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Newsletter of the Medical Library Group of Southern California and Arizona

JM2010: Engaging Users with Powerful Visuals – On the Cheap!

Posted on | February 2, 2010 | 1 Comment

By Evonda Copeland, Supervisor of Library Services, Scottsdale Healthcare, Scottsdale, AZ.

Contributed Paper: Engaging Users with Powerful Visuals – on the Cheap! Kelli Ham, Consumer Health Coordinator, NN/LM Pacific Southwest Region, UCLA Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, Los Angeles, CA.

Kelli Ham discussed affordable, easy-to-use programs to help you incorporate effective visuals into your instructional modules:

1. Microsoft Office templates provide a simple starting point for any instructional module and often include special effects. A word of caution on using special effects – use them judiciously. You don’t want to over-stimulate your audience so much that they are distracted from your content.

2. Picasa (free download) is an easy-to-navigate image editor that can help you edit, organize and share your images. It’s now a part of the Google suite & ties in with Google accounts. Picasa can also help you edit poor quality photos – even the pictures you think are a “lost cause”. For example, if your photo is too dark, Picasa will let you add “fill light” to brighten people or items within your dark picture. Picasa also provides red-eye removal, contrast adjustments, drop-shadows and backgrounds for your images. There’s even an “I’m feeling lucky” button that will attempt to clean up your photos for you.

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JM2010 Round Table: Copyright

Posted on | February 1, 2010 | No Comments

jm-copyrightimage

Posted by Megan Curran, Norris Medical Library, University of Southern California.

Round Table: Copyright Issues.

This round table’s discussion ran the gamut among copyright and licensing issues. There was a general consensus that the more librarians delve into the realm of copyright law, the fuzzier it can get; it is difficult to feel confident giving definitive answers to faculty and staff about copyright and fair use. Some members mentioned that their institutions have copyright legal counsel on staff, but those lawyers are usually busy with non-library copyright issues, like illegal filesharing over university networks. Although an institution’s general counsel might be available for consult on a particularly important copyright issue, it would be impossible to consult them on all copyright questions, as they tend to have bigger fish to fry.

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JM2010 Contributed poster: Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) Interactive Storyboard Tutorial for Medical Students and Allied Health Professions: An Innovative Approach.

Posted on | February 1, 2010 | 1 Comment

By Rikke Ogawa, MLS, AHIP, Research, Instruction & Collection Services Emergent Technologies Coordinator UCLA Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library.

Contributed Poster: Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) Interactive Storyboard Tutorial for Medical Students and Allied Health Professions: An Innovative Approach.  Linda SukLing Murphy, MLIS, Stephen L. Clancy, MLS, AHIP, and Cathy Palmer, MLS.

UCI Libraries has developed an extremely polished, online tutorial on Evidence Based Practiced (EBP). The tutorial uses a case of otitis media in an infant to walk through the steps of EBP – assessing the need, asking the question, acquiring information and appraising the literature. At the point in the tutorial when you are asked to form an answerable question using the PICO (Patient-Intervention-Comparison-Outcome), the first interactive quiz appears asking the student to correctly identify the parts of the PICO question. Continuing on through the tutorial, users encounter a PubMed searching demo and additional questions to assess the user’s ability to effectively read the literature.

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JM2010 Contributed Paper: Rejuvenating the Library’s Role in the Medical Curriculum

Posted on | February 1, 2010 | 1 Comment

By Rikke Ogawa, MLS, AHIP, Research, Instruction & Collection Services Emergent Technologies Coordinator UCLA Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library.

Contributed Paper: Rejuvenating the Library’s Role in the Medical Curriculum. Emily Brennan, Information Services Librarian; Eileen Eandi, Associate Director, Educational & Research Services Division; Evans Whitaker, Clinical Support Librarian.  University of Southern California Norris Medical Library, Los Angeles, CA.

Emily Brennan presented a practical approach to refining the USC Norris Medical Library’s in-curriculum medical educational experiences through student focus groups. The goals of the project were to improve library instruction and assignments as well as learn where the library is needed in the curriculum. Focus groups were solicited through campus listservs. Three groups were conducted with 8 students per group broken down by medical school years, Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3/4. Incentives for participation included lunch at the Faculty Center and a 2GB flash drive.

