Award, Conference and Thanks

Eleanor Johnson Award

Yesterday I was honored to present the Eleanor Johnson Award for Academic Excellence at the College of Medicine Awards Brunch at the University Marriott.  This year the award was given posthumously to Zachary Orman.  Zach died following a paragliding accident last year.  He has been described as one of the college’s finest students who hoped to become an emergency room physician.  His grandparents accepted the award and the stipend was deposited in the Orman Scholarship Fund.

Eleanor Johnson was a librarian here in the 1970’s and early 1980’s.  She had a long-standing interest in encouraging students and this award was established in her memory.

MLA

Gary, Jeanette, Mary R., Annabelle, Brooke, Diana, and Margot Natividad (KRI student) will be attending the annual meeting of the Medical Library Association now through Wednesday in Chicago.

Thanks Javad

Thanks to Javad for coming in at 6 AM on Tuesday to take delivery on new chairs.  The chairs were purchased with EPIC rent money and have been placed on the second through fourth floors.

Congratulations Jennifer!

Please join me in congratulating Jennifer Martin who has been promoted to Associate Librarian with Continuing status effective July 1.

Grand Opening Gala

Thanks to everyone who chipped in to make the VETS Center Grand Opening a success.  I think that we had between 75-100 people attending.  Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly took the time to stop and chat with a number of people including library staff.  All of the remarks were short and the ribbon cutting went without a hitch. Special thanks to Javad for working on the room setup, Linda for last minute sign design and printing and Tessie for photography. (my photos below)

Massive project completed!

In January, Dr. Garcia’s office asked us to compile a list of all of the journal publications coming out of the AHSC during 2013.  This was a massive and complex project.  Many thanks go to Ahlam for coordinating.  Nga, Mary Riordan, Hannah, Annabelle, Jennifer, Mari, Jeanette, Brooke, and Christy Wiles (a SIRLS student who works at the desk) all took certain colleges and/or departments and worked on significant portions of the overall project.  The results, 1545 article citations, were sent out on Tuesday.  Thanks to everyone who contributed to this project!

Congratulations Kathy!

Kathy Tower has been named as the winner of the 2014 Georgia Reynolds Dedicated Service Award given by AHSC Staff Advisory Council.  Nominees must have 15 years of employment at the AHSC and nomination packets must show service to the AHSC and service to the community.  The nomination packet must include at least three letters of support from with the AHSC and two letters from outside the AHSC community.  This is the highest award given at the Annual Award Ceremony in DuVal Auditorium.  Although recently retired, Kathy will be coming back to campus on April 10 at 1:30 PM.  Kathy is certainly deserving of this award!

Strategic Planning for Research Support

Jeanette, Joan, Ahlam and Gary continue to work on a strategic plan for supporting research on the AHSC.   We are meeting with stakeholders and beginning to hear some common themes.  Our planning is starting to expand into support for the CTSA (Clinical & Translational Science Award) proposal.  Once the plan starts to come together we will share our early drafts with the entire staff and ask for your input.
 

 So far we have met with Sangita Pawar– Executive Director, Research Affairs, College of Medicine, Sally Reel - Associate Vice President for Health Sciences Interprofessional Education, Collaboration and Community Engagement, AHSC, Anne Rosenfeld – Associate Dean for Research, College of Nursing, Don Saner - Associate Chief Knowledge Officer and Executive Director for Biomedical Informatics Services, AHSC and, from the AHSL, Ahlam, Annabelle, Carol, Jennifer and Mari.  There are others that we still need to meet with.

 We are seeing that many of our current activities are valued by researchers and will continue to be needed.  There are areas where we may need additional resources or personnel.  These relate to networking researchers, tracking productivity, metadata and training.  We’ll keep you posted!

AHSL at the Tucson Festival of the Book

Many thanks to Annabelle, Yamila, Diana, Amanda and Yamila’s husband Sammy who all contributed to our presence at the Festival.  Annabelle staffed the AHSC booth in partnership with COM’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion in the Science of You tent at Science City. 

Annabelle reports, “There’s no telling how many folks came through but all of our giveaways and Skeletoni kits (500) were gone by 1:15.  Participants had to spin a wheel and guess/say the medical term of the corresponding number on a bone located on ‘Chuckie’ . . .

The kits contained a little blurb about bones, pasta and instructions on how to make either Mr/Mrs./Ms/ Skeletoni or Baby-toni, links and information on MedlinePlus, BAM! Body and Mind, and KidsHealth.gov, and a PCPL bibliography of health books.”

I’ve attached a photo of Annabelle and Chuckie the skeleton at the booth and one of an aspiring doctor, nurse, pharmacist, public health worker or medical librarian who, we are told, couldn’t wait to work on her Skeletoni!