1776 Uses for Technology

Medical Mash Ups

Wow, a real library mash-up. I’m blown away by the first session on, “A Customizable ‘Mash-up’ for Model and Disease Organisms. If you are interested in mash-ups you should read the abstract which does a good job of describing the project.

The basics of the system
They are leveraging RSS from publishers and indexes ‘mashing the data together from these various sources.

The cool part
Taxonomically Intelligent Search Strategy. Whoa, they are mapping the subject headings from MeSH, NALT, so that they can link across the indexes.

This is cool, my only regret is not asking any questions. But then again, I was still trying to comprehend the system they created.

Library Toolbars

I like the idea of library toolbars. I’ve played with this technology and have made a few toolbars as an experiment. The question I have, will patrons use these toolbars? Will patrons even download the toolbars. UCSF has developed some toolbars for production so this was an interesting session. Over 1100 downs, that answers one question. The 6 months of stats have told them that there is a gradually upward trend but it is a trend of 600 percent. It is a small percentage compared to their over all Web traffic but that’s ok. I wouldn’t expect the traffic to be huge. I think this is a success and justifies the time they put into development. One enhancement that I think it critical is having the toolbar update itself, but they are developing that for the future.

Wrap Up

Blogging was interesting, even though we didn't have wireless access, I still blogged. I just wrote using my word processing program and then uploaded multiple posts once I had time and found a hot spot. The volunteer bloggers did a great job, and without their help it wouldn't have been nearly as successful as it was. I have seen ALA and other organizations ask their volunteers to sign up for various slots to make sure all of the programs are covered. That is a great, perhaps I might do that someday when I have A LOT of volunteer bloggers. But for now that isn't my style. It was my intention to get whatever people's thoughts and comments were about the meeting. I tried to do this without being too much of a burdon to the bloggers who graciously volunteered their time and thoughts. A few of the volunteers had asked me, "What do you want, what should I blog on?" I told them to write about whatever they wanted, it could have been about Mark Funk's incredible speech or the fact that there wasn't any diet coke in the meetings. I think using that philosphy we got a great mix of postings. Hopefully all of you who have read the blog have found it interesting and helpful as well.

It started out as an experiment in 2005 and it has grown each year. I have learned a lot and met a lot of great people as a result. Thank you volunteer bloggers for contributing, without you I wouldn't have been able to do it
Thanks,
Michelle

Medical Mashup Presented at MLA

I went to the 1,776 Uses for Technologies session Tuesday and I listened to the presentation, "A Customizable 'Mash-Up' for Model and Disease Organisms." The mashup was created to collect life sciences information from the literature through citation indexes, publisher's RSS feeds, image databases, and the rest of the Internet. The mashup uses 9.5 million scientific name strings to find information. MeSH (used by MEDLINE) and NALT (used by Agricola) vocabularies are used to link to literature and enhance search queries for more general resources.

You can either go to uBio.org to play with it on your own, or you can go to sample applications page which will help you understand the how it can be used.
It is very cool. It is one the more complete bioscience/medical mashups I have seen that has gone beyond the mapping mashups genre of mashup programs. For those of you who think you have seen something like this before, it is similar to iSpecies.org, but it's website appears to be a little more user friendly and it appears to be more extensive utilizing many more resources.

My only regret, I was so stunned at how cool this product is (Yes, I already know I am a geek) that I couldn't think of one intelligent question to ask.

Hospital Library Toolkits

It was the last poster session of the conference, I was tired and I debated about skipping off to catch a late bite to eat. I am so glad I decided to run through the posters before I answered my growling tummy. I ran across the poster, An Advocacy Service for Hospital Librarians. This poster http://www.mlanet.org/am/am2007/e-present/20070522_22_gronholm.pdf looked at ways it could help address the needs of hospital libraries in areas such as staffing, budget, support/advocacy, and marketing. As a result two toolkits were created,

1. Hospital Librarian Orientation Toolkit that offers information from both regional and state-specific resources
2. Hospital Library Promotional Toolkit that provides a practical approach to promoting libraries in a hospital setting.

They had sample toolkits at the table and they look very helpful.

What, you didn't go to MLA? Maybe you went to MLA and accidentally missed this poster, never fear, you can checkout the toolkits at http://nnlm.gov/ner/services/hosp_lib_toolkits.html

Wednesday morning

I found myself really slowing down yesterday although I attended several sessions and really enjoyed them. Seredipity seated me next to our blog leader yesterday. I came into the session after the second paper and sat down in the nearest available seat next to a lovely young woman typing away at a laptop. When I rudely peered at her nametag, I saw it was indeed the Kraftly Librarian herself.

The two papers that drew me to that session were about podcasts and wikis. We've been tossing around the idea of podcasts for about a year now but haven't done anything yet. No one at our place seems to think they would be very interesting, but the speaker introduced what they've done and that seems to have been successful. [ Strategies for Podcasting: Transforming Library Instruction to Meet the Needs of Technology-savvy Students, University of Tennessee Health Science Center] Maybe it will be worth another look.

The paper on wikis [ Integrating New Technologies in Library Operations to Improve Staff Knowledge and Customer Service, Levy Library, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY] gave support to the project we've begun toward creating a tool for our reference librarians and adjunct librarians spread out over seven campuses and a few extension sites. The speaker mentioned that they are transitioning to TWiki from some more basic wiki software. Our network administrator is not very enthusiastic about the whole idea and it's been a chore getting her to agree to loading wiki software on the server. I think TWiki would be too much to ask for although its content management aspects look really good.