Emily’s talk focused on the focus group activities from the first year group. An outline for the focus group session included discussion of library instruction in orientation, the library literature searching project, Norris’s personal librarian program, and the Library Web site.
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JM2010: Exhibits

Posted on | February 1, 2010 | No Comments

Posted by Carol Ann Attwood, Patient Health and Education Library; Mayo Clinic Arizona

Exhibitors on January 28th ranged from professional organizations and schools of library science to vendors selling their products. Some of the exhibitors were McGraw-Hill’s Access Surgery, Graduate Education Foundation, Gale (who promised that prices were unchanged from last year) JAMA and Cyber Tools for Libraries to name but a few.

Also included were regional displays of library furniture with a Southwestern flair from Arizona Furnishings and Silver Dream with a huge collection of silver and turquoise bracelets to take back home!
Of special interest was the display from the Federal Drug Administration with booklets and glossy handouts on a variety of subjects including Medicines to Help You with HIV and AIDS, Cholesterol, Smoking and Depression. Just a reminder to everyone that these are available free of charge, either in downloadable pdf files or in brochure format…a great use of your tax dollars..why not have a few of your circulation desk counter for staff to pick up and take home??

Posted on 1/29/10

JM2010 Contributed Paper: News from the Front Lines: Networking the Consumer Health Library

Posted on | February 1, 2010 | 1 Comment

By April R Frost, Independent Medical Librarian & Trainer

JM2010: Contributed Paper: News from the Front Lines: Networking the Consumer Health Library. Jackie Davis, Consumer Health Librarian, Sharp HealthCare, San Diego, CA.

Jackie Davis used the theme of the conference to describe her Consumer Health Library, and how she reaches out to people in the community.

Refocus: Jackie believes that health is a social justice issue, and solutions are people-centered, not organization-centered.  Active community participation is the best win-win-win situation: for individuals, society as a whole, and the health care institutions involved. Awareness has been improved through the Patient Safety Movement. There is a noticeable mismatch between the literacy of the public, combined with the medical terminology-speak of health care providers; Jackie
attempts to reduce this gap in the consumer library and the services they provide.

Connect: To bring consumers into the Consumer Health Library, pre-printed prescription pads are placed at doctor’s offices within the community. These prescription pads describe “reasons” that consumers should come to the library. The library itself is designed, using Feng Shui, to be an attractive, safe, welcoming place with a relaxing water feature and welcoming window displays. Consumers can come and relax, browse, shop in the Health Shoppe, and find information on local health resources. The Library works to connect with the community through newsletters, and training the volunteers with marketing tools to use in their community relations.
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Invitation to the 2011 Joint Meeting

Posted on | January 29, 2010 | No Comments

Posted by Marcus Banks, MLIS, Manager of Education and Research Services; UC San Francisco Library and Center for Knowledge Management

As the President of NCNMLG, I am delighted to invite you to San Francisco next year!  This will be another great meeting, after our successful and educational gathering in Glendale.

NCNMLG and MLGSCA will sponsor the joint meeting from Feb. 22-26, 2011.  The meeting will be in downtown San Francisco at the Parc55 Hotel, which is very conveniently located near many public transit options and across the street from the second largest Bloomingdale’s in the US.  Room rates are $189, which is a great deal for such a prime location.  Look for many more details over the coming year, and I look forward to welcoming you to San Francisco.

Read our previous blog post about the upcoming Joint Meeting.

Posted 1/29/10

JM2010 Contributed Paper: Elevated Practices for Long Distance Collaborations

Posted on | January 29, 2010 | No Comments

Posted by Debra Schneider, Librarian, Scottsdale Healthcare, Scottsdale, AZ

Contributed Paper: Elevated Practices for Long Distance Collaborations.  Bramble, John; Champ-Blackwell, Siobhan; Hamasu, Claire; Mishra, Ruicha; Barnes, Susan J.; Ryan, Jeanette L.

What do you do when you want to provide rural outreach services to an underserved population, and then have to factor in that the library partners collaborating are also separated by geographic distance – a lot of distance? This challenge faced two groups of librarians serving the Southwest, particularly the Four Corner states (which are? – quick! -Arizona, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico).  Distance and different time zones not-withstanding, these groups were eager to identify effective practices and opportunities for collaboration to meet the health information needs of the Native population and their health care providers.

