago the Midwest Chapter Executive Board tried out our DimDim meeting software and it worked pretty well, with no more than the usual amount of small technical glitches. It will be in full use for our next board meeting in March thereby allowing several librarians who would otherwise be unable to attend to meet with us, saving money for both individuals and their organizations. As information-sharing and organizations become more complex, we need to use KM principles to create, organize and distribute knowledge in a timely, efficient and cost-effective manner. As librarians, we are well-placed by training and experience to do just this! So let’s outdo the IT guys by defining ourselves and creating our own “truthiness” – librarians are also KNOWLEDGE MANAGERS!!!

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Winter 2010 Issue, Number 118

(Due to a technical glitch, MIDLINE has a temporary new look.)
Greetings, everyone, my name is Elizabeth Smigielski and I’m the new editor of MIDLINE. Jason Young is busy with two classes, on top of working full-time and recently moving, so I am filling in for now. I am a member of the Communications Committee and responsible for marketing for the Kornhauser Health Sciences Library at the University of Louisville, so editing the newsletter is a good fit.
I’m looking forward to learning more about editing the newsletter in this electronic venue and what you and our fellow members are doing, so you’ll be hearing from me as I ferret out the who, what, when, and where.
Elizabeth Smigielskime magdalena baptism 122809.JPG
MIDLINE editor

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