by Sheila Snow-Croft, Public Health Coordinator, NN/LM SE/A Region

My initial response to the task at hand, sharing what I learned at this year’s conference, is to discuss logistics. I learned that if one belongs to 3 sections and 2 SIGs, one cannot attend all of the necessary meetings. This year this was because they were all scheduled at the same time. As incoming Chair, I attended the EMTS meeting but had to miss both the Public Health and Relevant Issues sections’ and the LGBT SIG’s meetings. At least the new Health Disparities SIG met for lunch on Sunday, rather than during a properly slated time block, with the added benefit of some delicious Thai food. Shameless plug: anyone with any interest in addressing health disparities should consider joining this dynamic group.

Another logistical reality that I learned at MLA is that I cannot adequately tweet, read tweets, and pay attention to speakers and sessions. I enjoy social networking, but without a full sized keyboard it simply takes too much time and attention for me to try and tweet. I found myself missing good parts while going back over what had just been said, reading the same quotation from many different tweeters, and experiencing some frustration because I knew I was missing what was happening in real time. After the first few tries I went old school and just sat back and listened and learned and immensely enjoyed the speakers and discussions.

One session that stood out for me was the John P. McGovern Award Lecturer: Dr. Richard Besser, ABC Chief Health & Medical Editor. He spoke of his impressive career, including being Director of the Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response at the CDC and his work with disasters, including being awarded the Surgeon General’s Medallion for leadership during the H1N1 response. His career path was interesting, as he had never planned to be a reporter or to work in a high profile position such as his spot at ABC, which includes spots on Good Morning America, World News with Diane Sawyer, and Nightline. The stories of his work in public health and at the CDC were fascinating, as was his current role explaining major events and health emergencies while trying to keep an audience’ attention and not be too depressing – usually in a minute to a minute and a half of airtime. As I listened and watched his clips of ABC news spots, I read tweets where colleagues were asserting that his information was not relevant to librarians. I could not disagree more: my previous degrees in English dictate that I believe in the power of storytelling.  Dr. Besser explained, with examples, how he makes information interesting and tries to keep people listening enough that perhaps they will truly pay attention and learn something. This is the heart of what we do: what good is information if it is not shared? And what better skill to have than the ability to share our stories succinctly and well?  I was inspired and entertained and I learned things, and that’s all I can ask of any conference session. 

The National Library of Medicine and the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Southeastern/Atlantic Region will be closed on May 27, 2013 in observance of the Memorial Day holiday.   The NN/LM SE/A offices will reopen on May 28th at 8:30 am.

By: PJ Grier, Outreach/Access Coordinator

The DOCLINE presentation given at MLA 2013, by Maria Collins – NLM, is now available to view from the DOCLINE presentations page at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/docline/doclinepresentations.html.  The presentation includes speaker notes. There were about 35 attendees at the DOCLINE User Group Meeting held on Sunday, May 5th.

The “MLA 2013 DOCLINE Update” presents data highlights and preliminary analysis from the recent national survey of DOCLINE libraries as part of the NLM strategic planning initiative exploring the future of resource sharing. The goal of the initiative was to better understand the resource sharing needs of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine given the declining use of DOCLINE for ILL and Loansome Doc for document delivery. During the User’s Group Meeting, NLM clearly heard that DOCLINE is still vital to many of you. The presentation also provided a brief overview of recent and upcoming releases. Other interests are the continued support of browsers, the national MedPrint Program, DOCLINE V4.8/V4.9 releases later this year, future enhancement work, and ILL metrics.

NLM invites libraries to share their thoughts on the results presented, and any further insights into their future needs regarding obtaining biomedical literature for health professionals. You can send comments to NLM by clicking Contact Us in DOCLINE or at https://docline.gov/docline/help/contact_nlm/help_page.cfm or discuss with your Regional Medical Library’s DOCLINE Coordinator, PJ Grier PJ Grier.

Also available are all the NLM Theater presentation recordings posted at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/mj13/mj13_mla_theater_ppt.html.

by Dr. Mary Howrey, Director of Library Services, DeVry University South Florida Library, Miramar, FL

How do you measure the impact of an Express Training Project? It’s through the relationships you build with your colleagues and the people served both during and after your training project. The “human touch” is easily measured by the training materials (i.e., artifacts) you create as part of the training journey and the lives you touch with professional knowledge, care, and concern.

From January 31, 2013 through March 23, 2013, DeVry University South Florida, University Library was the lead partner in an Express Training Project titled, “Healthy Aging Resources on the Web for Seniors and Caregivers.”  The project name was bestowed upon our partnership by Judy Sullivan, president of the Friends of the Miramar Library, at their October 2012 Board meeting. The responses of the Friends Board to the training project and the Miramar Branch Library Adult Services Department were so positive and encouraging, that Dr. Mary Howrey agreed to submit an Express Training Award application to the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Southeastern Atlantic Region.  DeVry University has been a member of the NN/LM SE/A Region since February 2011, qualifying them for this funding opportunity. The Express Training Award application was submitted the first week of December, and the award e-mail confirmation from Dale Prince, Executive Director, was received by DeVry on December 18.

The Healthy Aging Resources on the Web for Seniors and Caregivers training series offered to health science librarians, seniors, and caregivers in Southeast Florida included:

• Two “Train the Trainer” sessions for librarians from Miramar Branch Library, Broward County Library System, the SEFLIN Consortium, and the Miami Health Science Library Association (11 library professionals attended) on January 31 and February 5,
• A Healthy Aging Expo and Workshop was held on Saturday, February 9, 2013 from noon – 4p.m. 35 seniors and caregivers attended the workshop plus more than 60 visitors to the Expo with 12 exhibitors from local hospitals (Memorial Healthcare System and Baptist Health), the Broward Aging and Disability Resource Center (our Area Agency on Aging), the Southwest Focal Point Senior Center, several insurance providers, and home health care agencies,
• Two hands-on PC training sessions (15 students attended) covering the free National Library of Medicine and NIH consumer health online services (Medline Plus, NIH Senior Health, Healthfinder.gov, and the Eldercare Locator databases) were offered on Saturday, February 23, 2013 and March 9, 2013.

