Tuesday, June 30, 2015

NLM Vision Chat

Transcript: http://bit.ly/1RUWf77 

 National Library of Medicine vision chat

Thursday, July 2, 2015

9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 pm Pacific time
#medlibs Twitter chat
Led by Chris Shaffer

In response to the retirement of Dr. Don Lindberg, longtime director of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), Francis Collins appointed an NLM Working Group of the Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) of NIH. The Working Group presented its report to the ACD on Thursday, June 11, 2015. The Working Group was charged to review the current NLM and articulate a strategic vision for the NLM to ensure that it remains an international leader in biomedical and health information. Membership represented a broad group of stakeholders, from librarians to patient advocates to publishers to informatics. The final report included six recommendations, each composed of several sub-recommendations.

  • RECOMMENDATION #1. NLM must continually evolve to remain a leader in assimilating and disseminating accessible and authoritative biomedical research findings and trusted health information to the public, healthcare professionals, and researchers worldwide.
  • RECOMMENDATION #2. NLM should lead efforts to support and catalyze open science, data sharing, and research reproducibility, striving to promote the concept that biomedical information and its transparent analysis are public goods.
  • RECOMMENDATION #3. NLM should be the intellectual and programmatic epicenter for data science at NIH and stimulate its advancement throughout biomedical research and application.
  • RECOMMENDATION #4. NLM should strengthen its role in fostering the future generation of professionals in biomedical informatics, data science, library sciences, and related disciplines through sustained and focused training efforts.
  • RECOMMENDATION #5. NLM should maintain, preserve, and make accessible the nation’s historical efforts in advancing biomedical research and medicine, thereby ensuring that this legacy is both safe and accessible for long-term use.
    Shared by Jeffrey Reznick of NLM, Chief of the History of Medicine Division (@jeffreysreznick)
  • RECOMMENDATION #6. New NLM leadership should evaluate what talent, resources, and organizational structures are required to ensure NLM can fully achieve its mission and best allocate its resources.

The ACD forwarded the report without revision to Francis Collins, who accepted it and immediately appointed a search committee for the new Director of NLM.

While there is much to discuss in the report and its recommendations, the big ticket items are NLM roles in supporting and promoting open science, the move of the Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) program into NLM, increased training for librarians and other information professionals, and preservation of the historic record.

Charge: http://acd.od.nih.gov/nlm.htm
Roster: http://acd.od.nih.gov/nlmroster.htm
Report: http://acd.od.nih.gov/reports/Report-NLM-06112015-ACD.pdf
Presentation: http://acd.od.nih.gov/reports/Report-NLM-06112015-slides.pdf
Search Committee: https://www.dropbox.com/s/24ouayrlmmpwm01/Screenshot%202015-06-11%2009.54.38.png?dl=0

Chris Shaffer, a member of the NLM Working Group, will discuss the process, recommendations, and his excitement about the brave new world of the National Library of Medicine in the 21st century.
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Monday, June 22, 2015

Summer scheduling chat

Topics & Scheduling Chat 

Thursday, June 25, 2015
9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 pm Pacific time
Led by Nikki Dettmar (@eagledawg)


Bring your ideas, enthusiasm and calendars - the dynamic networking of #medlibs can't happen by itself without you and some planning.  Also please don't feel that you need to be the expert resource to lead a chat - as long as you have a strong interest, well developed questions, and some resources to share our group hivemind usually takes care of the rest!
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Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Optical Head-Mounted Displays: A Capstone Experience at the University of Virginia

Transcript: http://bit.ly/1GvpiuM

 Google Glass in Healthcare Capstone
Thursday, June 18, 2015
9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 pm Pacific time
#medlibs Twitter chat
Led by Kimberley Barker


Hi, everybody!

I'm excited to chat about the capstone experience with which I was involved this past year. It focused on the limits and possibilities of optical head-mounted displays in healthcare- specifically the areas of teaching and standard work.

A digital version of the poster that I presented last month at MLA is available here: (note: you must be logged in with your email address and badge number to view it). There is also an audio file of me giving a breathless, 58-second synopsis of the poster :)

For those of you weren't able to attend MLA (and those of you who don't want to have to log in!): here's the poster:


The capstone was, for me, a crazy ride. I was by turns thrilled to be involved, beset with doubts about the fact that I was involved, frustrated by the turns that the project took, thrilled to be intellectually challenged, and sad when it ended.

