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.     

Research Support in an Academic Medical Center

In 2003, the Prior Health Sciences Library (Prior Library) at The Ohio State University (OSU) explored the possibility of providing specialized support to biomedical, nursing, and allied health researchers by adding a research librarian position. The decision came about after the Medical Library Association (MLA) investigated how libraries could provide enhanced support to medical researchers. This article describes how the research librarian position was developed and how it continues to evolve.     

Platform for change: the Medical Library Association's response to the professional development challenge

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The Cunningham Fellowship: three international points of view*

The Medical Library Association Cunningham Fellowship Program provides funds for one medical librarian per year from outside the United States or Canada to work and learn in United States or Canadian medical libraries for a period of 4 months. An overview of the Cunningham Fellowship is presented from three different points of view—that of a Medical Library Association member who has worked closely with the Cunningham Fellowship programme, and two former Cunningham Fellows. Anita Verhoeven, who relates her impressions of American culture, architecture and art, was the 1998 MLA Cuningham Fellow and visited 33 libraries, met 171 librarians, visited prestigious universities and attended a Medical Library Association meeting. Ioana Robu, the 1997 Cunningham Fellow, visited 15 libraries in 13 cities during her experience. She describes the process of applying for the fellowship and assesses the impact that the 1997 Cunningham Fellowship has made on her life, her library and medical librarianship in Romania. An overview of the Cunningham Fellowship is also given, which includes the history, the application process, the requirements of the fellowship and the time table of the fellowship.     

Proving the proverbial gadfly: situating the historical and racial context of Southern medical works by Mary Louise Marshall

Health sciences librarianship has historically benefited from avoiding critical conversations around the role of race in the profession, reflected through a select few number of articles on the topic. The purpose of this study was to add to this body of literature and apply a critical librarianship framework on the early scholarly record of health sciences librarianship and the legacy of integration within the Medical Library Association (MLA). Three Southern medical works and the integration views of Mary Louise Marshall, the longest-serving president of MLA from 1941 to 1946, were thematically and textually analyzed to redress the profession''s long-standing legacy with Whiteness and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) representation. In reframing the historic past of MLA both through Marshall''s works and her views, the goal is to acknowledge ways in which the profession has impeded progress and present steps to remedy appropriate outreach for the future.     

MLA committee membership: retrospect and prospect

MLA committee membership by category (medical school, society and hospital) for the past three years is examined revealing a heavy reliance upon medical school librarians for committee members. A ten-year examination of committee membership and turnover in individual committee membership rosters points out those committees whose rate of turnover is greatest. Opportunities for service by new MLA members is examined as is committee tenure as experienced during the last decade. Turnover, tenure, and frequency of leadership is examined for the ten-year period. Pointing out that only 360 individuals have served MLA in committee positions listed in the Bulletin, the Ad Hoc Committee to Review the Goals and Structure of the Medical Library Association is urged to more actively seek the opinions of the membership and to consider the service patterns of the past in recommending a course for the future.     

Fin-de-siècle Philadelphia and the founding of the Medical Library Association.

Philadelphia at the time of the founding of the Medical Library Association (MLA) is described. Several factors that promoted the birth of the association are discussed, including the rapid increase in the labor force and the rise of other health related professions, such as the American Hospital Association and the professionalization of nursing. The growth of the public hygiene movement in Philadelphia at the time of Sir William Osler's residency in the city is discussed. Finally, the rapid growth of the medical literature is considered a factor promoting the development of the association. This article continues the historical consideration of the MLA begun in the author's article on the three founders of the association. The background information is drawn from the items listed in the bibliography, and the conclusions are those of the author.     

