Experiences of a First Time Attendee Scholarship Winner

Ansley Stuart, was awarded SC/MLA’s First Time Attendee Scholarship, and shares her conference experiences.

The 2016 Southern Chapter Annual Meeting was a refreshing view of the future that health science librarians are helping to create.

As part of the scholarship I received, I was fortunate enough to attend the continuing education course on Open Access Publishing Models and Predatory Journals: PubMed and Beyond. From start to finish, this class was a wealth of information about open access journals. The instructors provided

their students with the basic knowledge of how open access journals are supposed to work and then let everyone know about the multitudes of ways that publishing model can be abused. The students also learned what red flags to look out for when investigating whether a journal is predatory or not.

The Annual Meeting’s paper and poster presentations offered a wide variety of original and reported information that truly focused on this year’s theme of “Re-Think IT”. There were many new and creative ideas on how to get better feedback from library users, how to make online content more accessible, different ways to reach distance users, and how to better organize library content. Not only were the presenters thorough researchers, but many were engaging public speakers as well.

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

Job Opportunity: MUSC Director of Information Resources and Collection Services

The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Libraries invites applications and nominations for the position of Director for Information Resources and Collection Services.

The Libraries seeks an experienced, innovative, service-oriented, and collaborative Director of Information Resources and Collection Services to join our leadership team. Reporting to the Director of Libraries, the Director of Information Resources and Collection Services will assume leadership and oversight for the development and management of the Libraries’ collections and will work collaboratively with all stakeholders in building relevant collections. The ideal candidate will bring substantial knowledge of academic library operation and experience in acquisitions and collection management to the position.

Experiences of the Jocelyn Rankin Memorial Scholarship Winner

Kay Hogan Smith, MLS, MPH, was awarded SC/MLA’s Jocelyn Rankin Memorial Scholarship, which provided funds for her to attend a research-related workshop. Here, she describes the workshop and its impact. 

As the Southern Chapter MLA recipient of the 2016 Jocelyn Rankin Memorial Scholarship, I received support for travel costs for a trip to the University of Minnesota October 10th and 11th to attend the two-day training session for librarians participating as investigators in the Ithaka S+R research support services study focusing on public health. Ithaka S+R is a not-for-profit service focused on helping academia “navigate economic and technological change.” Part of this mission is focused on libraries and scholarly communication, and the organization has produced a number of research reports and issue briefs dealing with current challenges in the field. (See issue brief, "Finding the Public Domain: The Copyright Review Management System"). This current research study is the first to deal with the support needed by health researchers, particularly those in public health. I was joined at this training seminar by 12 other public health librarians from around the country, the only one from the Southeastern region. Danielle Cooper, a trained ethnographer and analyst for Ithaka, provided us with excellent guidance as our instructor for the seminar (and coordinator for the project.)

Students: Apply for the MLA Scholarship!

A scholarship of up to $5,000 will be granted to a student entering an ALA-accredited library school or with at least one-half of the requirements of the program to finish when the scholarship is awarded in February. The award will be given to a student who shows excellence in scholarship and potential for accomplishment in health sciences librarianship. The scholarship is announced at the annual meeting of the association, where the recipient will also receive a one-year student membership in MLA and free inclusive student registration at the association’s annual meeting.

The application deadline is December 1. Visit the MLA website for more information.

Apply for Lois Ann Colaianni Award!

The deadline for the Lois Ann Colaianni Award is quickly approaching! If you know someone that deserves to be recognized for their outstanding service in hospital librarianship, then consider nominating them for MLA's Lois Ann Colaianni Award for Excellence and Achievement in Hospital Librarianship. This award is given to a member who has made significant contributions to the profession through overall distinction or leadership. Self nominations are welcome.

Nominations are due by November 1. For more information, please see MLA's website.

Apply for the MLA Research, Development, and Demonstration Project Grant

If you are interested in research or are working on a research project that contributes to excellence in the field of health sciences librarianship and information sciences, please consider applying for the next MLA Research, Development, and Demonstration Project Grant. A full description of the grant is available is available on the MLA website.

This award is appropriate for early and mid-career librarians with an interest in research. The grant ranges from $100-$1000 and the application deadline is December 1, 2016.  Application information can be found here.