For the first time in over a year I ate at a restaurant; and, with whom did I make this momentous step forward you might ask – CAHSLA of course! It was great to see members in person at our end-of-year “picnic” at The Pub at Rookwood. We exchanged cicada experiences, laughed, and brainstormed upcoming programs.
Thanks to everyone who served the previous year: Amy Koshoffer (Vice President/President Elect); Emily Kean (Treasurer); Lisa McCormick (Secretary and Chronicle Editor); Barbarie Hill (Chronicle Editor); and Emily Kean and Amy Koshoffer (Technology Committee). And thank you to the incoming elected officers: Amy Koshoffer (President); Alex Temple (Vice President/President Elect); Emily Kean (Treasurer); and Lisa McCormick (Secretary).
Stays tuned for future in-person CAHSLA meetings and have a great summer!
Respectfully submitted,
Jennifer Pettigrew, President
Secretary’s Report
End-of-the-Year “Picnic” Meeting
Date: June 7, 2021
Time: 5:30 p.m. - 6:45 p.m.
Location: The Pub, Rookwood, Cincinnati, Ohio
Present: Pettigrew, Jennifer; Kean, Emily; Starbuck, Edith; Temple, Alex; McCormick, Lisa
President Jennifer Pettigrew welcomed everyone to the “picnic” gathering organized by Amy Koshoffer. After some initial discussion of the cicada invasion, Jennifer announced the results of the election (results published below). Jennifer thanked officers and presented each with a unique ceramic cicada magnet in appreciation for their service. Emily Kean thanked Jennifer for her leadership and service and presented her with a gift certificate to Renaissance Garden Accents.
We briefly explored ideas for the 2021-2022 CAHSLA association year as we anticipate that we can have in-person meetings.
Edith Starbuck shared that she will be retiring from the University of Cincinnati Health Sciences Library at the end of June. Emily announced that staff will be returning to onsite work at UC in mid-July.
Conversation continued as we enjoyed our selections from the Pub's British inspired menu. The gathering ended about 6:45 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Lisa McCormick, Secretary
Treasurer and Membership Chair Report
|
CHECKING BALANCE |
as of 05/12/2021: |
$2,013.43 |
|
CHECKING DEPOSITS |
|
$0.00 |
|
CHECKING DEPOSIT TOTALS |
|
$0.00 |
|
CHECKING WITHDRAWALS |
Presidents Gift Reimbursement |
$51.00 |
|
CHECKING WITHDRAWAL TOTALS |
|
$51.00 |
|
CHECKING BALANCE |
as
of 06/25/2021: |
$1,962.43 |
|
CASH BALANCE |
as
of 05/12/2021: |
$20.00 |
|
CASH DEPOSITS |
|
$0.00 |
|
CASH WITHDRAWALS |
|
$0.00 |
|
CASH BALANCE |
as
of 06/25/2021: |
$20.00 |
|
TOTAL ASSETS |
as of 06/25/2021: |
$1,982.43 |
|
|
|
|
MEMBERS
Regular (Paid) 9
Student (Paid) 0
Life Members 11
TOTAL 20
Respectfully submitted,
Emily Kean, Treasurer
Program Committee Report
|
Event |
Venue |
Date |
Guest Speaker |
Theme |
Number of Attendees |
% of Total Membership (n/21) |
|
Membership
Meeting |
Webex |
9/15/2020 |
None |
Introduction
of CAHSLA officers | Game – Two Truths and a Lie |
11 |
52.4 |
|
Holiday
Gathering |
Webex |
12/8/2020 |
Melanie Moore |
Cincinnati
Book Bus - Sharing favorite seasonal items |
10 |
47.6 |
|
Mid
winter Meeting |
Webex |
2/25/2021 |
None |
Jeopardy
Game on Cincinnati Literary History |
8 |
38.1 |
|
Spring
Education Meeting |
Webex |
4/13/2021 |
June Taylor-Slaughter |
Presentation:
Microaggressions |
6 |
28.6 |
|
End of Year Picnic |
The Pub-
Rookwood |
6/7/2021 |
None |
“Picnic” |
5 |
23.8 |
|
Avg per meeting |
|
|
|
|
8 |
38.1 |
Respectfully submitted,
Amy Koshoffer, Program Committee Chair
Election Committee Report
The results are in, and I thank you all for taking the time to participate in this year’s election of CAHSLA Officers.I am pleased to announce your CAHSLA Officers for the upcoming year:
· Amy Koshoffer – President
· Alex Temple – Vice President/President Elect
· Emily Kean – Treasurer
· Lisa McCormick – Secretary
Respectfully submitted,
Jennifer Pettigrew, President
Annual Report: Secretary Report
For the 2020-2021 association year, minutes were recorded and submitted to the Chronicle:- Executive Committee Transition Meeting – August 4, 2020
- Meeting Minutes – September 15, 2020
- Meeting Minutes – December 8, 2020
- Meeting Minutes – February 25, 2021
- Meeting Minutes – April 13, 2021
- Meeting Minutes – June 7, 2021
Lisa McCormick, Secretary
Annual Report: Chronicle
For the 2020-2021 association year, the CAHSLA Chronicle was published four times:- October 2020 Issue # 151
- December 2020 Issue #152
- May 2021 Issue #153
- July 2021 Issue #154.