Medical Library Association Diversity and Inclusion Task Force Report

The Medical Library Association (MLA) appointed a Diversity and Inclusion Task Force (DITF) in 2017. Sandra G. Franklin, AHIP, FMLA, chaired the task force and guided initiatives. From 2017 to 2020, the task force completed a review of MLA defining documents—including the mission, vision, values, and code of ethics—resulting in language updates to these documents. As MLA transitioned through the communities process, the DITF contributed to the transition. Other recommended essential changes to MLA profiles to promote awareness included updating pronouns to promote gender inclusivity and suggestions for the Annual Meeting Innovation Task Force. DITF members actively brought diversity and inclusion programming and engagement to MLA members at annual meetings. The task force held a fish bowl conversation, an open forum, and a Diversity Dialogues roundtable discussion; provided interactive discussion boards; and designed an MLA diversity button. Beyond MLA annual meetings, the task force hosted two critical librarianship meetings and a Twitter chat to engage MLA members with diversity and inclusion topics. Task force members promoted diversity and inclusion beyond their task force appointments with presentations at chapter meetings and other non-DITF MLA annual meeting programming. A notable task force accomplishment included completing a survey of MLA members to gather baseline demographic characteristics, including never before collected data about disability, socioeconomics, and caregiver status. This report provides an overview of DITF activities from 2017 to 2020.     

A comparative analysis of moral principles and behavioral norms in eight ethical codes relevant to health sciences librarianship,medical informatics,and the health professions

Objective:

Based on the authors'' shared interest in the interprofessional challenges surrounding health information management, this study explores the degree to which librarians, informatics professionals, and core health professionals in medicine, nursing, and public health share common ethical behavior norms grounded in moral principles.

Methods:

Using the “Principlism” framework from a widely cited textbook of biomedical ethics, the authors analyze the statements in the ethical codes for associations of librarians (Medical Library Association [MLA], American Library Association, and Special Libraries Association), informatics professionals (American Medical Informatics Association [AMIA] and American Health Information Management Association), and core health professionals (American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, and American Public Health Association). This analysis focuses on whether and how the statements in these eight codes specify core moral norms (Autonomy, Beneficence, Non-Maleficence, and Justice), core behavioral norms (Veracity, Privacy, Confidentiality, and Fidelity), and other norms that are empirically derived from the code statements.

Results:

These eight ethical codes share a large number of common behavioral norms based most frequently on the principle of Beneficence, then on Autonomy and Justice, but rarely on Non-Maleficence. The MLA and AMIA codes share the largest number of common behavioral norms, and these two associations also share many norms with the other six associations.

Implications:

The shared core of behavioral norms among these professions, all grounded in core moral principles, point to many opportunities for building effective interprofessional communication and collaboration regarding the development, management, and use of health information resources and technologies.     

Health sciences librarians' awareness and assessment of the Medical Library Association Code of Ethics for Health Sciences Librarianship: the results of a membership survey

Objective:

The Medical Library Association (MLA) Board of Directors and president charged an Ethical Awareness Task Force and recommended a survey to determine MLA members'' awareness of and opinions about the current Code of Ethics for Health Sciences Librarianship.

Methods:

The task force and MLA staff crafted a survey to determine: (1) awareness of the MLA code and its provisions, (2) use of the MLA code to resolve professional ethical issues, (3) consultation of other ethical codes or guides, (4) views regarding the relative importance of the eleven MLA code statements, (5) challenges experienced in following any MLA code provisions, and (6) ethical problems not clearly addressed by the code.

Results:

Over 500 members responded (similar to previous MLA surveys), and while most were aware of the code, over 30% could not remember when they had last read or thought about it, and nearly half had also referred to other codes or guidelines. The large majority thought that: (1) all code statements were equally important, (2) none were particularly difficult or challenging to follow, and (3) the code covered every ethical challenge encountered in their professional work.

Implications:

Comments provided by respondents who disagreed with the majority views suggest that the MLA code could usefully include a supplementary guide with practical advice on how to reason through a number of ethically challenging situations that are typically encountered by health sciences librarians.     

Distance learning for MLA’s centennial!

In celebration of the Medical Library Association’s Centennial, their Continuing Education Committee developed a year of distance learning opportunities concerning evidence-based health care. The Centennial Distance Learning Program, as it became known, strove to reach as many members as possible by offering a wide variety of formats, including a teleconference, Web resources, journal clubs, and a suite of traditional CE courses at the annual meeting. This was the first time that MLA had attempted a multi-level distance learning project and it proved to be a rousing success! For more details, visit the ‘EBHC in Action’ Web page on MLANET at: http://www.mlanet.org/education/telecon/index.html .     

Imperatives for continuing research education: results of a Medical Library Association survey.

