MLGSCA Officer Candidates
Posted on April 19, 2021 by David Bickford | No Comments
MLGSCA 2021 Election – Slate of Officer Candidates
President-Elect
Judy Kraemer
MLGSCA has provided me with a professional network since 1992 when I graduated from UCLA and began my medical librarian career. My MLGSCA network has guided and supported me when working in various corporate, academic, and hospital settings. I developed my MLGSCA network by attending MLGSCA meetings and events and by serving MLGSCA in leadership positions: MLGSCA MLA Chapter Council Representative 2018-2021, Technology Symposium Co-Chair 2008-2009 and Planning Committee 2011-2012, Joint Meeting Co-Chair 2002-2005 and Planning Committee 2008-2010. I’ve served as the Chair of the Government Relations and Bylaws and the Professional Issues Committees and currently serve on the Professional Issues Committee. I am confident that I know MLGSCA and would be honored to serve as a MLGSCA President.
Statement of Aims: My leadership goal for the three-year term (President Elect, President, and Past President) is to develop and strengthen member networks. We are individually stronger when united together via professional networks that MLGSCA provides. While working with MLGSCA members, I’d like to create new ways for members to meet and truly get to know each other. One idea is to establish in-person or virtual member meet ups to cover topics of interest or just as social functions. Another idea is to pair new and student members with established members to provide instant supportive contacts and new friendships. With strong MLGSCA networks, I believe our members would experience support they need.
I have experienced the need for professional networks differently in each work setting. When at an academic library (UCI, UCLA, USC, WesternU, CSULA), I became part of an established professional network at work but when at a corporate and hospital library, I did not. I currently work solo at St. Mary Medical Center, in Long Beach, CA. I also currently benefit from MLA networks including the Hospital Librarian Caucus but know that all MLGSCA members are not MLA members. I believe MLGSCA can do more for its members! In addition to networking hospital librarians, I envision networking all academic librarians with the hospital librarians that will serve their students during intern and residency years and beyond. I see big gaps in library support throughout a life time and know MLGSCA could help fill some gaps. For example, if every hospital executive knew medical librarians came with professional networks, they would want to employ medical librarians with such connections and would support their success. The employment of more hospital librarians would help close the gaps between university library support and no library support in hospitals. Our MLGSCA networks would have the power to improve information access where it is often critical, at a patient’s bedside.
I look forward to working with you, getting to know you, and to supporting all members of MLGSCA over the next three years. Thank you!
Debra Schneider
Deb Schneider has been with HonorHealth for 16 years and is currently the Network Manager for Library Services and Continuing Medical Education. Since joining MLGSCA in 2010 she has served as a Research Committee member, chaired the MLGSCA Research Committee from 2012 – 2017, and served as co-chair of the hospitality committee for the 2018 MLGSCA and NCNMLG Joint Meeting. Deb also served as President of the Arizona Health Information Network (AzHIN) in 2018 and as a CABL officer for 7 years (Treasurer 2012-2015, Pres-Elect/President/Past President 2016-18). Prior to joining HonorHealth, Deb was the Agency Co-Director at Valley Center of the Deaf providing grant writing and overseeing the Client Services Division of the agency. Deb is a recently “retired” girlscout leader and has blended a family with five children (2 still at home) leaving her to lovingly wonder, “Will there ever be a time when they’re all out of the house before we retire?”
Statement of Aims: Our professional organizations and our librarian colleagues have been such a lifeline, especially in this tumultuous year, with sharing resources, innovations, empathy and wisdom with abundance and generosity. I would be honored to have the opportunity to give back if elected to the role of MLGSCA President-Elect. I believe we are in a time where our ability to adapt and thrive continues to be tested and a critical role of MLGSCA is to showcase practical ideas and new strategies to better enable us to respond to continuous change, complexity, uncertainty and opportunities in our hospitals, medical centers, academic organizations and other institutions. While we are all a bit “Zoom fatigued” we’ve learned that virtual networking and education has a role as an effective strategy to provide convenience, connection and access and I would like to incorporate it into some of our continuing education offerings. If used well, it can be harnessed as a tool to support and possibly even grow our membership by offering opportunities for more members to participate and take fuller advantage of their membership benefits. At my own organization, our librarians have been at the table for important conversations about strategies, resources, and actions to bring diversity, inclusion and equity to our patients and our community and I would like to share and learn from others on this important topic as well as examine opportunities for MLGSCA. I recognize with regional reorganization, that a critical role of the President will be to work with our committees and our membership to foster community as our region transitions, to acknowledge the impact these changes will have, and to explore new opportunities the changes may provide. I am excited to see what the road ahead will offer. Thank you for your consideration of my nomination to become your President-Elect.
