Implementing PDA technology in a medical library: experiences in a hospital library and an academic medical center library

Personal digital assistants (PDAs) have grown from being a novelty in the late 1990s to an essential tool for healthcare professionals in the 2000s. This paper describes the experiences of a librarian who implemented PDA technology first in a hospital library, and then at an academic medical center library. It focuses on the role of the library in supporting PDA technology and resources. Included are programmatic issues such as training for library staff and clinicians, and technical issues such as Palm and Windows operating systems. This model could be used in either a hospital or academic health sciences library.     

Career progression of academic medical library directors

While females are still underrepresented as directors overall, the results of our survey indicate that in the past ten years female library directors have been hired in numbers nearly matching their overall percentage of the medical library profession. When the personal characteristics of medical library directors are compared by gender, male directors are more likely to be married, have children, and be somewhat younger upon attaining their first directorship. When the professional characteristics are compared, the only notable difference is that a greater portion of males hold a second master's degree. Despite the changing numbers of female library directors in the past ten years, these differences all held constant before and after 1977. Only the number of internal successions to directorship changed over time. The succession patterns of medical library directors now match more closely those of other academic library directors.     

Standards for the academic veterinary medical library.

The Standards Committee of the Veterinary Medical Libraries Section was appointed in May 2000 and charged to create standards for the ideal academic veterinary medical library, written from the perspective of veterinary medical librarians. The resulting Standards for the Academic Veterinary Medical Library were approved by members of the Veterinary Medical Libraries Section during MLA '03 in San Diego, California. The standards were approved by Section Council in April 2005 and received final approval from the Board of Directors of the Medical Library Association during MLA '04 in Washington, DC.     

Use of laptop computers in an academic medical library

Who borrows laptop computers in an academic health sciences library? Why do they choose to check out laptops? In a survey, laptop computer users responded that the laptops were used most frequently to do class-related work. Laptops were most often checked out because they could be taken to a quiet area of the library or to where the user had more room to work. The majority of such borrowers were satisfied or very satisfied with the laptops and the service from the library. The majority of those completing the survey were medical school students and graduate students. The circulation of laptop computers at this academic health sciences library is a very successful and popular program.     

Circulation of core collection monographs in an academic medical library

Academic medical librarians responsible for monograph acquisition face a challenging task. From the plethora of medical monographs published each year, academic medical librarians must select those most useful to their patrons. Unfortunately, none of the selection tools available to medical librarians are specifically intended to assist academic librarians with medical monograph selection. The few short core collection lists that are available are intended for use in the small hospital or internal medicine department library. As these are the only selection tools available, however, many academic medical librarians spend considerable time reviewing these collection lists and place heavy emphasis on the acquisition of listed books. The study reported here was initiated to determine whether the circulation of listed books in an academic library justified the emphasis placed on the acquisition of these books. Circulation statistics for "listed" and "nonlisted" books in the hematology (WH) section of Indiana University School of Medicine's Ruth Lilly Medical Library were studied. The average circulation figures for listed books were nearly two times as high as the corresponding figures for the WH books in general. These data support the policies of those academic medical libraries that place a high priority on collection of listed books.     

MEDLINE and PsycLIT on CD-ROM: a survey of users in an academic medical library

A survey of users of PsycLIT and MEDLINE on CD-ROM was performed at an academic medical library. The questionnaire was designed to gather information about the user population, satisfaction of the users, the assistance needed to use the systems, and the type of searches being performed. The majority of users were graduate students in the schools of medicine, nursing, and pharmacy. In general, users were satisfied with the performance of the systems. Assistance from a librarian, printed documentation, or another patron was required by 85% of users, and they were generally satisfied with this assistance. Most searches were performed to obtain information on a subject. The results were remarkably similar for both databases.     

A health education outreach partnership between an academic medical library and public library: lessons learned before and during a pandemic

Background:Public libraries serve as community centers for accessing free, trustworthy health information. As such, they provide an ideal setting to teach the local community about health and health literacy, particularly during public health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2018, an outreach partnership between an academic medical library and public library has developed, delivered, and continuously evaluated a health education program targeting public library users.Case Presentation:Health education activities were integrated into three existing public library programs: adult workshops, child and family programming, and circulating family activity kits. Prior to COVID-19, events were held at the public library, which then pivoted online during the pandemic. An interprofessional team approach combined the expertise of academic medical and public librarians, medical school faculty and staff, and medical students in developing the educational programs. Twelve in-person and five virtual programs were offered, and five circulating health education family kits were launched. Activities were assessed using program evaluation surveys of the adult and children''s programs and circulation statistics of the kits.Conclusions:This case report showcases the lessons learned from implementing a longitudinal outreach partnership between an academic medical library and public library before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The interprofessional team approach and flexibility in program design and delivery in both the in-person and virtual environments proved critical to the success of the partnership. This partnership could serve as a model for other libraries interested in pursuing interprofessional collaborations in educating local communities on healthy behavior and health information–seeking practices.     

Social media as a platform in academic library marketing: A comparative study

Social media like Facebook have become popular tools for different organizations like libraries in marketing practice. To build relationships with library users, libraries hope social media can engage its user communities actively with their collections, services, and activities. This paper aims at evaluating the effectiveness of using social media as a platform in marketing through a questionnaire on the Facebook page of the University of Hong Kong Libraries (HKUL), comparing the perspectives of students and faculty members. Both the current situation of HKUL's Facebook page and the reasons affecting users' interest and participation in the page are evaluated, in order to suggest better strategies for the library to deal with the needs of library users in the future. Other university libraries can also gain new insights from the study.This research has the following key findings: 1. The marketing practices of HKUL's Facebook page generally did not receive adequate attention and reactions from users; 2. Students were more engaged than faculty members in HKUL's Facebook page, as students use more varieties of library services than faculty members; 3. User needs, social media content, and interactions generally affected user acceptance of the library's Facebook marketing.     

Moving a medical center library

The relocation of a medical center library collection of 30,000 book and journal volumes and 600 audiovisuals is described. The planning and moving procedures which facilitated the move are detailed. A bibliography of the library literature concerning library moves is attached.     

Contemplating library instruction: Integrating contemplative practices in a mid-sized academic library

In recent years there has been growing interest in the integration of contemplative practices into higher education, but little has been published regarding contemplative practices or contemplative pedagogies in academic libraries. Nor have explicit links been made to critical librarianship (critlib), particularly regarding the stress associated with the profession and the “resilience narrative” of “doing more with less”. In this paper, we review the literature and describe our experiences introducing a variety of contemplative elements into our library instruction program, most recently in the virtual environment. Building on the three levels of “intervention” modeled by Barbezat and Bush (2014) to include librarians, and incorporating critlib theory, we describe the contemplative practices we have used with a view to alleviating librarian, student, and faculty stress and burnout, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Anecdotal reports suggest a broad interest in such practices and their potential effectiveness in reducing distraction and stress. However, future study is needed to systematically evaluate the outcomes of CP during library instruction.