This paper reports the results of a survey assessing the interest of Medical Library Association (MLA) members in acquiring or improving research skills through continuing education (CE). It describes respondents' educational preparation for research and selected research activities, reviews MLA's experiences with offering CE courses on research topics, and discusses MLA's role in providing education to prepare members for research. The paper includes recommendations for improving research skills through CE and other professional activities. Topics of greatest interest to MLA members were survey development, problem identification, evaluation and cost studies, survey methodology, and methods of data collection. Many respondents preferred local courses. Academic health sciences librarians, as a group, were found to be more productive publishers than hospital librarians. Many respondents reported the availability of free or subsidized research-support services, but more than half did not. More than 90% of respondents indicated that MLA should actively encourage, require, or offer research education. A comprehensive plan for obtaining research skills through CE, along with individual self-assessment and counseling, is recommended.     

Insights and opinions of readers of the Journal of the Medical Library Association

The Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA) conducted a readership survey in 2020 to gain a deeper understanding of our readers, their reading habits, and their satisfaction with JMLA''s content, website functionality, and overall quality. A total of 467 readers responded to the survey, most of whom were librarians/information specialists (85%), worked in an academic (62%) or hospital/health care system (27%) library, and were current Medical Library Association members (80%). Most survey respondents (46%) reported reading JMLA articles on a quarterly basis. Over half of respondents (53%) said they used social media to follow new research or publications, with Twitter being the most popular platform. Respondents stated that Original Investigations, Case Reports, Knowledge Syntheses, and Resource Reviews articles were the most enjoyable to read and important to their research and practice. Almost all respondents reported being satisfied or very satisfied (94%) with the JMLA website. Some respondents felt that the content of JMLA leaned more toward academic librarianship than toward clinical/hospital librarianship and that there were not enough articles on collection management or technical services. These opinions and insights of our readers help keep the JMLA editorial team on track toward publishing articles that are of interest and utility to our audience, raising reader awareness of new content, providing a website that is easy to navigate and use, and maintaining our status as the premier journal in health sciences librarianship.

The Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA), in tandem with the Medical Library Association (MLA), periodically conducts readership surveys to gauge how well the journal meets the needs and desires of its readers. However, much time has passed and many changes have occurred since our last readership survey was published in 2013 [1]. These changes include our transition from a largely print-based to an almost fully digital mode of publication, more extensive reliance on providing access to supplemental materials to improve the rigor and reproducibility of research findings, and the use of social media to share and stay abreast of new scholarly works. Therefore, we conducted a readership survey in 2020 to obtain a more current understanding of our readers, their reading habits, and their satisfaction with JMLA''s content, website functionality, and overall quality.The survey was implemented using Qualtrics and consisted of sixteen closed- and open-ended questions (Appendix A). The survey invitation was distributed on July 6, 2020, through MLA email listservs and social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn), JMLA''s Twitter account, and an announcement on the JMLA website. Recipients were encouraged to forward the invitation through other communication channels as appropriate. The survey was closed on July 20, 2020.     

Kristine M. Alpi,AHIP, FMLA,Medical Library Association President, 2021–2022

In this profile, Kristine M. Alpi, AHIP, FMLA, Medical Library Association (MLA) president, 2021–2022, is described as committed to public health, professional development, and the growth and evolution of MLA. She teaches and speaks on the shared health impact from interactions among animals, humans, and the environment, and she mentors graduate students and fellows in librarianship and informatics. Alpi earned her PhD in educational research and policy analysis in 2018 and directs the Oregon Health & Science University Library.

