The CAHSLA year of programs is off to an exciting start! With new members comes fun and new ideas for events! If you missed the holiday party at Pins Mechanical, it was a great night of socializing with CAHSLA colleagues old and new. Bowling was a bit of a departure from our typical holiday gathering, but it was so much fun it just may be our new tradition. One tradition that is still going strong is the holiday children’s book donation. We collected just over twenty books which were donated to Adopt A Book, Inc. Adopt A Book shared with us that they “have a book delivery after Christmas and these are headed to a school library (Pleasant Ridge Elementary). They will appreciate these so much!”
If you haven’t yet made it to a meeting this year, you won’t want to miss our upcoming annual training meeting. We’ll be hosted by Jim D’Amico, Archivist for the Edward L. Pratt Research Library at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Mark your calendars for 3:30 PM on Tuesday, February 20th. More details will be forthcoming over email soon.
Annual CAHSLA Training Program
Date: February 20,
2024
Time: 3:30 p.m.
Presenter: Jim
D’Amico, Archivist for the Edward L. Pratt Research Library, Cincinnati
Children’s Hospital
Watch for
additional details in your email or on the Events page of the CAHSLA website
ALAO Conference Report
I attended the Academic Library Association of Ohio (ALAO) conference on November 3rd, held in the Columbus area. This conference has always been a good one to meet and network with other librarians in the state, and to catch up with former colleagues. I always come away from the meeting energized with new ideas.
This
year’s keynote speaker was Trevor A. Dawes, Vice Provost for Libraries and
Museums and May Morris University Librarian at University of Delaware. Dawes’
talk was titled “Building an Inclusive (Hybrid) Organizational Culture” and he
focused on the work he has been doing at Delaware to ensure inclusivity in a
post-pandemic world, particularly one where meetings are no longer in person or
online, but a mix of both in a hybrid environment.
Dawes
noted that this changed environment requires a deliberate and thoughtful
approach that considers all the unique challenges presented by the combination
of in person and remote work, and he presented several recommendations to
address these challenges.
·
Clearly
define inclusivity in your organization and talk about it transparently. Dawes
noted here the importance of addressing Zoom microaggressions, which to be
honest, was not something I had considered before. To alleviate online meeting
microaggressions, he suggested setting standards for online/hybrid meetings.
·
Bridge
the gap between in person and remote workers in hybrid meetings. Dawes
suggested starting online meetings several minutes before the scheduled time to
allow for people to log on early to gather for informal conversations,
mimicking the sort of hallway or watercooler conversations that happen in
person. He also recommended leaving the online meeting zoom open at the end for
5 minutes for more opportunities for socialization.
·
Demonstrate
inclusivity to your external audience as well as your employees. Dawes provided
examples from his institution; visible signs of inclusion hung around the
library spaces. Highlighted was a large diversity banner draped on the exterior
of the library, as well as a land acknowledgement that is displayed inside all
the library and museum spaces at the University of Delaware.
Dawes
wrapped up his keynote address by quoting former Princeton President Shirley M.
Tilghman, that we must be “eternally vigilant” if we want to see progress. The
above recommendations are just a few from Dawes’ talk. If you would like to
view Dawes’s full speech, it is available online on the 2023 ALAO conference website.
Lynn C.
Warner, MLS
Research
and Health Sciences Librarian
University
of Cincinnati
Lynn C. Warner, MLS (UC Donald C. Harrison Health
Sciences Library) applied for and was selected to complete the OhioLINK Open
Education Network’s Certificate in Open Education Librarianship. Lynn is one of nine librarians selected from
this competitive process from OhioLINK’s academic library consortium’s member
libraries.
The OEN course is an eight- months long and will be
prepare these librarians “to serve as advocates for high-quality, public
domain, open and adaptable educational resources, and to support and advise
faculty interested in transitioning from commercial to no-cost-to-student
teaching materials”
See this interview with Lynn to learn more about her
motivation to apply for the Certificate program: https://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/liblog/2023/12/ucs-lynn-warner-selected-to-complete-open-education-networks-certificate-in-open-education-librarianship/
Congratulations, Lynn!
Raising
and Communicating Your Strategic Value to Clinicians: A panel discussion with
and for Hospital Librarians. Medical Library Association On-demand webinar video
According to the Wolters Kluwer website that hosts this
video: “The role of medical and hospital librarians is rapidly changing and
evolving; at the same time, we are experiencing a revolution in how medical
information is exchanged and distributed. A moderated panel of expert
practicing medical librarians will explore the challenges faced in
communicating their intrinsic value to the institutions and organizations they
serve.”
How a Health
Science Librarian Used Her Childhood Frustrations to Find a Calling
by Kayleen
Schenk | June 09, 2023
If someone asked you, “What motivated you to choose a career
in health sciences librarianship?” how would you answer?
Lisa Acuff, MPH, MSIS, AHIP, a health information and health sciences librarian at The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Library & Informatics Center can easily trace her career choice to her childhood when she experienced a life -altering health crisis at the young age of 10 years. In this brief article, Acuff describes the real information and educational challenges she and her family experienced when she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as her prime motivator
As a young child, the requirement for a strict adherence to a treatment regimen was complicated by a lack of easily understandable information to support the management of her condition. According to Acuff, the fear inspired tone and messaging of the information fueled her career decision. It left Acuff with the motivation to choose a career that would enable her and others to be “Healthy. Confident. Informed.”
The “lack of reassuring information, coupled with internalized fear and shame around not managing her illness correctly ... was the first of many motives Acuff used to fuel her passion for access to credible information, health science education and public health.”
The article goes on to describe the many ways health sciences librarians supports both academic and clinical medicine.
Here is my challenge to you, the reader, for the next
Chronicle: Won’t you consider writing a response to this question: If someone asked you what inspired your
health sciences librarianship career choice, how would you answer? Can you
pinpoint a moment in time that it became clear to you that health sciences
librarianship was a career path? Was there a key person who helped you to
consider the profession as an option?
What motivates you today in your career – is it the same or has it
changed? From today’s vantage point, if
you could give any words of advice or encouragement to that younger self
embarking on this career path, what would you say?
Final
Thought
"The only place where success comes
before work is in the dictionary." - Vidal Sassoon.