Barbarie Hill and Lisa McCormick, Editors
Retirement Announcement
Our colleague, Edith Starbuck, Information Services Librarian, UC Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library, is retiring on June 30th. Edith’s leadership positions in CAHSLA are numerous and include president (2019-2019, 2014-2015, 2004-2009), and chair and committee member for the program committee for many years. We are grateful to Edith for her leadership, service, dedication, wisdom, and humor in guiding CAHSLA through the ups and downs of an ever-changing library/information services environment. When Edith announced her retirement, I thought it might be fitting to capture some information for the Chronicle, and Edith readily agreed to answer a few questions below. Edith, you are an irreplaceable colleague. Happy retirement, it’s well deserved!
Q: Where did you obtain your library degree?
A: My MLS is from Indiana University.
Q: What was your first library job?
A:My first library job was as a cataloger at the Hebrew Union College Klau Library. I did a cataloging practicum with Klau Library prior to graduating from IU and they were kind enough to hire me part-time as a Cataloger until I found another job.
Q: If your first library job was not in a medical library, what was your first medical library job?
A: After the Klau Library, my next job was at the UC Health Sciences Library as a temporary media cataloger. It was that opportunity that eventually became a full-time position which grew and evolved into a career.
Q: Do you recall meeting a library luminary/leader in the field?
A: I met Ann McKibbon in person when she taught an EBM CE class for Midwest MLA 2009 in Columbus, OH. I was a bit in awe of her and her PhD in Biomedical Informatics.
Q: What is your first CAHSLA "memory"?
A: Casting back, I don’t seem to have a ‘first’ memory. Instead, I have fond memories of many fun or interesting meetings and gatherings. Among my favorites were the holiday potlucks with good food, games, carols, and great camaraderie.
Q: What are you looking forward to in retirement?
A: I am looking forward to the luxury of time. I want to spend more time with friends, revisit hobbies, and explore new ones, slowly tackle house projects, plus more.
Q: What are your words of wisdom/encouragement to those in the field?
A: Getting involved with professional organizations like CAHSLA has been a very rewarding part of my library career. That involvement provides opportunities to grow professionally and network with colleagues. Networking helps build connections which are helpful throughout a career. Connections can serve as collective wisdom to help resolve an issue or come to a decision. Those connections may also grow into long-term friendships. CAHSLA connections are special, and I look forward to enjoying those connections and programs in retirement.
Alex Temple, MLIS
Consumer Health Information Specialist | Medical Library Association
Hello everybody! I was excited to join CAHSLA in January, and am now even more excited to serve as Vice President. A little about me- I work at the Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library, currently at the Madisonville branch, however most of my background is from the Information & Reference department at the main branch. I have also been able to volunteer at the Winkler Center for the last few years, which sparked my interested in serving the medical community as a librarian. I would be remiss to fail to mention that the Sawbones podcast also fueled my interest in working in health libraries. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it is a podcast about all the missteps in medical history. I also have a passion and background in preservation, for cultural heritage materials as well as architectural preservation. After the couple of meetings I’ve been able to attend so far, I can tell I’m in good company, and I look forward working and meeting with you all in the coming years!
The local news station, WLWT, used the Lloyd Library and Museum’s Insect Exhibit for a story on the cicada invasion of 2021. The news story aired on June 16. In early May, when we were on “cicada watch” Local 19 News also did a story on the Library’s cicada collection.