The training series was built from an MLA Clearinghouse curriculum, Healthy Aging at Your Library: Connecting Older Adults to Health Information using PowerPoint Presentations (PPTS) by Karen Vargas and Kelli Hamm, both Consumer Health Coordinators serving other regions of the NN/LM. Three of the PPTs were adapted for our Healthy Aging Resources on the Web for Seniors and Caregivers training series to include local resources for Broward County, the State of Florida, in addition to the national NLM/NIH consumer health databases. The training series handouts and PPTs will be made available in the MLA Clearinghouse in the near future.

The project resulted in significant long-term gains for the NN/LM SE/A Region, Friends, Miramar Branch Library, and DeVry University South Florida Library in reaching seniors and caregivers in southwest Broward County. These gains include: free community service ad space in the Century Village retirement community’s COOPPA Guardian monthly newsletter for the Friends of the Miramar Library (a newsletter that is distributed to the 12,000 residents of this senior residential community), a budding relationship with the Broward Aging and Disability Resource Center (Area Agency on Aging), a contact list of healthcare and aging network providers for future programming, and an invitation to Dr. Mary Howrey from the Century Village Computer Club to present a lecture/demonstration introducing “Healthy Aging Resources on the Web” to a potential audience of 125 Century Village residents on May 20, 2013.  DeVry University South Florida Library also received several health reference questions from seniors and caregivers who attended the two PC training sessions, wanting to locate area physicians to treat challenging medical conditions they faced.

The “human touch” of our training project is reflected in a Vimeo production, which shows all the librarians, healthcare and aging network professionals, exhibitors, seniors and caregivers in attendance on February 9, 2013. https://vimeo.com/61124662

Videographer Diana Cristina Godshall creatively recorded and edited the presentations and activities that day, and produced a 4:40 minute video of the highlights of the four-hour Expo and Workshop. With an instrumental version of “When I’m Sixty-Four” by the Beatles playing in the background, you can experience part of the learning and excitement that occurred at the Healthy Aging Resources on the Web Expo and Workshop. The MP4 video file will also be uploaded to You Tube for broader access by healthcare and aging network professionals, seniors, and caregivers.

Our partners encourage you to consider outreach to an underserved population in your community by identifying their health information needs, locating friendly community partners, jointly planning the project goals and training opportunities to be offered, and applying for an NN/LM SE/A Express Training Award. Your library will experience increased visibility and good will when you work to improve the health literacy and health status of underserved populations in your local community. Our DeVry University motto says it all—“Doing Well, By Doing Good.”

Consider applying for an Express Training Award in FY 2014!

Dr. Mary Howrey, Ed.D., MALS, MS Sociology
DeVry University South Florida Library
Miramar, FL
mhowrey@devry.edu
Phone: 954-499-9851

This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. HHS-N-276-2011-00004C with the University of Maryland Baltimore.

Healthy Aging Resources on the Web PC Training Class
Miramar Florida Branch Library
February 23, 2013

The Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries and the Medical Library Association urge journal publishers to fully support authors who are federally mandated to comply with the NIH Public Access Policy.  Many authors are confused by the varied approaches and policies of different journals for submitting articles to PubMed Central. This issue will become even more pressing beginning July 1, 2013, when NIH will delay processing an award if publications arising from it are not in compliance with the Policy.  Additionally, authors and their institutions need publisher support to address prior lapses in compliance, dating back to 2008, as failure to do so will adversely affect future grant funding. 

On behalf of academic health centers, health sciences schools, libraries and more importantly, journal authors, we ask that:

·         Publishers allow authors to submit to PubMed Central the final published versions of their articles published after April 7, 2008, related to awards that will have an anticipated start date of July 1, 2013.  We ask that this permission be communicated to authors via the journal website and other relevant communication mechanisms between now and July 1, 2013. 

·         Going forward, publishers consider entering into an NIH Portfolio agreement with PubMed Central, wherein the journal commits to depositing all articles funded by the NIH (as defined by the NIH Public Access Policy), starting with a specified volume/issue or publication date.   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/about/faq/#q15.

Authors in academic health centers are increasingly aware of the importance of selecting journals that simplify compliance.  Publisher assistance with the compliance process would strengthen ties with their authors, an important market, and establish a strong pipeline for future cutting-edge research articles.   Also, it would avoid the potential problem of researchers inadvertently violating publisher agreements when attempting to bring older publications into compliance.  Finally, having a standard, easy solution for all authors would reduce publisher workload in consulting with individual authors to bring older articles into compliance.

Any delay in grant awards will have an adverse effect on major research institutions that thrive on competitive NIH funding.   Publishers have a major role in the compliance process.  We strongly encourage them to streamline the process and offer all possible assistance to authors mandated to comply with the NIH Public Access Policy.

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The Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) supports academic health sciences libraries and directors in advancing the patient care, research, education and community service missions of academic health centers through visionary executive leadership and expertise in health information, scholarly communication, and knowledge management.

Founded in 1898, the Medical Library Association (MLA) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, educational organization of 4,000 individual and institutional members in the health sciences information field that provides lifelong educational opportunities, supports a knowledgebase of health information research, and works with a global network of partners to promote the importance of quality information for improved health to the health care community and the public.