Monday, February 22, 2016

Education Chat

Transcript: http://bit.ly/1QB1WWC

 Education – Past? Present? Future? Chat
Thursday, February 25, 2016
9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 pm Pacific time
Led by Teresa Knott (@tlknott)

There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning. - Jiddu Krishnamurti 

We are engaged in a profession and typically work for organizations that are committed to lifelong learning. On Thursday, February 25, #medlibs are gathering on Twitter to talk about education. 

Here are some questions that we may discuss.
  • If you were to enter graduate school today, knowing how you would work today, what courses do you believe graduate schools of library and information science should be teaching now?
  • What do you need to learn now to be more successful in your current position?
  • What do you need to learn now to move into your dream job?
  • What intangible skills or knowledge does it take to be effective as a librarian in your organization?
  • If you supervise, what skills and knowledge do you believe are lacking in new graduates?
  • What do you want to learn now?
  • What are your learning goals and how do you achieve them?

Some articles related to trends in libraries and education.

About #medlibs

Join us on Twitter using the #medlibs hashtag Thursday evening to share your stories and engage with colleagues. 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.

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Monday, February 15, 2016

Genetics Information Chat

Transcript: http://bit.ly/1ovMPb8

 Genetics Information Chat
Thursday, February 18, 2016
9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 pm Pacific time
Led by Amy Donahue (@ultimatelibrarn)

The field of genetics is fascinating and huge.  Although the Human Genome Project waaay back in 2001 came to the surprising conclusion that there are only 20,000-25,000 genes within the DNA of the human genome (roughly the same number as a mouse), the past few years have seen an explosion of knowledge that our genes are just the tip of the iceberg.  That tip is still rather literally the tip of an iceberg and so is pretty freaking big - take, for example, that we now know we have genes that can be alternatively spliced, shredding the idea of one gene --> one protein.  It's also been proven that some genes can literally move from chromosome to chromosome; these fun guys are called transposons or "jumping genes".  And then epigenetics and the death of the idea of "junk" (non-protein coding - doesn't mean it's junk!) DNA are making things even more complicated.  

Oh, and of course, by definition every living thing has a genome, and there are plenty of people doing research outside of the human context.  Did you know that prokaryotes have DNA that's being translated at the same time it's being transcribed?  Or that there are frogs with 12 sets of chromosomes (humans have 2)?  What about those pesky viruses? Yep, they have genomes, too, even if they aren't quite living.

Talk about information overload.  Luckily, #medlibs are pros at dealing with that issue, and this chat is one of the tools at our disposal.  And we were told we should be doing this stuff even before the rough draft of the human genome was available.  Obviously, there are a lot of ways this conversation can go, but a few places we might be able to get started include:
  • What genetic questions are #medlibs being asked, and how have you answered?
  • What are some good resources for consumer-level information on genetics? 
  • What are SNPs/"variants of uncertain significance"/polymorphisms/insert your favorite not-quite-understood genetic term here?
This conversation can be patient/human disease driven, but even the crazy-out-there bacterial genome studies are of relevance to human health (heard of the microbiome yet?), so come with any and all genetic lines of thought, and we'll see where we go! 

Some resources to get us started:

About #medlibs

Join us on Twitter using the #medlibs hashtag Thursday evening to share your stories and engage with colleagues. 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.
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Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Love & Hate Chat

Transcript: http://bit.ly/1Wh99iX

Love & Hate in Medical Libraries
Thursday, February 12, 2016 
9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 pm Pacific time
Led by Nikki Dettmar (@eagledawg)













A year 3 encore, although we hate that Roy Brown had to reschedule his originally scheduled magnet chat due to illness and Michelle Kraft can't join in the fun this week due to schedule conflicts! One day you are Katrina and the Waves and you are "Walkin' on Sunshine" where everything is good and falling into place.  Your searches are matching up just perfectly with MeSH (including the 2016 terms from last week!), patrons are writing thank you emails, the CEO just praised you, and a new project is going like gang busters.  Life in the library is perfect.

BUUUT the next day (or week... or quarter...) you are Joan Jett growling, "I Hate Myself for Loving You" as nothing you do seems to be working.  PubMed keeps crashing (like Tuesday, what was going on?), patrons are upset because you can't get the article from the Journal of Big Toe Science written in Hindi rushed the same day and translated into English, your budget was cut more than expected, and administration or IT (take your pick) throws cold water all over your pet project.  Life in the library is like a bad relationship, where "I Love To Hate You" from Erasure can be the norm sometimes.

Like any career, medical librarianship has its ups and downs.  Sunday is Valentine's Day and to get in the spirit the #medlibs Twitter chat will be having fun discussing our love/hate relationships with medical librarianship.

About #medlibs

Join us on Twitter using the #medlibs hashtag Thursday evening to share your stories and engage with colleagues. 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.
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Tuesday, February 2, 2016

2016 MeSH Terms chat

Transcript: http://bit.ly/1nQM5gg

2016 MeSH Terms
Thursday, February 4, 2016
9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 pm Pacific
Led by Janna Lawrence (@jannabeth) + special guest Kate Majewski from MEDLARS (@MajewskiNLM)


Every year, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) adds new Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) to their thesaurus. At the same time, they do "housekeeping" to tidy up the vocabulary. This year, there are 483 new headings, including "anger management therapy," "cognitive therapy," "olive oil," and "red meat." Changes were made in the way plants and foods are handled, including the addition of a new broad heading, "Diet, Food, and Nutrition," which is used to group headings on those topics together.

The folks at NLM also went through headings that appear in more than one place and and eliminated the "uncle/nephew" phenomenon, where headings appeared multiple times at different places in a single branch of the tree. They have also begun a project to ensure that each MeSH term has a descriptive scope note.

 More information on the 2016 MeSH updates are at https://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/nd15/nd15_mesh.html. Take a look at it, and join us to discuss this year's changes as well as changes you would like to see in the future.

See also


About #medlibs

Join us on Twitter using the #medlibs hashtag Thursday evening to share your stories and engage with colleagues. 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.
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