SC/MLA Nominations for Elected Office

Please consider running for one of the SC/MLA positions (listed below)! If you are interested or know of a good candidate for any of the listed positions, please use the Southern Chapter Nominations Form.

Please note that all nominations will be reviewed by the Nominating Committee for eligibility and all nominees contacted for willingness to serve.  All Southern Chapter members are eligible to serve in any office, but cannot serve in more than one office at a time. Elected officers, except Representative to the Chapter Council and Alternate, shall take office at the close of the SC/MLA Annual Meeting following their election and serve, until the close of the SC/MLA Annual Meeting at the end of their terms of office. More info in the Southern Chapter Bylaws. 

Program Chair – Elect

The term of office of the Chair shall be, in succession, one year as Program Chair-Elect, the second year as Chair-Elect/Program Chair, the third year as Chair, and the fourth year as Immediate Past Chair. No one may serve more than one successive term.  The duties of the Program Chair-Elect shall be to serve as a Program Chair whenever the Chair-Elect/Program Chair is not able to do so, to serve as a member of the annual meeting Program Committee. (See also duties of Program Chair, Chair, and Past-Chair in Bylaws)

Secretary 

The term of office of the Secretary shall be three years, with two years as the Secretary and on year training the incoming Secretary. An individual may not serve more than one successive three-year term as Secretary.  The duties of the Secretary shall be to be responsible for incoming and outgoing correspondence, to prepare minutes of all Chapter business meetings and meetings of the Executive Board, and manage Chapter elections.

Treasurer

The term of office of the Treasurer shall be three years, with two years as the Treasurer and on year training the incoming Treasurer. An individual may not serve more than one successive three-year term as Treasurer.  The duties of the Treasurer shall be to exercise to be responsible for the collection, receipt, custody and proper disbursement of all monies due to or owed by the organization, and to be responsible for the maintenance of Chapter financial records and for the preparation of the IRS tax report. The Treasurer shall pay all bills and meet all financial obligations of the Chapter, provided that such bills and obligations have been incurred with the consent of the Chair and/or the Executive Board

MLA Nominating Committee Candidate

Serves one year as a possible candidate to the MLA Nominating Committee.  If elected by the MLA membership, will serve one year on the MLA Nominating Committee.  Must be an MLA member, cannot already be a possible candidate for the MLA Nominating Committee on another ballot or for an MLA elected office.

Chapter Council Representative Alternate

The term of office of the Alternate Representative to the Chapter Council shall be three years, except that if the Representative's term be made shorter by action of the Council or the Bylaws of the Medical Library Association, the term will coincide with that action.   The duties of the Alternate Representative to the Chapter Council shall be to attend the meetings of the Chapter Council, to serve as representative whenever the Representative is unable to do so, to assume the office of Representative and serve out the unexpired term should the Representative become unable to complete the term of office or should the Representative be elected Chair of the Chapter Council.

Please contact the SC/MLA Nominating Committee with questions.

Lindsay Blake – leblake@uams.edu

Angela Novak – anovak@tgh.org

Yumi Yaguchi – yyaguchi@fiu.edu

Leah Cordova – lcordova@uthsc.edu

SC/MLA Website is Down

You may have noticed that the SC/MLA website has been down for the past few days. MLA servers got hacked and we are waiting to regain root access. We hope the issue will be resolved quickly, so please continue to check the website.

A Call for Research Mentors

By Aidy Silva-Ortiz, MSLIS.

Are you new to writing a research poster or paper? Unsure of whether the library program you’ve created could be conveyed into a journal article or poster presentation? Are you adept at conducting research and crafting papers or posters? Maybe even interested in sharing your knowledge with other librarians?

Whichever one you answered “yes” to, we’re looking for you! Whether you are new to the area of library research or you’re a seasoned library professional, the SC/MLA Research Committee is looking for active SC/MLA members to participate in the Research Mentors program.

Mentors: If you have written a research paper or poster and/or presented your findings, consider offering your skills, knowledge, and experience to a librarian seeking to publish for the first time.

Mentees: If you have an idea in mind that you believe could be a future research paper or poster, or just have questions about the process, let a mentor help you bring those ideas to life through constructive feedback and support.

In addition, the Research Committee is especially interested in boosting participation for mentors and mentees from hospital librarians who are interested presenting research in this unique field.

There are great benefits in partnering with each other to promote research in the field of medical librarianship as noted by Research Committee Chair, J. Michael Lindsay:

"One of the most powerful ways we can advance medical librarianship as a profession is through publishing and presentation, and in mentoring colleagues in their development of these skills.  The research mentorship program is a great way to advance these efforts."

So let’s “stimulate and facilitate research activities within Southern Chapter membership,” by your participation in the Research Mentors program. Connect and foster new relationships with your fellow librarians. Encourage one another to develop new research initiatives and if you’d like to further “investigate” this opportunity please contact Kay Hogan-Smith or Lisa Travis, or read more about the mentoring program.

