Monday, August 31, 2015

Clinical Research Chat

Transcript: http://bit.ly/1hZsvLV

Clinical Research #medlibs chat
Thursday, September 3, 2015
9 pm Eastern/6 pm Pacific

Dissemination of research is a popular topic in the medical field today. Funding agencies, working with ever-tighter budgets, expect recipients to produce findings, interventions, drugs, and products that have a measurable impact on human health. But researchers don’t always plan for and/or think about disseminating their work in the right way to the right audiences, so that they can demonstrate the impact and secure future funding. Medical librarians (and librarians turned evaluators) have a host of tools available and a relevant skill-set to help in this area.

This Thursday on Twitter we’ll chat about some of these tools, skills, and ideas for providing researchers and clinicians with help in crafting the right message, disseminating it to the right stakeholders, and tracking the impact such actions have. Are you doing any work in this area? Are you using tools to track article-level metrics for individuals, departments, or administrators? Have you provided resources on this topic via your library? If so, please join in the conversation. If you haven’t, join in to learn about an emerging area for libraries and librarians to take the lead.

Chat wrangler this week: @mandosally (Sally Gore, Research Evaluation Analyst, University of Massachusetts Center for Clinical and Translational Science)

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

IFLA and Medlibs

Transcript: http://bit.ly/1NKEFnO 

IFLA and Medlibs #medlibs chat
Thursday, August 27, 2015
9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific
Led by Michelle Kraft (Krafty)

Last week the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) held their World Library and Information Congress 2015 (WLIC) in Cape Town, South Africa. As the President of the Medical Library Association I attended the congress. While IFLA offers personal memberships, it is an association of associations and its focus (and its name) really indicate that.  For example, only member associations and institutions have voting rights, individual members do not. From my observations and experience, IFLA works to get all library associations together as a group of organizations to address issues that are impacting librarians within their associations. I recall one of the IFLA staff members saying to the meeting of member association presidents something like, "We want to help you help your members."
The WLIC meeting was interesting in that it was like a regular librarian meeting but most of the people who participated were participating as members through their association.  It was also a very diverse conference representing many professions of librarians. There were 3,000 librarians at this meeting. Those who attended were from law librarians, art libraries, and a lot of people from public and school libraries attended.  There were a few medical/health science librarians. To me it was like a giant international ALA meeting, that tends to focus on three areas public librarianship, general academic librarianship, and school librarianship.  
The IFLA leaders spoke a lot about the success of the Lyon Declaration, on access to information and development. 


We, the undersigned, believe that increasing access to information and knowledge across society, assisted by the availability of information and communications technologies (ICTs), supports sustainable development and improves people’s lives. We therefore call upon the Member States of the United Nations to make an international commitment to use the post-2015 development agenda to ensure that everyone has access to, and is able to understand, use and share the information that is necessary to promote sustainable development and democratic societies.

IFLA has been doing a lot to improve access to information around the world. In the Association Membership meeting I saw a lot of different associations discussing the importance of access to information. I don't think anyone at MLA can disagree with this being important, but I did note that there was no mention of health information, just information in general.  If you take a look at their sections and groups, there is only one small section within IFLA that medical librarians naturally fit into.  It is the Health and Biosciences Section.  In order for MLA to be members of IFLA, it costs $11,000 a year. As a member of MLA and as President, I am thinking long and hard about MLA's international presence and what that means to us as an organization, our members, our groups (International Cooperation Sections, Librarians without Borders, the Cunningham Fellowship, and our bilateral agreements with other countries' medical library associations.) 

For this chat please look at
From IFLA:



From MLA:



So we can discuss

  1. MLA's international role as a whole and where you would like us to go and grow and how would that impact our role to our members?
  2. Is IFLA membership necessary to get us where we want to go and grow internationally?
    • If yes then how do we as medical librarians 
      • Improve our presence within IFLA because honestly it is a small group that is easily overshadowed.
      • Get a better return on our $11,000 investment? 
      • How would our members get funded to go to IFLA? We have a lot of trouble getting our members to our own meeting.
  3. If no then what ways do you see MLA attracting new international medical librarians who could add to the diversity of the MLA membership? (This question isn't intended to grow membership but to to get a diverse group of medical librarians from around the world to participate within MLA so that we ALL can learn from each other globally.)
Lots of heady things to talk about. I hope you plan to join us in the discussion.  

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Podcasts

Transcript: http://bit.ly/1Np0dXR

Podcasts #medlibs chat
Thursday, August 20, 2015
9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific
Led by Sheryl Ramer Gesoff (@PodcastLib)

Join in our #medlibs Twitter chat this week to discuss podcasts. Never been to a Twitter chat before? Check out this overview and come on in - all are welcome including first timers, lurkers, students and others interested in the topic and the field. These and other social media channels have a unique place in the transmission of information, particularly of interest to physicians they can be 
  • a 24 / 7 medical conference, where people can have a continuous conversation rather than a presentation with a few questions and answers and
  • a way to translate research from the page to the floors
Check out Sheryl's interview with Dr. Weingart, host of EMCrit (a top ranked medical podcast), at https://m.soundcloud.com/podcastsinthesquare/podcastsinthesquarelibrarians

Many emergency medicine physicians regularly get their information from social media as part of a movement they call FOAM (free open access to medical education). The movement started in 2002 and there were at least 42 "quality"emergency medicine podcast shows as of 2013. http://m.emj.bmj.com/content/early/2014/02/19/emermed-2013-203502.abstract

How can we as librarians promote podcasts and other social media to physicians? 

A good place to start is by listening on our own, both professionally and personally so ...

1. What podcasts do you listen to for fun?

2. What podcasts exist in librarianship?

3. What are ways we can promote podcasts to physicians and other health care professionals. 

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

#medlibs + #meded: Better Together Again

Transcript from #medlibs side - http://bit.ly/1DOrIXQ

Transcript from #meded side -

Theme: Digital Resources in #meded (Co-Chat with #medlibs)
Posted by MedEd Chat (Twitter) on Thursday, August 13, 2015


#medlibs and #meded Combined Chat
Topic - Electronic Resources 
Thursday August 13, 2015
9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific
Co-herded facilitated by @RyanMadanickMD and Nikki Dettmar (@eagledawg)

It's been a long time since our last combined #meded & #medlibs chat in September!

This week we'll join forces again to discuss the opportunities, challenges and questions we have both from a medical education and a health sciences library perspective regarding electronic resources.

Our planned discussion questions are:

  1. What role do eBooks currently play in #meded & training? How could #medlibs help teach their optimal use?
  2. Besides eBooks, what other e-resources do you use in teaching/learning? How can #medlibs help curate/recommend resources?
  3. What's the future of digital teaching/learning resources in #meded? How will this affect the role of #medlibs in academic centers?


Join us! All are welcome, especially first timers and students, Never participated in a Twitter chat before? Read this overview and come on in remembering to include both the #medlibs #meded hashtags, we're a supportive and welcoming online community.


Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Great Orientations

Transcript: http://bit.ly/1KUoIvs

Orientations #medlibs chat
Thursday, August 6, 2015
9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific
Led by Amy Blevins, Roy Brown & Nikki Dettmar

Now that you've refreshed your Hits from the Lit material from last week, what else are you planning for engaging students, residents, and other newcomers during orientation as they begin employment or return to class this fall? Join with your colleagues to share your ideas and plans. Your team leaders range from the well experienced (Amy and Roy) to a first timer (Nikki) who is not averse to using chocolate as a strategy.

Never participated in a Twitter chat before? Check out this overview and come on in, we're a supportive community!