Meeting, AZHIN contract

MLA Chapter Meeting
Several folks from AHSL are attending the joint meeting of two regional chapters of the Medical Library Association in Glendale, AZ. Mary Riordan, Brooke, Jacque and Lindsey all worked on various committees to organize this meeting. Clinical Education Librarians Becky Birr and Kathy Zeblisky are co-chairs of the entire meeting and Lora Robbins and April Aguinaga have also worked on committees. We also have several people presenting papers and posters. Jeanette presented both a paper and a poster, on behalf of her several co-authors from other libraries, reporting on our collaboration with the other libraries of the Tribal Connections Four Corners project. Annabelle presented a paper, on behalf of her co-author Martha Moore-Monroy from the U of A, on Information and Outreach about HPV and the HPV Vaccine. Jacque, Lindsey and Kathleen Carlson of ASU (one of our Clinical Education Librarians) presented a paper on the challenges of developing a new library. Carol presented a paper, on behalf of her co-authors Pat and Gary, on our process of supervisor evaluation.

AZHIN Contract
Sponsored Projects approved the AZHIN administrative contract this week. Although expected, this is always good news. AZHIN will pay the library over $100,000 during 2010 to handle its administrative and technical affairs; the amount includes salaries, technical support, travel, and various miscellaneous items. This is the 12th year that the library has managed this account.

Strategic planning, publication

Strategic Planning
The Administrative Team spent a very productive day and a half working with our facilitator, Rick Forsman, to design a strategic planning process. We will use the All Staff meeting on Feb. 4 and another about two weeks later to begin this process. Watch for an email before the Feb. 4th meeting with a document for you to comment on. The ATeam is looking forward to working with you on this multi-part plan.

Articles on library space
In the latest issue of the Journal of the Medical Library Association I coordinated the publication of six articles describing how health sciences libraries have recently lost or been asked to give up space. You can find my introduction and the six articles (including one about our experience with the fourth floor) in the printed journal or online in the Case Studies section at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/pmc/issues/183881/

Webinar, Video and Planning

Refugee resources webinar
On Thursday at noon Mary R. and Pat presented a webinar about sources of health information for refugees and others who may speak languages other than English. There were over 40 people watching from all over the United States and I’m sure that they found the presentation as interesting and informative as I did. Mary and Pat were using the WebEx software, which seemed to work very well for those of us viewing the presentation on our computers.

YouTube?
Annabelle is working with staff members in Biomedical Communications to produce a short (under 2 minutes) video about RefWorks. This is an experiment to see if this kind of “spot” can be used in D2L modules or on our website to bring attention to library resources.

Strategic Planning
Next week we’ll take the first step in planning for the library for the next five years. This process will soon involve everyone in the library. On Thursday and Friday the Administrative Team will be working with Rick Forsman, former director of the health sciences library at the University of Colorado. Rick will help us to plan a process for gathering input from the whole staff.