The ILLINOIS RURAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION 23RD ANNUAL CONFERENCE, “Building a Sustainable Future”, was held April 24-26, 2012, at the Keller Convention Center in Effingham, Illinois. In rural Illinois, many different mobile devices including iPhones, Androids, BlackBerries, and iPads are the new stethoscopes. Exhibitor immersion in the conference sessions led to discussions of the use of the National Library of Medicine mobile apps and mobile sites in rural communities.  TOXNET, Medline Plus Farm Health and Safety, and Wiser NIH all received high praises from the HazMat teams.

Through a NN/LM GMR exhibit award, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine Library displayed the new NLM exhibit banner, provided NLM pamphlets, gave out the afghan of “The Curious Herbal” as a booth prize, and offered demonstrations on the iPad of the various NLM mobile sites and apps, including Wiser. After seeing the Wiser demo, a family physician immediately downloaded it onto his iPad. Exhibiting and participating in the annual Illinois Rural Health Association meeting continues to be a worthwhile and rewarding experience.

Healthy People is based on a simple but powerful model:

• Establish national health objectives.
• Provide data and tools to enable States, cities, communities, and individuals across the country to combine their efforts to achieve them.
• Create and implement a plan to reach Healthy People 2020 objectives.
• Track your community’s progress.

The slide set is available for viewing and download: Attributes of a Health Literate Organization.ppt

Please join the Michigan Health Sciences Libraries Association on October 17-19, 2012, at the Baronette Renaissance Hotel, Novi MI, for the following exciting activities:

• 3 days of CE opportunities
• Fine dining and conversation at the Tin Fish (Special Event)
• Poster presentations
• Interaction with vendors
• Opening Night Reception at the Baronette Renaissance Hotel
• Networking
• FUN! FUN! FUN!

Printable invitation can be found at the conference website:
http://www.mdmlg.org/MHSLA2012

Video invitation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CDU_lDUcks

For information on the webcast and a list of additional sites, visit: http://www.mlanet.org/education/distance_ed/techtrends/

ILLINOIS

• Chicago, IL: NN/LM GMR (Registration: View Training Opportunities); Site: Univeristy of Illinois at Chicago Library of Health Sciences
• Decatur, IL: Illinois Heartland Library System, Decatur (Contact: Beverly Obert)
• New Lenox, IL: Silver Cross Hospital (Contact: Estelle Hu)
• Peoria, IL: UIC Library of the Health Sciences – Peoria (Contact: Peg Burnette or Jo Dorch)

INDIANA

• Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University School of Medicine, Ruth Lilly Medical Library (contact: Elizabeth Whipple)

IOWA

• Des Moines, IA: Des Moines University Library (contact: Joyce Lindstrom)
• Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences (Contact: Amy Blevins)

KENTUCKY

• Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky, Medical Center Library (contact: Susan Foster-Harper or Rick Brewer)
• Louisville, KY: University of Louisville, Kornhauser Health Sciences Library, History Room 301, (contact: Nancy Utterback)

MICHIGAN

• Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Taubman Health Sciences Library (contact: Kate Saylor or Irina Zeylikovich)
• Detroit, MI: Wayne State University School of Medicine, Shiffman Medical Library (contact: Wendy Wu or Toni Janik); site: WSU P/K Auditorium
• East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University, MSU Libraries (contact: Heidi Schroeder)

MINNESOTA

• Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, Bio-Medical Library (contact: Anne Beschnett)

NORTH DAKOTA

• Fargo, ND: University of North Dakota Harley E. French Library of the Health Sciences (contact: Mary Markland) Site: UND Medical Education Center
• Grand Forks, ND: University of North Dakota, Library of the Health Sciences (contact: Theresa Norton)

OHIO

• Cleveland, OH: Medical Library Association of Northeastern Ohio (MLANO) (contact: Holly Kimborowicz or Suzanne Earle); site: Hospice of the Western Reserve, End-of-Life Library (HWR)
• Rootstown, OH: Northeast Ohio Medical University (contact: Elaine Forsch)

SOUTH DAKOTA
No Requests

WISCONSIN

• Fond du Lac, WI: Fox River Valley Area Library Consortium (contact: Mary Horan, Hans Baierl or Michele Matucheski ); Site: Moraine Park Technical College, Date: May 18, 2012
• Milwaukee, WI: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Ebling Library for the Health Sciences, Health Sciences Learning Center (contact: Stephen Johnson or Rhonda Sager)

It is tempting, with all these to-dos on an ever-growing list, to just go with the flow and take care of tasks as they pass by.  Unfortunately, that approach, while practical, expeditious, and less stressful, also reduces the return on investment of our leadership role, administrative decisions, and work productivity.

Instead of working on the surface level of moment-by-moment news, daily listerv postings, weekly meeting agendas, monthly report-outs, or annual data gathering, we must put our strategic priorities first. Those other duties provide us with useful content, yield foundational decisions, and assure that our units are responsible organizational citizens, all good outcomes to achieve. But they don’t always help us to collaborate, integrate, and innovate, each of which is essential to the future viability of our organizations.

When organizations collaborate, they leverage scarce resources toward a shared goal that no single organization could achieve. Collaborators layer idea on top of idea, reaching a new level of knowledge that would not have been possible without the energy of sharing diverse perspectives and specialized knowledge. Although collaboration is just as susceptible to bureaucratization as solo ventures, it also creates an urgency to focus precious time together to working directly on the goals and objectives of the project to assure that collaborations are productive.

Integrating shared goals and the initiatives that they generate into the strategic priorities of our organizations encourages their sustainability, and ultimately, their productivity. Organizations’ self-direction, often criticized as “silos”, severely limit our effectiveness in today’s networked world, but before instant communication and access to information were possible, self-direction was an adaptive approach to getting things done. Our shared initiatives are now integral, even key, to the ongoing progress of our organizations and our essential contributions as libraries and librarians to the future scenarios that we envision.

The integral role that we will hold in the future of biomedical and health care services, education, and research cannot be achieved without innovation.  Working on collaborations and integrating those initiatives into the strategic direction of our organizations is a kind of practice of innovativeness.  Our tools are powerful and we can use them to achieve our goals, but only if we understand their potential.  Is it too obvious to state that we should reflect, we have to talk, and we must act?

We aren’t too busy to create a collaborative, integrated, and innovative future for our organizations and ourselves.

~Kate Carpenter