Research Paper and Poster Winners!

Congratulations to the winners of the papers and posters research awards from the 2016 SC/MLA Annual Meeting! Please contact the paper/poster authors for more information about their presentations. The winning results are as follows:

PAPERS
First Place:
Assessing the Impact of Remote Library Instruction on Distance Nursing Students
Elizabeth G. Hinton (ehinton@umc.edu)
University of Mississippi Medical Center

Second Place:
Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One: Humor in Library Instruction
Elena Azadbakht (Elena.Azadbakht@usm.edu)
University of Southern Mississippi Libraries

Third Place:  
Educational Backgrounds of Medical and Health Science Librarians
Ansley Stuart (astuart@augusta.edu)
Augusta University

POSTERS

First Place:

J. Michael Lindsay, Sandra Oelschlegel, and Martha Earl, Rethinking Library Education Programs? Ask Users First!
J. Michael Lindsay (jmlindsay@utmck.edu)
University of Tennessee, Preston Medical Library

Second Place:

Nakia J. Woodward, Kelly R. Loyd, Emily C. Weyant, Rick  Wallace, and Rachel R. Walden, Reexamining Campus Research:  An Analysis of Study Methodologies
Nakia J. Woodward (woodwardn@etsu.edu)
East Tennessee State University, Quillen College of Medicine Library 

Third Place: 

Francisco J. Fajardo, Hector R. Perez-Gilbe, and Jorge E. Perez, Reaching Out to the “T”:  A Medical Library’s Experience Providing Outreach and Consumer Health Resources to the Transgender Community
Francisco J. Fajardo (francisco.fajardo@fiu.edu)
Florida International University, Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, Medical Library

SC/MLA Annual Meeting Call for Papers and Posters: Deadline extended to July 1!

Did you procrastinate on submitting a paper or poster abstract for this year's annual meeting? Or do you have a late-breaking project that you would like to share? Then today is your lucky day because the abstract submission deadline for meeting papers and posters has been extended to July 1!

This year's theme is Re-Think IT: The Evolving Landscape of Libraries.

Proposals should relate to:

• Innovative services, programs, or technology
• Transforming & re-designing space
• Research & data management
• Assessing and evaluating services
• Community outreach & information literacy programs
• Patient care, improving outcomes & patient safety

Visit the meeting's Call for Papers/Posters website for more details and submission instructions. Please direct questions to Gregg Stevens at stevens_ga@mercer.edu (papers) or Kelsey Leonard at KLeonard@mc.utmck.edu (posters).

Research Awards for SC/MLA Annual Meeting 2016

By J. Michael Lindsay, Chair, Southern Chapter Research Committee

The date for submitting poster and paper abstracts for Southern Chapter will be upon us before you know it!  As you are considering what to present, don’t forget about the Research Awards!  The first prize winner for research papers is $300 and the first prize winner for posters is $200.  Help advance the research progress of the Southern Chapter and maybe even win a prize by submitting a research-oriented paper or poster for consideration.

Call for Southern Chapter Officer Nominations

The SC/MLA Nominating Committee is soliciting nominations and/or self-nominations for Program Chair-Elect, Secretary/Treasurer, and the MLA Nominating Committee Potential Candidate. More information on duties for each position can be found in Article IV of the SC/MLA bylaws. Please consider nominating yourself or someone else for one of these positions!

For nominations, or self-nominations, of Southern Chapter officers, please remember that all candidates should be regular members of MLA as well as current members of Southern Chapter/MLA. Candidates should also be considered based on at least two of the criteria described for each office.

The criteria for each position can be found on the SC/MLA website. Please take a look at the criteria and consider nominating or self-nominating a colleague for one of these positions.

Please send recommendations to Richard Nollan, Nominating Committee Chair, at rnollan@uthsc.edu. Please contact him with any questions. 

Welcome to the SC/MLA Blog, Southern Salutations!

By Emily Brennan, MLIS, MUSC Library, Charleston, SC

SC/MLA is thrilled to announce our new blog, Southern Salutations, as well as our revamped Facebook and Twitter pages! Keeping up to date with chapter news and connecting with colleagues is now easier than ever. This purpose of Southern Salutations is to communicate timely information to chapter members, facilitate discussions through posts and comments, and increase participation in SC/MLA activities. The blog also serves as an online archive of discussion topics.

There are four ways to read Southern Salutations:

• Simply read the blog from the Southern Salutations homepage
• Subscribe to blog posts through email: enter your email address in the “Follow By Email” box on the blog homepage
• Like “SoChapMLA” on Facebook (blog posts will publish to Facebook)
• Follow “SoChapMLA” on Twitter (blog posts will publish to Twitter)

Please contact Emily Brennan (brennane@musc.edu) if you are interested in guest authoring a blog post, have suggestions for topics, or have any questions. We look forward to connecting with you!

Emily Brennan, MLIS, is a Research and Education Librarian at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Library, and when not working, loves spending time with her two children and chihuahua.