The Membership and Recruitment Committee of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter (MAC) of the Medical Library Association invites new librarians to apply for a conference scholarship to attend the 2012 MAC Annual Meeting:  http://tinyurl.com/mac-scholar.

This year’s meeting will be part of the MLA Quad Chapter Meeting held at the Tremont Plaza Hotel in Baltimore, MD, October 13-16.

Award

One scholarship will be awarded. The selected recipient will receive complimentary conference registration, which includes most meals, lodging at the conference hotel, and a one-year MAC/MLA membership.

Eligibility Criteria:

Scholarship applicants must be:

• A MAC member with 5 or less years of post-MLS experience
• A first-time attendee at the MAC/MLA Annual meeting
• Currently employed in a hospital or academic medical center library in the MAC/MLA region:  District of Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Western Pennsylvania
• Willing to submit a one-page report detailing their experience and impression of the meeting to appear in MAC Messages Blog.
• Committed to attend ENTIRE meeting from October 13-16, 2012.

Submission Guidelines

To be considered for this award, you must:

• Obtain a letter of recommendation from your supervisor or library director
• Submit an essay, NO MORE THAN 500 WORDS, describing your interest in participating in the 2012 Conference Scholar Program, your interest in health sciences librarianship, and how attending the MAC/MLA meeting will contribute to your professional development.
• Submit a current resume and cover letter.

Deadline for Submission

Applicants should email their completed applications to the MAC Conference Scholars Program at macscholars@gmail.com by Friday, August 24, 2012.

All scholarship applicants will be notified via e-mail by Friday, August 31, 2012.

Please Contact Ryan Harris, MAC Membership and Recruitment Committee Chair, if you have any further questions, rharris@hshsl.umaryland.edu, 410-706-315

Note: The selection committee requests that applicants not register for the MAC Annual Meeting until notified of their status to avoid the need for refunds.

The deadline is extended to Monday, August 20, 2012 for applications for the “Disaster Health Information Outreach and Collaboration Project 2012” funding.

NLM must extend the deadline due to a required change in a classification code used on this contract to describe the nature of the work.  There are NO OTHER CHANGES to this solicitation.  The code change is a technicality that will not require any change in the content of proposals.

The previous deadline WAS Wednesday, August 8, 2012.  You now have until August 20 to submit applications. Please see the announcement below for further information and links about this project.

If you have already submitted an application, the NLM Office of Acquisitions will contact you with instructions.

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) announces a funding opportunity for small projects to improve access to disaster medicine and public health information for health care professionals, first responders and others that play a role in health-related disaster preparedness, response and recovery.

NLM is soliciting proposals from partnerships that include at least one library and at least one non-library organization that has disaster-related responsibilities, such as health departments, public safety departments, emergency management departments, prehospital and emergency medical services, fire/rescue, or other local, regional, or state agencies with disaster health responsibilities; hospitals; faith-based and voluntary organizations active in disaster; and others.

NLM encourages submission of innovative proposals that enhance mutually beneficial collaboration among libraries and disaster-related agencies. For example, projects may increase awareness of health information resources, demonstrate how libraries and librarians can assist planners and responders with disaster-related information needs, show ways in which disaster workers can educate librarians about disaster management, and/or include collaboration among partners in developing information resources that support planning and response to public health emergencies.  Summaries of the seven projects  funded for 2011-2012 can be viewed at http://disasterinfo.nlm.nih.gov/dimrc/2011disasteroutreachawards.html.

Contract awards will be offered for a minimum of $15,000 to a maximum of $30,000 each for a one-year project.

The deadline for proposals is Wednesday, August 8, 2012  Monday, August 20, 2012 at 2 pm ET. Proposals are limited to six pages plus supplemental materials such as resumes, letters of support, and a budget.

