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

Visit:  http://nnlm.gov/gmr/funding/mlawebcast/ for detailed information on how to become a sponsored site.

The GMR will cover the registration costs for up to two (2) sites per state in the region for this webcast. Because of the limited number of sites we can sponsor, we encourage you to work with your state and local librarian groups to identify centralized locations. Sites will be selected based on geographical location, accessibility, and potential number of attendees.

The deadline to email/fax your registration and email supporting information to the GMR is NOON, Friday, March 23, 2012.

Contact Holly Burt at the GMR, if you have any questions.
For more information on this webcast, visit:  http://www.mlanet.org/education/distance_ed/techtrends/

Inspired by Daniel Burnham’s Plan for Chicago, Municipal Pier No. 2, as Navy Pier was originally known, was built beginning in 1914 and opened to the public in 1916. It was designed to serve as a huge freight terminal to encourage lake shipping and as a gathering place for the people of Chicago, with an auditorium and an open-air promenade where citizens could attend carnivals or even free lectures given by the City’s Health Department. Lake shipping never took off as the city had hoped, and in 1927, to honor those who served in the U.S. Navy during World War I, Chicago changed the name of Municipal Pier No. 2 to Navy Pier.

In 1941, just months before America entered the war, the U.S. Navy transformed the Pier into a Naval Training School where about 60,000 men were trained. Pilots would fly from Glenview Naval Air Station and practice landing on air craft carriers by the Pier. Among them was future president, George H. W. Bush. In1946, the Navy turned control of the Pier over to the City of Chicago and the University of Illinois.

In 1944 Congress passed the “Servicemen’s Readjustment Act,” better known as the G.I. Bill, which offered subsidies for home purchases, business startup costs, hospitalization, and education. To meet the demand for education in Illinois, a new branch campus of the University of Illinois opened on Navy Pier on  October 21, 1946. The Chicago Undergraduate Division (or CUD) was born.

A permanent campus was created at Harrison and Halsted, named the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle (UICC) and opened in February 1965. In 1982, the Medical Center and Circle Campus consolidated to form what we know today as the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).

For more information about the history of the University of Illinois at Chicago, please see History of the University of Illinois at Chicago: http://www.uic.edu/depts/uichistory/index.html.

Photo Credit: Chuckman’s Collecction (Chicago Postcards) Volume 4: Navy Pier MID-1960s http://chuckmancollectionvolume4.blogspot.com/2011/11/postcard-chicago-navy-pier-as.html

This 90-minute webcast provides an opportunity to learn about the publishing cycle of biomedical journals, both in print and online. The complexities of publishing in a world of rapidly changing delivery formats and devices will be explored including the publishing challenges and opportunities posed by each.

The presenter is John Tagler of the Association of American Publishers, Inc., with moderation by Jean Shipman, Director of the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library and the NN/LM MidContinental Region and Training Center.

Participants will gain knowledge of the various roles and responsibilities of different players in the scientific publishing chain and of the international aspects of bioscience communication. All participants will have a chance to engage in discussions with the presenters. Key topics to be covered include:

• The Current Biomedical Publishing Landscape
• The Publishing Process
• Publication Ethics
• Production & Delivery
• Practical Considerations
• The Road Ahead

Please register for the webcast at http://nnlm.gov/pnr/training/register.html?schedule_id=1475 There is a limit of 120 connections and site registrations (one connection for a conference room) are encouraged. Priority will be given to participants in the states served by the Pacific Northwest Region (AK, ID, MT, OR and WA) and the Greater Midwest Region (IL, IN, IA, KY, MI, MN, ND, OH, SD, WI). You will receive confirmation of your registration or notification of placement on a waitlist within several days. Webcast connection instructions will be provided upon confirmation of your registration.

If you have additional questions about the webcast, please contact Holly Burt in the GMR (haburt@uic.edu) and Nikki Dettmar in the PNR (snydern@uw.edu). We look forward to seeing you there!

ILLINOIS
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, John Crerar Library (contact: Deb Werner)
Springfield, IL: Illinois State Library (Registration: http://www.librarylearning.info/events/?eventID=12631 )

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: Janna Lawrence)

KENTUCKY
Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky, Medical Center Library (contact: Susan Foster-Harper or Rick Brewer) Site: WT Young Library Auditorium
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: Jean Song)
Grand Rapids, MI: Saint Mary’s Health Care (contact: Brett Powers)

MINNESOTA
Minneapolis, MN: Allina Hospitals and Clinics (contact: Andrew Crow) Site: Allina Commons, New Ulm Classroom (#006), 2925 Chicago Ave. S.

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

OHIO
Dayton, OH: Wright State University (contact: Bette Sydelko)
Rootstown, OH: Northeast Ohio Medical University (contact: Elaine Forsch)

SOUTH DAKOTA
Sioux Falls, SD: University of South Dakota, Sanford School of Medicine, Wegner Health Science Information Center (contact: Molly Youngkin)
Vermillion, SD: University of South Dakota, Sanford School of Medicine (contact: Barbara Harvey) Site: Freedom Forum Conference Room, Al Neuharth Media Center

WISCONSIN
Fond du Lac, WI: Mercy Medical Center – Affinity Health System (contact: Michele Matucheski) Site: Moraine Park Technical College
Milwaukee, WI: Medical College of Wisconsin Libraries (contact: Felicia Vastalo)