Annual MLA Meeting

Medical Library Association

On Sunday Jennifer presented a paper at the Annual Meeting of the MLA. The paper, co-authored by Jennifer, Sandy and Dr. Marion Slack from the College of Pharmacy, described a role-playing approach to teaching how to search scholarly literature. Jennifer spoke to a full house and answered several questions – a very successful presentation.

Brooke, Annabelle and Jeanette were co-authors, along with several other people, of a paper presented by Keith Cogdill from the University of Texas, San Antonio. This paper described the Frontera Collaboration, our collaborative project on border health information involving Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

Jennifer presented another paper on Tuesday, this one co-authored by Dr. Marie Chisholm-Burns, Sandy and several others. Her presentation described the process of carrying out a systematic review of the pharmacy literature looking for evidence of the effect of pharmacists as team members on patient care. Again this was a very full room and Jennifer answered several questions and spoke to some audience members after the talk.

Also spotted at MLA were Clinical Education Librarians Kathleen Carlson from ASU, Marni Ditmar from TMC, Sally Harvey from Good Samaritan/Banner Health and Kathy Zeblisky from Phoenix Children’s Hospital. (Please let me know if I missed anyone.)

The meeting included many interesting papers and plenary speakers. I hope that those who attended can share what they learned with everyone else. I think everyone who attended has returned with new ideas, new information and new energy!

CS for SK

Congratulations Sandy
Please join me in congratulating Sandy who has been given Continuing Status by the University!

Authors! Artwork??

Congratulations Sandy, Jennifer M., and Joan
Sandy, Jennifer Martin and Joan have coauthored a paper with Marion Slack from the College of Pharmacy and Jim Martin from the Main Library. The article titled, “Effectiveness of a Liaison Program in Meeting Information Needs of College of Pharmacy Faculty” was published in the January 2011 issue of Medical Reference Services Quarterly and describes the use of focus groups in measuring program effectiveness. The article can be downloaded at: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a932726497~frm=titlelink

Congratulations Jeanette and Jacque
Jeanette and Jacque are co-authors on an article in the MLA News that describes the Tribal Connections/Four Corners 2010 Conference in Gallup, NM. Yamila, Jacque, Jeanette and Gary were among the many participants in this meeting. I can’t post a link because the newsletter is available to members only but the library has a subscription as do many of the librarians.

New “Artwork”
Check out our new wall hanging in the office – you can’t miss it. It’s a large poster listing our Mission, Values and Strategic Directions. We’re hoping that it will serve as a constant reminder of our goals for the coming year(s).

Posters, posters, posters, 24/7, Reception

Research Day
On Wednesday the AHSC presented the “Frontiers in Biomedical Research” Poster Forum on the AHSC plaza. AHSL was represented by two very nice poster presentations. Jennifer Martin and Sandy Kramer displayed their poster describing a literature-searching project in the College of Pharmacy. Our second poster presented work done on the Frontera Collaboration for border health by Annabelle, Brooke, Yamila and Jeanette. You can see Jennifer and Sandy’s poster on our website at:
http://www.ahsl.arizona.edu/about/presentations.cfm and I’m sure that any member of the Frontera team will be happy to share their poster with you. Thanks to everyone who made this event a success!

Collegiate Showcase
As part of Homecoming weekend the Health Sciences Center is presenting a “collegiate showcase” on the AHSC plaza today from 1-3:30 PM. The exhibit will feature posters from many organizations on the AHSC including the library. With short notice Yamila and Mary R. put together a beautiful poster representing the library. Stop by the plaza after our staff appreciation luncheon to see it. Thanks to everyone involved in getting this done!

Dr. John Palmer
Thanks to Nga for putting together a wonderful poster celebrating the life and career of Dr. John Palmer. Dr. Palmer will be receiving the UA Honorary Alumnus Award over Homecoming Weekend. You can see the poster in the glass cases, just outside the library entrance, near the doors at the top of the exterior stairway.

24/7 study area?
The request we get most from students is for longer hours. Many newer library buildings include a room with a separate entrance that is available 24/7 with no supervision. We are starting to explore the possibility of creating a 24/7 study area in room 2101, the Java City area. By closing off the room with a movable partition across the library side in the evenings and giving access from the hallway with a card swipe we may be able to meet the student’s needs. We are considering installing security cameras and perhaps employing a staff person if additional security is needed. We are working with Facilities, Risk Management, UAPD, UMC Security and ITS on this proposal. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please pass them along to any ATeam member.