The Request for Proposal (RFP) for this requirement has been split into two solicitations; one Partial Small Business Set-Aside (RFP No.: NIHLM2012411) and; one Full and Open (RFP No.: NIHLM2012412). The solicitation notices are on FedBizOpps.gov as follows:

Partial Small Business Set-Aside  https://www.fbo.gov/?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=ad2bb9b6b067a1b0cb704070dbcc4f13&tab=core&_cview=0

Full and Open  https://www.fbo.gov/?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=9d9f0974ab8150e88e20ef5a1fdce4b3&tab=core&_cview=0

For more information and instructions about the “Disaster Health Information Outreach and Collaboration Project 2012”, please visit http://disasterinfo.nlm.nih.gov/dimrc/2012disasteroutreachrfp.html .

The National Library of Medicine (http://www.nlm.nih.gov) is the world’s largest biomedical library and provides extensive online health information resources. Visit the NLM Disaster Information Management Research Center site (http://disasterinfo.nlm.nih.gov ) to learn more about disaster-related health information from WISER (hazardous materials information for emergency responders), REMM-Radiation Emergency Medical Management, CHEMM-Chemical Hazards Emergency Medical Management, and other resources.

Center for Sharing Public Health Services: Shared Services Learning Community

2012 Call for Proposals:  http://www.rwjf.org/applications/solicited/cfp.jsp?ID=21397&cid=XEM_A6078

NLM awards Informationist supplement grants to 7 NIH researchers.

Nineteen applications were received in response to PA 12-158, NLM Administrative Supplement for Informationist Services. The supplement provides up to $50,000 in direct costs (plus indirect costs) for 2 years to an active NIH-funded researcher, in order to bring needed information expertise into the research team. Applications were received from principal investigators currently funded by six NIH institutes: Aging, Cancer, Dental, Deafness, Eye and NLM.

Seven NIH researchers will receive Informationist supplement awards. All of the projects selected to receive awards bring librarian informationists into research settings and measure the value of their contributions to the research. Fourteen librarian informationists will be involved across the seven projects. The awardees are listed below; additional information about the parent grants can be found by searching the NIH RePORTER http://projectreporter.nih.gov/reporter.cfm, using PI name and/or grant number.

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R01 EY-21590, Grundfest, Warren H. UCLA. Grant title “non-contact, THz Sensing of Corneal Hydration. Informationist Lisa Federer, Louise Darling Library. The grant involves generation of unique data from a new technology used in diagnosis of an eye condition. The informationist will study and improve workflows for organizing, managing research data, identify metadata standards and ontologies that are appropriate, and propose a strategy for preserving the data.

R01 CA-152093, McIntosh, Scott. University of Rochester.  Grant title “Web-assisted Tobacco Intervention with Community College Students. Informationists Donna Berryman and Linda Hasman, EG Miner Library. The grant involves testing a web-based intervention for smoking cessation to be used with community college students. There is an information gathering phase involving focus groups and interviews, and also a clinical trial to test an intervention. The informationists will design a data management approach for the randomized trials and for data from the interviews and focus groups. They will help design a system for collecting, storing and accessing both audio and textual data, for tracking data versions, and also a metadata approach for the project. They will serve on the DSMC for the project.

R01 LM-10923, Liu, Gilbert C. Indiana University. Grant title “Delivering Geospatial Intelligence to Health Care Professionals”. Informationists Jere Odell, Rick Ralston and Elizabeth Whipple, Lilly Medical Library. The grant involves enhancing the Child Health Improvement through Computer Automation system (CHICA) with GIS information, to assist primary care providers in making referrals to nearby dental exercise or tutoring services. The informationists will provide assistance in monitoring the accuracy of referral data and literacy level of documents generated; develop a knowledge management approach to bridge GIS and CHICA implementation; participate in community consumer health information outreach services such as identifying social and technical barriers to uptake of the enhanced data by care givers.

R01 CA-132935, Luckmann, Roger.  U Mass Worcester.  Grant title “Promoting Breast Cancer Screening in Non-Adherent Women”. Informationist Sally Gore, Souter Library. The grant involves a 3-arm randomized trial comparing 2 forms of outreach to women who are due for a screening mammogram. The interventions will run for 4 years and already involves a multidisciplinary research team including primary care, informatics, counseling and behavioral sciences. The informationist will provide metadata, database design and retrieval advice to the technical team; assist investigators in identifying key information technology issues in the existing tracking system; work with them on a systematic review, provide customized instruction to the team, and support public access submission.