The Lloyd highlights books from their collections on their web page. According to the website, “etymology, or the study of insects, is well represented in the Lloyd’s collections.” Additionally, The Lloyd is hosting the Incredible Insects Exhibition. “The Cicada Room features a photo exhibition by leading cicada expert, Gene Kritsky, and artist books inspired by cicadas from members of the Cincinnati Book Arts Society” Be sure to check out the Library’s event page for upcoming lectures related to the exhibition. If you are still in need of a t-shirt, tote bag, or notecards to memorialize the Brood X cicada appearance, the Lloyd has you covered with a variety of items at their gift shop or online https://www.redbubble.com/people/lloydlibrary/shop.
Summer Reads for the Aspiring Physician
1. The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician's First Year by Matt McCarthy, MD
2. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
3. Womb With a View: Tales from the Delivery, Emergency and Operating Rooms by Rebecca Levy-Gantt, DO
4. Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh, MD
5. An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives by Matt Ritchel
6. Hundreds of Interlaced Fingers: A Kidney Doctor's Search for the Perfect Match by Vanessa Grubbs, MD
7. Open Heart: A Cardiac Surgeon's Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Table by Stephen Westaby, MD
8. The First Cell: And the Human Costs of Pursuing Cancer to the Last by Azra Raza, MD
9. Letter to a Young Female Physician: Notes from a Medical Life by Suzanne Koven, MD
10. Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande, MD, MPH
AMA/ JAMA Face Reckoning for Podcast Questionings
Systemic Racism in Medicine
Lack of Evidence-Based Scholarship on Racism in Leading Medical Journals
“Ignorance is neither neutral nor benign, especially when it cloaks evidence of harm". This is the beginning sentence for the article, Medicine’s Privileged Gatekeepers: Producing Harmful Ignorance about Racism and Health by Nancy Krieger Rhea W. Boyd Fernando De Maio Aletha Maybank.The authors set out to conduct a literature review and assessment of articles published in 4 major medical journals, The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, The Lancet, and BMH - The British Medical Journal. For comparison, they also searched for article in the American Journal of Public Health and the Annual Reviews series. The search term used was "racism." Krieger et al's intent was to build upon the 2018 Hardeman et al publication, Naming Institutionalized Racism in the Public Health Literature: A Systematic Literature Review. [Public Health Reports. 2018;133(3):240-249. doi:10.1177/003335491876057].
According to the Health Affairs blog: "Our novel contribution is three-fold: (1) we extend the analysis to include articles from 1990-2020, thereby expanding the time frame and capturing the past year of increased explicit discourse and action about racism and health; (2) we distinguish between articles that present viewpoints versus empirical scientific investigations; and (3) we deliberately focus on the world’s four leading medical journals, as well as bringing in selected comparators.”
The blog continues, “The results are not pretty. As we show, only in the past year have these leading journals begun noticeably increasing publication of articles on this topic, with the vast majority of even these papers solely viewpoints, not evidence-based empirical studies.”
See the Health Affairs blog posting for the authors’ literature review results and analysis of findings.
NYPL Publishes Book on Peculiar Research Questions
Before the Internet, reference librarians were the main source of answers to life's peculiar questions. "A couple of years ago, staff at the New York Public Library discovered a small gray file box filled with questions posed to the venerable institution's librarians between 1940 and 1980. A new book, Peculiar Questions and Practical Answers: A Little Book of Whimsy and Wisdom from the Files of The New York Public Library collects these questions alongside answers provided by NYPL librarians."A few of us in CAHSLA remember the file box kept by reference librarian Ruth Epstein at UC Medical Center Library. Ruth was a "librarian's librarian." Those of us in hospital libraries knew that we could contact her when we had exhausted all hope of answering a reference question.
Below are just 10 questions plucked from the book. To read the answers, consult the
article 10 Strange Questions People Asked NYPL Librarians Before Google.
- Is it possible to keep an octopus in a private home? (1944)
- What is the significance of the hip movement in the Hawaiian dance? (1944)
- What time does a bluebird sing? (1944)
- How much did Napoleon's brain weigh? (1945)
- Can mice throw up? (1949)
- What kind of apple did Eve eat? (1956)
- What is the life cycle of an eyebrow hair? (1948)
- What did women use for shopping bags before paper bags came into use? (N.D.)
- What is the nutritional value of human flesh? (1958)
- Who was the real Dracula? (1972)
- Why do 18th-century English paintings have so many squirrels in them, and how did they tame them so that they wouldn't bite the painter? (1976)
Final Thought
"Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding." ~ Bill Bullard