Treasurer
Kevin Pardon
Kevin Pardon is a Health Sciences librarian at Arizona State University where he serves as a liaison to the faculty, students, and staff at ASU’s College of Nursing and Health Innovation and College of Health Solutions. In this role, he leads instruction sessions, assists with literature searches, and develops online learning modules – among many other things. Kevin joined MLGSCA six years ago when he moved to Arizona from Michigan and is a graduate of the Library & Information Science program at the University of Pittsburgh. He is a current member of MLGSCA’s Research Committee, MLA’s Nursing and Allied Health Resources Section (NAHRS), and MLA’s Research Section. He has also previously served as president-elect and president of Central Arizona’s local group of health sciences librarians (CABL). He looks forward to the potential opportunity to become Treasurer and serve MLGSCA in this role.
Secretary
Ivan Portillo
Ivan Portillo, MLIS, AHIP, is the Health Sciences librarian and Coordinator of Rinker Campus Library Services at the Leatherby Libraries at Chapman University. He is the subject liaison for the School of Pharmacy as well as the departments of physical therapy, physician assistant, and communication sciences and disorders in the Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences. He oversees the Health Sciences Study Commons at the Harry and Diane Rinker Health Science Campus, where he provides reference, instruction, and research services. Ivan has been a health sciences librarian since 2013 and has actively involved in MLGSCA since 2016. He has been a member of the Awards Committee since 2018 and was nominated to be a member of the Nominating Committee in 2017. In 2017 Ivan was also awarded an MLGSCA First Time AHIP Award.
MLA Chapter Representatives
Danielle Linden
Danielle Linden, MLIS, AHIP-D is the Medical Library Manager at Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, CA. She works with a team of library professionals serving physicians and caregivers across the Providence Health System as well as the School of Health Professions at University of Providence. Danielle received her MLIS from San Jose State University, has been a hospital librarian and MLA member since 2005 and an AHIP member since 2006. She is active in her local MLA chapter, MLGSCA, and has held various roles including President, Secretary, Annual Joint Conference Tri-Chair, and is currently the AHIP MLA Chapter Credentialing liaison. Danielle has served on several MLA awards and annual conference juries and is a current member of the Hospital Libraries and Nursing & Allied Health Resources & Services caucuses.
Mary White
Mary E. White served as the pharmacy librarian at Kaiser Permanente in the Drug Information Services Department until 2018. Previously, she worked at the Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center as well as the Kaiser Permanente Baldwin Park Medical Center where she managed the Libraries and Physician Education Departments. Mary has been an active member of MLGSCA and MLA since 1984, and was elected President of MLGSCA, July 2012- June 2014. She served two terms as President due to the President-Elect relocating to the east coast. Mary also served in the Past-President role in 2014-2015 and Chair of the Nominating Committee 2014-2015. In addition, Mary was Chair of the MLGSCA Government/Bylaws Committee 2009-2011. Currently, Mary is serving on the MLGSCA Nominating Committee 2019-2021. Mary has presented posters at both MLGSCA and MLA, most recently at the 2017 MLA meeting in Seattle, WA. Mary graduated from the University of Southern California with a Master of Library Science and holds a Bachelor’s degree in history.
MLGSCA Nominating Committee
Nora Franco
Thank you for your invitation to serve on the MLGSCA Nominating Committee! I hope to continue my work advocating for BIPOC representation in health sciences librarianship in this role. I’m currently the Consumer Health Librarian for the Network of the National Library of Medicine Pacific Southwest Region (NNLM PSR) at the UCLA Biomedical Library. I started in August 2018, and made it my mission to expand the Consumer Health Information Outreach Program to focus on underrepresented and underserved minority communities. Working with multiple librarians in the MLGSCA region, I’ve achieved this goal by completing the following:
• The Medical Library Association COVID-19 Resource Page
• Project Coordinator for the University of Arizona Health Sciences Library COVID-19 Information Dissemination Award to LatinX and Native American communities
• Established the first NNLM BIPOC LIS Student Professional Development Award in the MLGSCA region
• Produced first NNLM Transgender Health webinar series
Andrea Lynch
Andrea Lynch, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1631-7171, serves as the scholarly communication librarian and is a member of the Center for Informatics Division of Library Services team at City of Hope in Duarte, California. Andrea received her bachelor’s degree in sociology from UC Berkeley, and her master’s degree from the UCLA Graduate School of Library and Information Studies. She began her librarian career at the UCLA Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library where she was a Health & Life Sciences Librarian and Outreach & Communication Coordinator responsible for research assistance, information literacy, and collections management, as well as coordinating exhibits, outreach events and other activities to increase health information access. Her current research interests include identifying barriers to complying with the NIH Public Access Policy. Although she has been an inactive MLGSCA member for quite some t
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