Open in a separate windowIt''s a distinct honor to be able to tell you about the career of Kristine Markovich Alpi, Medical Library Association (MLA) president for 2021–2022.I first met Kris when she arrived at the New York Academy of Medicine, where she was starting a job as education coordinator for what was then the Region 1 Regional Medical Library. She had, however, already begun preparing herself for excellence in library services, having worked as a hospital librarian in Indiana and then participating in the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Associate Fellowship Program.Once settled in New York, Kris pursued her master''s in public health, enrolling in the Hunter College School of the Health Professions. After working as an information services librarian and lecturer at the Weill Cornell Medical College, she took on the position of library manager at the New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene''s Public Health Library, where she directly served the public health professionals that served the largest city in the United States. She also continued as a lecturer in public health at Weill Cornell, teaching students in evidence-based medicine, epidemiology, and biostatistics.With her relocation to North Carolina as director of the William R. Kenan, Jr. Library of Veterinary Medicine at North Carolina State University (NCSU), Kris entered a new area of public health—that of the shared health impact from interactions among animals, humans, and the environment. Her recent coauthored article that appeared in the NLM''s Director''s Blog outlines the importance of One Health—these shared public health impacts [1]. She continued to teach, now emphasizing the place of animals in the public health universe. She also began work on her PhD in educational research and policy analysis from NCSU, which she completed in 2018.December 2018 began a new phase in Kris''s career as she moved to Portland and assumed the directorship of the Oregon Health & Science University Library. As part of her responsibilities as university librarian and associate professor in the Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology, she still educates students on informatics and epidemiology and serves as a mentor to graduate students and fellows.Kris''s work in public health has extended to educating consumers by locating accurate and timely web-based information. From 1998 to 2009, she used her expertise in Spanish to build the Spanish side of the bilingual web portal NOAH (New York Online Access to Health). After grant funding ceased, NOAH became a volunteer-driven project—Kris managed the Spanish content, as well as volunteering to work on the redesign committee so that the new interface was user-friendly to Spanish speakers. For that work, she was one of the awardees when NOAH was given the Thomson Scientific/Frank Bradway Rogers Information Advancement Award in 2006.MLA has benefited from Kris''s service. She has been a member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals (AHIP) since 1997. She served on the National Program Committee three times and has been elected to the Nominating Committee twice and to the MLA Board. As a member and eventual chair of the Public Health and Health Administration Section (now Caucus), Kris worked with a committee to create a comprehensive list of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) that would benefit searching for the public health community; many of these terms have been added to the MeSH vocabulary. She also chaired the Research Caucus and served on the editorial board of the Journal of the Medical Library Association. In 2021, Kris was selected as a Fellow of MLA.I look forward to Kris Alpi''s presidential year. Her commitment to professional development and to the growth and evolution of MLA will benefit all members. Please join me in welcoming her to her new position.     

The move to open: medical library leadership in scholarly communication

Over the years, health sciences librarians have been change agents, leading the charge on issues of importance to the profession and the communities we serve. From its founding in 1898 with the Exchange, the Medical Library Association (MLA) has been dedicated to improving access to health information. In 2003, the Board of Directors published a statement supporting open access to information generated from federally funded scientific and medical research and maintained that having access to timely, relevant, and accurate information is vital to the health of the nation and its education and research programs. At some financial risk, the association made the Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA) open access and published the entire archive of JMLA and its predecessor, the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, in PubMed Central. Nearly two decades later, the promise of open access and open science finally seems to be coming to fruition. In the 2020 Janet Doe Lecture, Chris Shaffer, AHIP, described the ways that MLA has led the profession, standing behind a shared vision and “walking the walk.” In challenging listeners to embrace open science, he affirmed that, as leaders in improving access to health sciences information since 1898, medical librarians must work in the open science arena to realize our vision “that quality information is essential for improved health.”

Open in a separate windowChris Shaffer     

Using scientific evidence to improve information practice

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Bibliographic Instruction in Medical Libraries

The purpose of this paper is to share information about the library instmction effozis of medical school and hospital librarians. The information to be discussed is based on a formal survey of 139 medical school libraries and 84 hospital libraries in the United States and Canada. The survey, in the form of a questionnaire, was distributed in the 1981/82 school year. The main emphasis of the questionnaire centered on the types of instmctional activities being offered in each library and the user groups participtating in these instructional activities. Organizational status within the Medical Library Association (MLA) is also explored. The paper provides a detailed examination of the responses received.     

The view behind and ahead: implications of certification

The Medical Library Association's certification plan, never of real significance in employment and promotion practices in health sciences librarianship, does not reflect the many changes which have occurred in swift progression since adoption of the code in 1949. Solutions to the problems which have accumulated since then are sought in a brief examination of trends in credentialing and certification in the health professions and in the library field, both general and special. Emphasis is given to the historical development of provisions in the MLA Code for the Training and Certification of Medical Librarians, the limited opportunity for practical implementation of most of the provisions, the importance of the code in stimulating the Association's educational programs, the impact of the Medical Library Assistance Act, Regional Medical Programs, and increases in demand for health information on manpower requirements for health science libraries, the specific dissatisfactions MLA members have expressed over certification, and the role of the Ad Hoc Committee to Develop a New Certification Code.