Exhibit reception
Dr. Witte will be hosting another reception to publicize the exhibit, Creating a Community of Questioners for the Future. The reception will be held on Wednesday, October 27 from 4-6 PM. I’m sure that library staff will be welcome to attend.

Diamond Children's Center, Strategic Plan, Budget, Long-range Planning

Diamond Children’s Center Open House
Sandy and Brooke represented AHSL and AZHIN respectively at the Diamond Children Center’s Physician Open House last night. The event had a dual purpose: celebration of the grand opening of the new Center and a strong push to involve physicians throughout the state by encouraging them to become affiliated with the University of Arizona. Over 300 physicians were invited to attend and in addition to virtual tours of the center, which highlighted their state of the art services, a whole section was devoted to information on how to become a UA affiliate along with the benefits and responsibilities of affiliation. Library resources and services are of course major benefits and Sandy talked to physicians who came to the “library booth.” Since some physicians will likely choose not to become affiliated, Brooke was there to tell them about the resources they may already have access to—AZHIN. The event was a big success and Dr. Cleo Hardin, Section Chief Pediatric Hospital Medicine and Outreach, and her assistant Debbie Boggs were enthusiastic in their appreciation of the library’s participation.

Strategic Plan
Thanks again to the three groups that worked on the goals and objectives. The Administrative Team has reviewed the reports and has sent a few questions back to the groups. The next step will be for the ATeam to bring these suggestions together into a single strategic plan with Goals spread over the next several years and people assigned to different tasks or committees. I expect this part of the process to take 4-6 weeks. Stay tuned!

State Budget
News reports this morning brought bad news about the Arizona economy. Tax revenues are way down leaving the state facing a $700 million shortfall for this fiscal year. The governor is ruling out any tax increases and wants the cover the deficit with cuts to healthcare and education. The library has been asked to “hold back” or not allocate 5% of our state budget for just this situation. This amounts to $127,000 that is not available for collections or other purposes. We have no word yet from the university on whether or not we will have to give up this sum but all signs are pointing in that direction. (for more on the budget see the next item.)

Long Range Planning
On Monday I met with Dr. Crist, Vice President for Health Affairs, to talk about several urgent issues. On Tuesday Cindy and I met with Dr. Crist, Jerry Miron and Herminia Rios, (Dr. Crist's top financial advisors) to present the library’s “all sums” budget. This is a complete budget review that all departments have been asked to do and an opportunity to present budgetary issues to the Vice President.

As a result of these two meetings AHSL administration will be working with Dr. Crist on three initiatives that we hope will have some long-range, and perhaps short-range, results.

Perhaps the most important is to look at a fundamental restructuring of how AHSL is funded on campus. We are currently trapped between constantly increasing prices for information and a steadily decreasing state budget. We have identified several strategies to insure a reliable budget for the library and will be working with Dr. Crist to present these to the Provost and President.

A second initiative will be to work more closely with the new UA Healthcare to get support, not only for collections, but also for personnel to better serve Kino Hospital and, perhaps, UMC.

The third area is development or fundraising. You may know that Dr. Crist came to the University promising to bring in large donations. He has spent his first two years making contacts in the state and laying the groundwork for support. He is now ready to begin asking for significant donations. In the past we have worked exclusively with the College of Medicine development team. From now on we will also work directly with Dr. Crist, keeping him informed of our needs and suggesting giving opportunities. These opportunities could range from naming the entire building to naming a group study room and from creating an endowment to naming an endowed “chair” (an ongoing position) in the library. We have started organizing information to give to Dr. Crist in support of his efforts.

Yesterday, as a result of these discussions with Dr. Crist, I attended a planning session with administrators from UA Healthcare that I hope will lead to stronger links between AHSL and the clinical enterprise.

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.

Kudos from CON, Mary R. & Pat lauded

Kudos to Hannah and Sandy
The College of Nursing was visited this week by their accreditation team. We were asked to participate since access to information resources is considered an important part of accreditation. Before Sandy gave our presentation, a member of the accreditation team called her over. She said, "You probably will not be at the wrap-up meeting, so I want to tell you now that many of the students we spoke to just raved about the library. They loved the librarians; they loved the library and said you are all so helpful. That they can get anything they need from you."
The Colleges take comments by accreditation teams very seriously. This kind of positive feedback reflects so well on all of our efforts here in the library and especially on the work that Hannah and Sandy do with help from others in IS. A positive report from an accreditation team reinforces the value of the library to campus leaders.

