Space, Space, Space

Student services in the library

The Graduate and Professional Student Council offers counseling to students regarding professional development, job hunting, etc.  They are looking for a space where they can meet with AHSC students.  We are currently talking with them about their specific needs but anticipate that they will use a group study room one or two half-days a week.

4th floor

Thanks to Dean Williams we have come to an agreement with the Dr. Garcia regarding library space.  The Vice President’s office will be taking responsibility for the entire 4th floor, including the silent study space.  In return the library will not face the loss of other space in the library, will get new group and individual study spaces built on the third floor and will have some voice in the planning of the HEAT building.  We believe that the opportunities for us in the HEAT building are tremendous and look forward to involvement with this planning.

Work on the 4th floor may begin any day in the form of architects, engineers and space planners doing measurements.  We have asked that they remember that students are studying for exams on that floor through Friday, December 19th.  We should be able to keep access to the eight group study rooms open for a while longer.  However, the floor will probably be closed to all early in January as work progresses.  The ambitious timeline for completion is April 2015.

The Administrative Team, Dean Williams and others will be meeting soon to discuss issues, ramifications and solutions.  We will keep you informed!

Numbers, Numbers, Numbers . . .

Each year we submit statistics to both the Association of Research Libraries and to the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries.  When added to the counts from other libraries these statistics allow us to see how we compare to other libraries, to see trends and to learn about new services being offered by others.  Every year Jeanette, with help from many of you, compiles all of these statistics.  She is close to finishing this year and I want to thank her and those who contribute statistics for the huge amount of work involved in gathering, collating and reporting these numbers.

Campus Building Plans

There are plans for a Medical Research Building (MRB) 2.  The building will sit between Cherry Ave and the two existing research buildings – MRB and Bio5.  It will create a “horseshoe” shape with those buildings and will go up on top of the long, thin parking lot that currently occupies the space.  Ground is scheduled to be broken sometime between March and May 2015.

The “HEAT” (Health Education and Advanced Technology) building planning was stalled but may now move ahead.  It is still probably 3-5 years in the future but may include a move of the library into that space.  Current thinking is that the new building will occupy a portion of the parking lot across the traffic circle from the current AHSL.

"Quint" Meeting

Ahlam, Annabelle, Brooke, Mari, Kathleen Carlson (AHSL-Phoenix) and Gary all attended the five-chapter MLA meeting in Denver this week.  Librarians from almost everywhere west of the Mississippi were there.  AHSL and AHSL-P had four posters and two presentations and one CE course at the meeting: 

Nurturing STEM seeds to MedStart trees: Fundamentals of health care education by Kathleen,

Encouraging Sex & Gender Differences Research and Cross-Campus Collaboration at the University of Arizona by Brooke, Yamila, Annabelle, 
Jeanette, and Ahlam,

Health Sciences Consortia: A Benchmarking Data Survey by Brooke, Evonda Copeland, Scottsdale Lincoln Health Network- Scottsdale Healthcare, Scottsdale, AZ; Molly Harrington, Dignity Health- St. Joseph’s Hospital & Medical Center, Phoenix, AZ; Bryan Nugent, Banner Health- Good Samaritan Medical Center, Phoenix, AZ; Sue Shelly, Scottsdale Lincoln Health Network- John C. Lincoln Health Network, Phoenix, AZ,

Healthy Pima! Health Literacy: A Collaborative Initiative to Improve Health by Yamila, Annabelle, Amber Mathewson, Deputy Director Pima County Public Library; Susannah Connor, Librarian, Pima County Public Library, Tucson, AZ.

 

Ahlam was the co-author and co-presenter with Margaret Foster of Texas A&M University of a paper entitled, Immersion in a Workshop with Nursing Professionals: Collaboration through learning at the Joanna Briggs Institute Comprehensive Systematic Review Training Course. 

Gary presented a 5-minute, “lightening” talk entitled, An Embedded Librarian Program, Seven Years Out.

Ahlam also co-taught a CE course, "Librarians' Roles in Systematic Reviews: A Step by Step Approach".

Planning, money and content

Strategic Planning

Joan, Yamila and Gary are still spending a lot of time working on the libraries’ strategic plan. There will be another open house on 9/23 on the 4th floor to gather input from everyone.

Financial operations

Cindy is part of a small group who will be looking at the financial operations of the libraries with help from two consultants.  Mary Holcomb will be available to the group to discuss collection expenditures.  The group will begin meeting in early October.

Collection Budget

UAL will be covering our projected deficit in the collections budget and they have also given us a 6% increase in funding - equal to the estimated rate of inflation.  This process (with UAL covering some of our costs, etc.) is complicated and will require coordination between Collections and Cindy but also between our folks and Steve Bosch (Collections at UAL) and Virginia Valenzuela (Business Manager for UAL).  Cindy, Mary, Amanda, Steve and Virginia met this week to begin working out the details.

Searches and new staff member

Searches

We have posted ads for three positions in the library, a Technology Librarian (Nicole’s position), a Liaison Librarian to focus on the College of Nursing (Sandy will be focusing more on support of research), and a new Bioinformationist.  A search to fill Hannah’s vacant line will be put off until we conclude these searches.  Two search committees have been formed and they will begin reviewing applications on September 24.

Technology Librarian

Annabelle Nunez, Co-chair

Jeanette Ryan, Co-chair

Mikel Bates

Joan Schlimgen

Mary Holcomb

Leslie Sult (UAL)

College of Nursing Liaison and Bioinformatician

Jennifer Martin, Co-chair

Jeanette Ryan, Co-chair

Mikel Bates

Sandy Kramer

Ahlam Saleh

Jeanne Pfander (UAL)

Welcome Phil Brown!         

A reminder that Phil will be joining us on September 15 in the position previously held by Steve McClain.  Phil has lots of library experience including work in circulation, ILL and reference.  Please join me in welcoming him.

New staff member, Town Hall

Welcome Phil Brown!         

Phil will be joining us on September 15 in the position previously held by Steve McClain.  Phil has lots of library experience including work in circulation, ILL and reference.  Please join me in welcoming him.

Town Hall with Dr. Garcia

Yesterday Senior Vice President for Health Sciences Joe “Skip” Garcia presided over a Town Hall meeting in DuVal Auditorium.  The full session can be viewed at: https://streaming.biocom.arizona.edu/event/?id=25406

To summarize, Dr. Garcia reviewed his one and five year goals for the AHSC.  His one year goals consisted primarily of filling key vacant positions.  He has hired a new director of the UA Cancer Center, new chairs of Surgery and Medicine, an Associate Vice President for Research and a new Executive Director for Research Administration in addition to new Associate VPs for Precision Health and Translational Medicine.  He discussed progress on five of his long-term goals: increasing research revenue, improving national rankings, obtaining a CTSA grant, increasing diversity among students, trainees and faculty and improving philanthropy and public/private partnerships.