I'll discuss all of this during this Thursday's (June 18th) chat, at 9PM Eastern. If you have specific questions about the project- and have time- please tweet them at me (@kr_barker) prior to the chat so that I can be as effective as possible during our hour togther :) Join us!
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Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Transcript: http://bit.ly/1C1YOwJ

 Presidential Priorities - I Have No Priorities
Thursday June 11, 2015
6:00pm Pacific/9:00pm Eastern on #medlibs
Led by Michelle Kraft (@krafty)

In the past each MLA President has presented their list of priorities for the upcoming year for MLA.  This year is a little different. I have no priorities.  OK, that sounds a lot different. But it really isn't.  Instead of coming up with priorities each year the incoming president will look at MLA's strategic plan and evaluate the goals within the plan.  If we are near accomplishing a goal, then the incoming president looks at other potential goals that we should add to the strategic plan. The idea is that these goals live long enough for accomplishment and are not specifically tied to the president's term. They are part of the entire MLA strategic plan which is tied to MLA, the board, staff, etc. As in the case of MLA's technology goal, a goal could be accomplished in less than a year.  In the case of the Education goal, it may take more than a year.  However, steps toward accomplishing that goal will be continually happening.

Speaking of continually happening... In years prior the time line for getting things done always seemed to be centered around the meeting in May.  Why? There are probably a lot of reasons, but I think (total guess on my part) is that it is a legacy of when we (librarians) did less business electronically.  We live in a time of email and other forms of online communication. Now days things can happen faster because we can communicate more easily and more often. We agree to take on projects at MLA then scurry around next March/April to make sure something was accomplished before the meeting again in May. We don't even read and approve the prior meetings minutes until a year later at the next meeting. This has given us the nimbleness of an AT-AT in regards to change. 

We need to look at ways to speed up processes and work towards the evolution of our organization as well as the groups (Sections, SIGs, Committees, etc.) within our organization.  So this Twitter chat will focus on ways that we as a group can work toward improving the speed at which we accomplish things.  Because waiting a year to approve something makes any organization sluggish and less adaptable to responsive change.

What are your ideas for making us more nimble?

Come share your thoughts and perspectives! Never participated in a #medlibs or other Twitter chat before? Check out this overview and come on in, we're a supportive community and are especially keeping an eye out to welcome and support your participation if you've just heard about this community for the first time during the meeting.
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Monday, June 1, 2015

Website Usability Chat

Transcript: http://bit.ly/1AQKEU9

 Evaluating Website User Experiences
Thursday, June 4, 2015
9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 pm Pacific time
#medlibs Twitter chat
Led by Donna Kafel (@dmkafel), Project Coordinator for the e-Science Portal for New England Librarians
During this week’s #medlibs chat, we’ll be talking about website usability, from the perspective of both users (all of us!) and librarian website-designers (many of us!). Website users and website designers can look at the same website from different perspectives.  Their concerns, while framed differently, are actually quite similar:
User:
  • What is this website about?
  • Is it of interest to me?
  • Can I find what I’m looking for?
  • How do I find what I’m looking for?
Website Designer
  • How do I know what  my users want?
  • How easy is my website to navigate?  
  • Is its organization clear to my users?  
A usable website can be the difference between gaining or losing return visitors. When site visitors come to a site looking for specific information and can’t figure out the site’s navigational structure or the layout of its content, chances are they’ll leave the site frustrated and never return. Usability is not a frivolous website feature; it is critical to the website’s success.
So what qualities make for a usable website? Jakob Nielsen, the “guru of web usability” claims that these five components determine usability:

  • Learnability:  How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?
  • Efficiency:  Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?
  • Memorability:  When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency?
  • Errors:  How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?
  • Satisfaction:  How pleasant is it to use the design?
(Nielsen, 2012)

Have you had experiences in website design?  What are your preferences as a website visitor? Have you conducted user testing?  Have you participated in taking a user test?   Whether you’ve been involved in web design, or are a frequent website visitor, please share your thoughts in this Thursday’s #medlibs discussion!

Here are some recommended readings if you’d like to explore web usability further.
Deschenes, Amy. (2014). “Improving the Library Homepage through User Research:  Without a Total Redesign.”  Journal of Library User Experience.


Krug, Steve. (2010). Rocket Surgery Made Easy:  The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems. New Riders:  Berkeley, CA.  
Nielsen, Jakob. (2012). Usability 101:  What is Usability? http://www.nngroup.com/articles/usability-101-introduction-to-usability/
Webdesigner Depot.  (2009).  Interview with Web Usability Guru, Jakob Nielsen. http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/09/interview-with-web-usability-guru-jakob-nielsen/
Widzer, Joanna, Katie Chan, Ray Bryson, and Dan Welding. (2015).  “Past, Present, Future:  Usability Testing at the National Library of Medicine.” DigitalGov.


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