Apply for the Sewell Travel Award to Attend the 2017 APHA Annual Meeting

Is your position related to public health or a public health related field? Would you like an opportunity to immerse yourself in the public health field for a few days?  Then you need to apply for the Sewell Travel Award for Public Health and attend the 2017 American Public Health Association Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA in early November.  We anticipate funding approximately 8 non-local librarians ($1,235) and 2 local librarians ($730).  The award will reimburse you for the cost of APHA membership and early bird conference registration. Non-local librarians receive additional funds to help offset the cost associated with travel.

Deadline for submission is July 17, 2017 at Midnight (Eastern).

Reflections from MLA 2017

By Kelsa Bartley

This year’s MLA conference was my first time attending. The conference reminded me of a huge family reunion where you’re meeting all the family you never met for the first time! Everyone seemed familiar; either I’d met them online and were meeting them in person for the first time, people knew me by association to my current work place or library school, or they knew someone I work with or used to work with. It was also my first time in Seattle, such a beautiful city. The weather was a perfect mix of warm days and cool nights for most of the conference. I noticed the heavy emphasis on being green, sustainability, and recycling. All the Uber taxis at the Seattle-Tacoma airport were Prius cars!

Welcome to MLA 17!

Being an official MLA tweeter this year, sharing my conference experiences from a library school student and library paraprofessional perspective was the perfect way to get introduced to the hundreds of medical librarians on Twitter. I learned a lot about Twitter engagement, shared a ton of photos, and made some new connections. I definitely recommend signing up to be a tweeter or blogger for the next MLA conference.

Martha C. Watkins Memorial Scholarship

Nominations and self-nominations are now being accepted for the Martha C. Watkins Memorial Scholarship! Please consider nominating a colleague, or yourself, for this award! 

The Martha C. Watkins Memorial Scholarship was established in 1996 to honor Martha Watkins, who was not only a founding member of the Southeastern Conference of Hospital Librarians (SCHL), but also a friend and mentor to a generation of hospital and other health sciences librarians in the South.

She spent many years educating hospital library managers, instructing student and staff users of library services, and providing information to rural and underserved healthcare personnel. The scholarship was begun with SCHL's treasury after the organization disbanded in 1995. 

Application and procedures and qualifications for the scholarship are as follows:

• Applicants must be current Southern Chapter members, who work in a hospital library and who want to take a course or workshop at the Southern Chapter annual meeting. 
• The amount awarded will not exceed $500.00, and can be used to defray any expenses necessary for the fulfillment of the course (tuition, travel, etc).

The goals for this award are as follows: 

• To help Southern Chapter members gain skills and knowledge needed to improve their roles in providing optimum patient care.
• To support participation in professional opportunities which might not otherwise be available because of lack of funds.
• To enhance the role of hospital librarians in maintaining their cutting-edge managerial skills in the face of changing social forces which affect hospitals.
• To promote the sharing of knowledge gained with other hospital librarians in consortia or other cooperative relationships.

To apply for this award, see here.

Please apply by July 15, 2017.

Deadline Extended!

Please note that the deadline has been extended to July 1 for the First-Time Attendee Scholarship!

This award allows for a current member of the SC/MLA, who has never been to an SC/MLA annual meeting, to attend with funding. Funding is designed to pay for registration, travel, accommodation, meals, and one (1) CE course.

The applicant must:

• Be a current SC/MLA member in good standing (non-student)
• Answer the question: "What do you expect to gain professionally and/or personally by attending the SC/MLA annual meeting?"
• Attach a letter of support from an administrator demonstrating a genuine need for financial aid due to lack of institutional travel support or adequate salary support
• Register for and complete one (1) CE course
• Attend all sessions of the SC/MLA Annual Meeting, including the business meeting
• After the meeting, submit a brief (250-300 word) report about the meeting which will be published in Southern Expressions
• Attach a final expense report to the above-mentioned report. Conference registration and CE registration for one course will be waived. The expense report should include receipts for travel, accommodation, and meals.

Scholarships will be limited to one person per institution per year.

The Honors & Awards Committee will have the responsibility for deciding whether applicants meet the criteria and for awarding the scholarships.

If you have any further questions, please contact the Chair of the Honors & Awards Committee.

Remember, the deadline has been extended to July 1! Please send applications to the Chair of the Honors & Awards Committee.

Health Literacy Summit: Follow Up

The Health Literacy Summit, held on June 2-3 in Knoxville, was attended by 40 people from 9 states and one Canadian province. States included Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Virginia, New York, Illinois and Colorado. The participants included 15 librarians, physicians, nurses and members of the public health community.

The nationally renowned speakers, Drs. Baur and Rudd held everyone’s attention with their in-depth of knowledge and perspective on the history and progress made in the discipline of health literacy over the last few decades. The leadership that The University of Tennessee Medical Center (UTMC) Health Information Center is providing on this topic was also on stage. Health Information Center faculty librarians spoke of the Health Literacy research they recently conducted, utilizing an engaging method of timed poster presentations.  The Medical Simulation Center provided in depth knowledge about their research on the use of simulation to enhance the oral communication skills of residents, while Pharmacy and Patient Education team members provided a panel on evaluating print patient education material. The event not only promoted learning, but provided great discussion. The breakout groups allowed for further expansion on different health literacy topics along with further discussion.

The overall focus of the event was on assessing and promoting changes in the healthcare system to reduce barriers for low health literacy patients.  This topic is expansive, but by focusing in on the attributes of organizations that can reduce those barriers, and providing assessment tools by which to measure those assessments, participants left with information they could apply.

For more information on the speakers and topics, please see here: http://gsm.utmck.edu/cme/Literacy2017/

If you missed this year’s Summit, watch for notices for the 2018 event!

Developed resources reported in this Health Literacy Summit are supported by the National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health (NIH) under cooperative agreement number UG4LM012340 with the University of Maryland, Health Sciences and Human Services Library. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.