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JM2010 Contributed Paper: Networking with USC’s School of Pharmacy to Engage Students in Information Finding

Posted on | January 29, 2010 | No Comments

By Marcus Banks, MLIS, Manager of Education and Research Services; UC San Francisco Library and Center for Knowledge Management

Networking with USC’s School of Pharmacy to Engage Students in Information Finding. Joe Pozdol, Medical Information Specialist, USC Norris Medical Library

In this extremely informative session Pozdol offered a 10 step recipe for success in increasing library involvement within the curriculum and social life of USC’s School of Pharmacy. At USC, Pozdol has seen a five-fold increase in involvement within the school’s curriculum, from teaching within one class to involvement in five. Pozdol stressed the importance of people skills, meeting students and faculty members in their own environments rather than hoping they come to the library, and of always connecting library activities to some larger context rather than developing workshops or trainings in isolation.
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JM2010 Contributed Paper: Moving to a Single Service Desk: Challenges and Opportunities for Improved Customer Service

Posted on | January 29, 2010 | No Comments

Posted by Annie Hughes, MLIS, Reference Librarian; USC Wilson Dental Library & Learning Center

Peggy Tahir, Manager, Information & Access Service; Marcus Banks, Manager, Education & Information Services; Andy Panado, Access Services Supervisor; Aleta Asbury, Interlibrary Services Supervisor, Gaily Persily, Director, Education & Public Services; UCSF Library & Center for Knowledge Management, San Francisco, CA

In 2008, the UCSF Library & Center for Knowledge Management decided to reduce the number of services areas which included: the circulation desk, an information services desk and a reference office. Due to a declining gate count and budgetary concerns and a need to have one information service point, UCSF closed their Reference Office, put a Reference Librarian on-call and reduced hours at the information services desk. Slowly all services were moved to the circulation desk. Project planning was key in making the single service desk work. The planning phase involved several supervisors and managers who identified the stakeholders, costs and scope of the project. Some costs identified were creating new signage in the library to redirect patrons and phone line and computer reconfiguration. By moving to this single service desk, information services are available at a central location. Not only that, the combination of services allows for staff collaboration and cross-training.

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JM2010 Round Table: Marketing Yourself and the Library (2nd Post)

Posted on | January 29, 2010 | 1 Comment

By Annie Hughes, MLIS, Reference Librarian; USC Wilson Dental Library & Learning Center

Round Table: Marketing Yourself and the Library. Facilitator: Marsha Kmec.

While offering patrons pizza and chocolate to entice them to use library resources is always a go-to solution; Thursday’s Roundtable Session on Marketing Yourself and the Library allowed for some brainstorming on other creative ways to reach out. The table was filled with academic, hospital and one consumer health librarian, all of which had ideas to share. Academic librarians in attendance discussed how they find that making a personal connection and putting a face to the services that the library can provide is a great solution. Sitting in on students’ classes, providing orientations and engaging students by requiring them to participate in assignments or literature search exercises are successful for these librarians. With regard to connecting with faculty at your institution, sitting on the curriculum committee and attending faculty meetings are ways to get buy-in. Hospital librarians in attendance said they send out monthly newsletters to staff, sit on committees and go to meetings to give quick 10-minute presentations on what the library can offer. Providing health discussion groups as well as inviting speakers to give talks on health information are two methods that work for a consumer health librarian in the group. Some suggestions for further outreach would be to target local religious institutions and perhaps secure a radio interview or radio spot that would reach the local community. The main outcome was to be creative and find what works and go with it.

For another perspective on this Round Table, visit this blog post.

Posted 1/29/10

JM2010: Round Table: Marketing Yourself and Your Library

Posted on | January 29, 2010 | 1 Comment

By Carol Ann Attwood, Patient Health and Education Library; Mayo Clinic Arizona

Round Table: Marketing Yourself and the Library. Facilitator: Marsha Kmec.

A spirited discussion ensued among librarians from academic institutions, hospitals, and community based consumer health libraries.

Just a few of the tips shared:

For another perspective on this Round Table, visit this blog post.

Posted on 1/29/10

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