Award ceremony
On Tuesday Mary R. and Pat were again recognized for their University Outstanding Achievement Award. (see the update from March 15) The ceremony was held at the Student Union where the U.S.S. Arizona bell was rung in their honor and President Shelton presented them with certificates. There were only three other awards given.

Brooke, Jennifer M, Sandy, money, planning, money

Brooke still elected!
A correction from last week - Brooke has been voted President-elect of SABL and will serve as President during 2011.

Jennifer highlighted in COP Bulletin
The latest issue of the College of Pharmacy Bulletin features an article about Jennifer Martin and the blog that she’s created. You can read the article at:
http://www.pharmacy.arizona.edu/news/uViewNewsItem.php?NewsID=336

Medical News
Every day new news items are listed on the home page of our website. Sandy does a great job of keeping this up to date. I know that I often find interesting articles listed and I’m sure that our users do too. Thanks Sandy for all of your work on this.

Fund Raising
Jeanette and Gary recently met with Brian Bateman from the Development Office. We discussed strategies for attracting donors to the library. Brian is asking departments to create one-page fact sheets that can be given to potential donors. He has given us some samples and we will be drafting one for the library. Mary H. is compiling a list of people who have donated books to the library. They may be getting a call from Brian and copies of our fact sheet!

Strategic Planning
Be sure to read the rather long email sent yesterday afternoon from the Administrative Team (Strategic Planning - Values statement) in order to prepare for our next All Staff meeting.

Budget
Several people have asked about the budget. The state of Arizona accepted federal stimulus funds. As a result they are required to not cut the higher education budget any lower than 2006 levels. Since Arizona universities have been cut several times since 2006 our budget cannot technically be cut . . . until July 2011 when the stimulus will end. Current proposals in the legislature include provisions to delay payments to the universities. This has already happened several times. The UA has a reserve fund that it has used to take us through these delays in funding. In the short run we should be OK with no further cuts this year. Some UA colleges are planning to hold back some funds from next year’s budget. We have heard nothing about a similar plan from the AHSC. In the long run our strategic planning process will help us to identify priorities for our budget as we approach July 2011.

Teaching and teaching!

WeSearch
Last week Pat and Annabelle again taught the We Search students and SIRLS Knowledge River mentors. The students, from Sunnyside High School, learned about finding reliable health information and created their own digital stories about a personal healthcare experience.

Prologue
On Wednesday AHSL librarians took over the “Prologue” - orientation for incoming College of Medicine students. Annabelle took on the classroom session – co-teaching with Dr. Sean Eliot about the principles and practice of Evidence-based medicine. Meanwhile the other half of the student group was in our lab, searching for the answers to their first clinical questions with help from Mari, Carol and Sandy. After an hour the groups switched places. Sandra Martin and I observed both sessions and it was great to see the new students so engaged in learning. They got a wonderful introduction to library resources and to our staff.

Article published

Congratulations to Sandy and me. We’ve had an article published in the April 2009 issue of the Journal of the Medical Library Association. The article is called, “Embedded librarians: one library’s model for decentralized service” and describes the library liaison model at the AHSL. If you can’t wait to read it, the library, as well as many librarians, have subscriptions. It should appear in Pubmed Central soon at:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/tocrender.fcgi?action=archive&journal=93

USPHS Meeting, SLA Meeting

US Public Health Service Meeting
Pat and Annabelle presented both a paper and a poster at the national convention of the US Public Health Service held in Tucson last week. Their topic was the Pima County Community Health Task Force, a coalition of the Pima County Health Department, the Pima County Board of Supervisors, the Pima County Public Library, the AHSL, the UA National Women’s Health Center of Excellence and the Colleges of Nursing and Public Health.
The poster showed the vision and mission and what each of the collaborators contributes as well as progress to date. The presentation described the history of the collaboration, where we are now, and our plans for moving forward.

Special Libraries Association
When a panelist dropped out at the last minute, Sandy got herself on a panel at the Special Libraries Association annual meeting in Seattle. The panel, titled "Embedded Librarianship: Background & Overview" was a discussion of libraries that have “co-located” librarians with their user groups as we have in Public Health, Pharmacy and Bio5. (photo credit to Jennifer!)