R01 DE-019796, Schmidt, Brian. New York University. Grant title “Role of proteases and peptides in cancer pain”.  Informationists Aileen McCrillis, Rich McGowan and Alisa Surkis, NYU Health Sciences Library. The grant involves collecting, identifying and characterizing pain-producing mediators secreted by cancers, developing a list of molecules. The work takes place in NY and Boston, involving about 10 investigators. The informationists will assist with improving their search queries for NCBI data sources; identifying a reference management approach for use by the multiple participants, and develop a web-based data management system for each molecule identified, to enhance workflow between the 2 sites.

R01 DC-011329, Svirsky, Mario A. New York University. Grant title “Clinical Management of Cochlear Implant Patients with Contralateral Hearing Aids”.  Informationists Theodora Bakker and Karen Hanson, NYU Health Sciences Library. The grant involves development of evidence-based guidelines for post-implant management of bi-modal cochlear implants. The PI has acquired a unique data set to merge with grant-generated data. The informationists will leverage the existing data set into a tool that includes the new, unanticipated data. They will evaluate & restructure the data model and data entry tool, refine reporting queries and provide a user friendly query tool for users unfamiliar with query languages.

R01 AG-040100, Szanton, Sarah. Johns Hopkins University. Grant title “ Reducing disability via a Bundled Bio-Behavioral-Environmental Approach”.  Informationists Claire Twose and Jennifer Darragh, Welch Medical Library. The grant involves helping the disabled elderly age in place, and is testing an intervention among elderly low-income African Americans in Baltimore. The informationists will assist with capture of medical billing information from the participants; assist with use of GIS neighborhood data; identify approaches for capturing digital recordings of interviews; assist with deposit of manuscripts in compliance with NIH Public Access.

For more information about this initiative, contact:

Dr. Valerie Florance, florancev@mail.nih.gov

Associate Director for Extramural Programs

National Library of Medicine

Apply now for the Lois Ann Colaianni Award for Excellence and Achievement in Hospital Librarianship.  Do you know someone that is a dynamic and exceptional hospital librarian—a visionary who deserves to be recognized for their outstanding service in hospital librarianship?  Now is the time to nominate them.

Self-nominations are welcome!

For details and a nomination form, see http://www.mlanet.org/awards/honors/.  The deadline for nominations is November 1^st.

Please direct any questions to Elizabeth Kiscaden, Jury Chair, at kiscadee@mercyhealth.com.

Is your institution working to improve community preparedness through increasing access to disaster health information?  Consider applying for the FEMA 2012 Individual and Community Preparedness Award!  Any individual, program or organization engaged in individual and community preparedness may submit an application for a 2012 FEMA Individual and Community Preparedness Award.  The submission is due July 31, 2012.

These awards recognize outstanding individuals, organizations, Citizen Corps Councils, and programs working to make our communities safer, stronger and better prepared for any disaster or emergency event.  Categories awarded include:  Promising Partnerships; Awareness to Action; Innovative Use of Technology, Preparing the Whole Community

http://www.citizencorps.gov/newsevents/awards/2012/2012app.shtm

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) announces a funding opportunity for small projects to improve access to disaster medicine and public health information for health care professionals, first responders and others that play a role in health-related disaster preparedness, response and recovery.

NLM is soliciting proposals from partnerships that include at least one library and at least one non-library organization that has disaster-related responsibilities, such as health departments, public safety departments, emergency management departments, prehospital and emergency medical services, fire/rescue, or other local, regional, or state agencies with disaster health responsibilities; hospitals; faith-based and voluntary organizations active in disaster; and others.

