Thanks, Thanks and Shredding

Thanks to Mary, Dave and Amanda
Our Collection Services team has continued to do an amazing job this year. Despite flat budgets and constant price increases, they have kept our collection healthy and accessible and kept the budget balanced. On Tuesday I met a doctor on our faculty who said, “I don’t know how you do it but I rely so much on your collection and I find just what I need even with all of your budget cuts.” Collection Services has had to make some tough choices but have managed to meet most reasonable requests from our faculty. This has not been easy! Thank you!

Thanks to Nga
Nga has been very busy with a variety of projects. Last year she checked over 6,000 volumes of electronic journals against our print holdings. Nga has discovered missing issues and supplements. In some cases we can supply the missing items to the publishers who can add them to the digital versions. Nga also works on indexing some of the items in our special collections. In one case she is transcribing a print index so that we can make it available to scholars online. Thanks to Nga for all of this background work!

Convenient shredding
There is now a shredder located in the IS Desk Staff office on the second floor. There is also a new shredder in the library office.

Congrats to Mary R., Dave, Jennifer M., New Position, Committee Assignments

Congratulations to Mary R.
Mary has been asked to serve as Chair Designate/Chair of the Medical Library Association Awards Committee. Her term will start on June 1, 2011. The Awards Committee oversees all of the MLA Award Juries, reviews policies and procedures related to awards and is empowered to recommend to the Board a nominee for the Noyes Award, the highest honor given by MLA. This position carries a lot of responsibility and a full workload!

Dave Piper, History Detective!
The December issue of the Pima County Medical Society (PCMS) newsletter has a page-long story about the digitization of the PCMS historical minutes and some of the interesting stories contained in them. The article credits Dave Piper with the digitization project and with additional extensive research that has helped to bring these minutes to life. The article ends with a heartfelt thank you to Dave from the Executive Director, Dr. Steve Nash.

Congratulations to Jennifer Martin
Jennifer has been accepted to the Biomedical Informatics Course jointly sponsored by the National Library of Medicine and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA. Admission is very competitive and acceptance comes with a full scholarship that covers all expenses for the seven-day course. Jennifer will be attending the fall session. She will be joining Sandy and Carol as graduates of the program.

New Position
As mentioned in the January 7th update the library has received permission to create a new librarian position. A job description has been drafted for an “Emerging Technologies Librarian.” The person in this position will be helping us to use new technology – from mobile phones to social networks – to communicate with and support our clients. The search will begin as soon as the current search concludes.

Strategic Planning Committees
Thanks to all who volunteered to serve on committees this year. We weren’t able to place everyone on a committee and we did have to “draft” a few people. Thanks in advance to those who have agreed to serve for two years (or one year on the Emergency and Disaster Preparedness Task Force.) The ATeam will be meeting with each group to get them started.
Transforming Services – Sandy, Chair; Javad, Carol, Yamila, new IS librarian
Marketing and Promotion – Joan, Chair; Annabelle, Jacque, Tessie, Linda
Emergency and Disaster Preparedness Plan Task Force – Jeanette; Chair, Mikel, Brooke, Javad, “Emerging Technologies Librarian”

Shelving, IPE

Shelving projects
Dave has proposed a solution to several problems and the ATeam has asked him to move forward on planning. The library owns many items that should hang on walls – paintings and plaques – that cannot be displayed for a variety of reasons. Dave has proposed a solution involving the “annex” shelving in Collection Services. As part of this process some of the titles currently shelved there will move up to compact shelving. In addition, some of the older indexes from the reference area on the 2nd floor will move to compact shelving and some will be discarded. Additional study tables will move into the “new” space on the 2nd floor. We are just in the beginning of the planning for these projects.

Interprofessional Education
Sandy and Gary have been invited to serve on a newly formed AHSC Interprofessional Education Steering Committee. The group met for the first time this morning and is charged with planning and guiding programs that will teach AHSC (and Law and Social Work) students to work together as teams as they will have to do after graduation.