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.

Space, Carpet, and Book

Space Committee
On Monday the Space Committee met with Vice President Crist to share their thoughts about library space. Dr. Crist was very supportive of the idea of insuring that the library supports the educational mission of the campus. He asked Gary to form another committee with a faculty co-chair to submit a report in the next 2-3 months on how library (and other) space can be used to support inter-professional education. Dr. Crist seems committed to the idea that an overall plan should be developed for the library building and that projects not be taken on individually.

New carpet project
New carpet will be installed in 2101, the Java City area, beginning on Tuesday, March 30. This should take about a week. Work on the rest of the 2nd floor and the 3rd floor will probably start around April 12.

Book Donation
Medical Education has been shaped for over 100 years by the Flexner Report, which inspired the current system of premedical education focusing on chemistry, biology and physics. Today many are questioning this premise. Dr. Joseph Alpert has given the library a copy of Donald Barr's Questioning the Premedical Paradigm (Johns Hopkins, 2010), which addresses these issues. The book has been cataloged and will be on the shelf shortly at W 18 B268q 2010.

Election, Discussion, Retrieval, Spirit

Brooke elected!
Brooke has been elected President of SABL (Southern Arizona Biomedical Librarians) for 2010. Congratulations Brooke!

Carol speaks!
Carol has been invited to participate in a panel discussion at a pre-conference symposium at the annual meeting of the Medical Library Association in Washington, DC in May. The symposium is about “informationist” programs – librarians with subject expertise who work closely with clients. Carol has been asked to take part in the panel on clinical informationists. Other panelists will represent Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt and the NIH library.

MeSH Rebounds!
Mary Holcomb has been working with UAL staff for over a year to get the MeSH headings in the Innovative catalog to function correctly. Finally the problem was identified and corrected and now MeSH headings can be used to search the catalog with reliable results. Mary has also had a new MeSH feature turned on in the Serials Solutions A-Z list. When you go to eJournals ( http://zp9vv3zm2k.search.serialssolutions.com/?V=1.0&L=ZP9VV3ZM2K&N=100&S=T_AZ&C=A ), you now have a choice of selecting " a subject category" or "a medical subject category," the latter of which uses broad MeSH headings to search the electronic journal holdings.

Go Cats!
No, we in the office are not too lazy to take down the ornaments hanging from the ceiling. If you look carefully, a small basketball and UA Wildcats basketball posters have joined the red and blue globes. Our holiday decorations have been converted to a show of team spirit and will stay up through basketball season.

AV Weeding Project

Most of our audio-visual materials are shelved in the compact shelving on the third floor. Many of these items contain old, out-of-date information or are in formats that are rarely, if ever, used these days (slide tape shows for example). We have started a project to review these items and to remove those that have no archival or educational value. Dave will be reviewing these titles and many will be weeded with help from the IS Desk Staff and our shelvers, our Knowledge River students and the Collection Services Department. Dave estimates that as much as 80% of these items will be weeded. We hope to recycle much of the paper and plastic.