NLM encourages submission of innovative proposals that enhance mutually beneficial collaboration among libraries and disaster-related agencies. For example, projects may increase awareness of health information resources, demonstrate how libraries and librarians can assist planners and responders with disaster-related information needs, show ways in which disaster workers can educate librarians about disaster management, and/or include collaboration among partners in developing information resources that support planning and response to public health emergencies.  Summaries of the seven projects  funded for 2011-2012 can be viewed at http://disasterinfo.nlm.nih.gov/dimrc/2011disasteroutreachawards.html.

Contract awards will be offered for a minimum of $15,000 to a maximum of $30,000 each for a one-year project.

The deadline for proposals is Wednesday, August 8, 2012 at 2 pm ET. Proposals are limited to six pages plus supplemental materials such as resumes, letters of support, and a budget.

The Request for Proposal (RFP) for this requirement has been split into two solicitations; one Partial Small Business Set-Aside (RFP No.: NIHLM2012411) and; one Full and Open (RFP No.: NIHLM2012412). The solicitation notices are on FedBizOpps.gov as follows:

Partial Small Business Set Aside:  https://www.fbo.gov/?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=ad2bb9b6b067a1b0cb704070dbcc4f13&tab=core&_cview=0

Full and Open:  https://www.fbo.gov/?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=9d9f0974ab8150e88e20ef5a1fdce4b3&tab=core&_cview=0

For more information and instructions about the “Disaster Health Information Outreach and Collaboration Project 2012”, visit:  http://disasterinfo.nlm.nih.gov/dimrc/2012disasteroutreachrfp.html

The National Library of Medicine (http://www.nlm.nih.gov) is the world’s largest biomedical library and provides extensive online health information resources.  Visit the NLM Disaster Information Management Research Center site (http://disasterinfo.nlm.nih.gov) to learn more about disaster-related health information from WISER (hazardous materials information for emergency responders), REMM-Radiation Emergency Medical Management, CHEMM-Chemical Hazards Emergency Medical Management, and other resources.

The National Institutes of Health today released a new Funding Opportunity Announcement, RFA-TR-006 http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-TR-12-006.html for Institutional Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA).  These integrated academic homes for the clinical and translational science continue to focus on enhancing the quality, safety, efficiency and cost effectiveness of translational research and training the translational research workforce.

The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), which administers the CTSA program, will host a Technical Assistance Webinar http://www.ncats.nih.gov/news-and-events/events/events.html on July 23, 2012, 2 – 3:30 p.m. ET.  All potential applicants are encouraged to register https://ncatsevents.webex.com/ncatsevents/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=660437516 for the webinar by July 20; however, participants can join the event through its conclusion.

Key CTSA FOA submission dates are as follows:

Letter of Intent Due: December 10, 2012

• Application Due: January 8, 2013
• NIH Peer Review: February/March 2013
• NCATS Advisory Council Review: May 2013
• Earliest Award Start: July 1, 2013

For more information, read the FAQ http://www.ncats.nih.gov/research/cts/ctsa/funding/faq/faq.html and visit the related CTSA page http://www.ncats.nih.gov/research/cts/ctsa/funding/apply/tr-12-006.html of the NCATS website.  For those who have additional questions after reading the FOA and FAQ, please forward inquiries to CTSAFOAQuestions@mail.nih.gov.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced a new collaboration with the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to develop initiatives that bring together scholars, scientists, librarians, doctors and cultural heritage professionals from the humanities and biomedical communities in order to share expertise and develop new research agendas.

Representatives from the NLM and NEH signed a memorandum of understanding that outlines their partnership and recognizes their shared interest in advancing health and medical education, training and information dissemination for research, teaching and learning by the humanities and biomedical communities.

As initial efforts, the partners will work together to:

• Explore areas of mutual interest for research, particularly in the fields of digital humanities and history of medicine;

• Develop and participate in curricula and courses, training and internship opportunities, and other educational initiatives; and

• Develop initiatives to increase access to careers in medicine and health, with a particular interest in reaching students who are under-represented in the fields

About the partner institutions:

The National Endowment for the Humanities is an executive-branch, independent grant-making agency of the United States of America dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities and in those social sciences that use humanistic methods. NEH accomplishes this mission by providing grants for high-quality humanities projects to cultural institutions, such as museums, archives, libraries, colleges, universities, public television and radio stations, and to individual scholars.

Since its founding in 1836, the National Library of Medicine has played a pivotal role in translating biomedical research into practice. NLM, part of the National Institutes of Health, is the world’s largest medical library with more than 17 millionitems in its collection. A leader in information innovation, it is the developer of electronic information services used by scientists, health professionals and the public around the world. NLM makes its information services known and available withthe help of the National Network of Libraries ofMedicine, which consists of 5,600 member institutions, including eight Regional Medical Libraries. NLM conducts and supports research that applies computer and information science to meet the information needs of clinicians, public health administrators, biomedical researchers and consumers.

Call for papers

The advent of both digital content and new forms of communication has made radical changes in the expectations of health science library users for access to information.   At the same time, in response to concerns over the increasing cost of health care, government funding agencies have changed their expectations for how health-related research is conducted.  Funding agencies look for translational medicine and dispersion of information across disciplines and institutions.   Researchers and clinicians expect information at their desktop, 24 x 7, in a format that can be easily digested and used.

Responding to the opportunities provided by these changes, some librarians and libraries have changed their focus, no longer emphasizing libraries as keepers of the information universe but instead stressing their ability to provide expertise in support of those who work in the health information universe.  A number of new paradigms have been reported at conferences and in the media:  embedded librarians, e-science experts, support for translational medicine, and data curation and management.  To help us gain a better understanding of these new paradigms, the Journal of the Medical Library Association is planning to devote our October 2013 issue to papers that focus on the outcomes experienced by those who have taken on these new roles.

This issue will include invited papers summarizing the current state of the field.  We also encourage submissions from those with new roles who are willing to share their successes, or failures, with their peers.   To be considered for this issue, papers must be submitted by February 15, 2013.

We particularly welcome submission of:

• Brief Communications that describe evaluations of either the need for, or success of, new roles.  Papers should provide a brief literature review and then describe the new role, the method used to assess the need for the role or to evaluate its success, such as a small scale survey, focus groups, or measures of user participation in services provided; and the results of that evaluation or assessment.  Papers describing evaluations of education and training programs relevant to new roles are also welcome.  Brief Communications are 1800 words or less.
• Case studies that describe, in depth, new or innovative roles for librarians such as embedded librarians, e-science experts, support for translational medicine or data curation.  Papers submitted in this category should provide a brief literature review; describe the components of the new role and relate, if relevant, the institutional factors that supported the creation of this new paradigm; followed by an evaluation of the success or failure of the initiative and any lessons learned.   Papers submitted as Case Studies must include evidence that allows the reader to judge the value of the contribution of the librarian in this new role independent of the author’s opinion.  Examples of evidence include results of a user survey, inclusion of the librarian in papers authored by a research team, improvements or changes in an open access journal attributed to a librarian, or continued financial support from, or additional responsibilities assigned by, the institution.  Case studies are 3500 words or less.
• Full-length research papers investigating a research question related to new roles for health sciences libraries or librarians.   Research papers should use a standard quantitative or qualitative research design; quantitative studies should employ a sampling methodology that allows extrapolation to the larger population.  Examples in this category would be qualitative or quantitative studies evaluating faculty or clinicians reactions to embedded librarians or illuminating the features of digital libraries that contribute to their success, or a benchmarking study of librarian roles in CTSA grant funded projects.  There is a 5000 word limit for research papers.

To appear in this issue papers should be received no later than February 15, 2013.

If you would like to discuss an idea for a paper, please contact Susan Starr, Editor, JMLA at jmlaeditorbox@gmail.com.  Further details on procedures for JMLA submissions and requirements for brief communications, case studies and full-length papers can be found on the JMLA Information for Authors page, http://www.mlanet.org/publications/jmla/jmlainfo.html.  All papers should be submitted online at http://www.editorialmanager.com/jmla/.