The party last night was fun. It's always a kick seeing our colleagues get down and boogie or merengue or whatever. Librarians know how to have a good time.

I'm headed for home today and hope that those who can remain enjoy the rest of the meeting.

Bearded Pigs

The Bearded Pigs put on a great show Monday night. Many librarians were seen cuttin' a rug to a variety of tunes. Last year they were able to donate $750.00 towards the MLA Scholarship Fund! This year's event was very well attended and they ran out shirts and buttons by the time I had arrived at the party, so I hope they had a great success this year as well.

If you are ever at an event and the Bearded Pigs are playing, it is well worth it to check it out.

Text Mining

I attended the Text Mining presentation because I think it is a very interesting growing area of conducting research. K. B. Cohen, biomedical text mining group lead, Center for Computational Pharmacology, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center-Denver spoke about the evolution of text mining and how it is used in research.

I found the program extremely interesting but a little bit over my head. Ok well maybe a lot. While I think I retained maybe 15% of the information the program, I did come away feeling that text mining can be a very powerful method for searching for information.

Social Networking on the Walkway

Well it is the second to last day of the conference and I just now discovered wifi access within the exhibitor's hall. I happened to be using one of the email computers that were within the hall and I noted a little white piece of paper sitting next the computer stations which gave instructions on how to access the wifi.

Ok I admit I am probably have a reserved spot on the short bus some days, but I completely missed this tid bit of networking knowledge. However, I am not the only one who was unaware of wifi access in the exhibitor's hall. In my quest to find free hot spots I met many other librarians in the process. At one point and time while I was sitting on the walkway from the hotel to Pennsylvania Convention Center uploading my blog posts (because it was free hot spot AND it had a power outlet nearby) four librarians stopped in their tracks and asked me if I was able to get online. Two people ran to their rooms and immediately joined me on the walkway.

Perhaps the little white pieces of papers listing the wifi instructions could have been a little bigger and bolder. Perhaps it could have been added to our registration packets. However, if it was then I wouldn't have made two more friends on the walkway.

Tut

Yesterday I had the great opportunity of visiting the King Tut exhibit twice. This turned out to be a fantastic experience. I had to be at a session at 3:00 but had tickets for 12:30 so it was a tight fit to get through the museum and back for the session. Luckily Ebsco had their Tut party later that night and I had enough foresight to sign up. Best of all I had time to do the audio tour which was an amazing value added service. I hope that all MLA goes have the opportunity to visit this exhibit.

Some other sessions on Monday

I accidently went to the wrong session Monday afternoon but, as luck would have it, wound up viewing a paper that was really interesting. (Ultimate Virtual Library). This turned out to be a Second Life project with interesting results and ramifications. The presenter, whose name I did not write down, got a grant (partnered with University of Illinois Library of Health Science - Peoria) to create the HealthInfo Island. It is a consumer health effort and there are all sorts of participants and communities. The "library" answers real reference questions and helps to connect people. I think this one might be interesting to explore. There are more than 400 librarians involved in Second Life but few are health sciences librarians. You might even want to volunteer to help out. What's your atavar?

After that paper, I did go to the session I had originally wanted to attend. I had to sit on the floor for awhile since the room was packed and all the doorways were filled with eager viewers. (Top Technology Trends: Where is the Revolution Leading Us Next) Be sure to take a look at the linked site for information. Lots of ideas were exchanged. I was a little disappointed that the panel lacked expertise and knowledge about a few things. But, hey, they can't know everything.

Some of the tidbits I want to explore further:

• Web 2.0 catalog tools like user comments would be a natural lead-in to Journal Clubs.
• One English instructor put out a feeler for a Second Life English 101 course and got 200 responses right away. Possible Info Lit avenue???
  
• IBM is going to offer its employee training on Second Life.

The panel queried the audience via 60 electronic answer pads on some questions and got some interesting answers. For example:

• 47% of the respondents thought that the preferred search tool of the near future would be Google Scholar. No really close second.
• The respondents were almost evenly divided on the most challenging technology for libraries -- (1) EMR and (2) Web 2.0 integration

Poster Session II

There were fewer posters that I was really interested in during this session. However, all of the posters seemed to be well-attended. Some of the posters I viewed:

• (3) Sneaking In” Library Instruction: Using a “Non-Library” Instructional Video to Demonstrate How to Find Books and Journals in the Health Sciences Library I was particularly interested in seeing what they had done since it is a challenge to get most student interested in anything labelled "library."
  
• (9) Going the Distance with Moodle: Outcomes of the MLA Continuing Education Institute for Developing Web-based Instruction
  
• (16) A Librarian and a Nurse Educator Team to Teach and Assess Evidenced-based Practice Searching Skills to Nursing Students I was curious to see if there was a new approach we might use as our faculties want us to do more than just teach literature searching.
  
• (22) Moving to Moodle: Creating Online Instruction from an MLA Continuing Education Class We will be moving toward doing more of our instruction this way and am looking forward to reading about successes and failures and particularly, reasons something might not work. (Just as an aside, I wish more people would report on things that haven't worked well and give us an analysis of what they might have done differently. I guess that no one really likes to report on failures.)

Is LWW Shooting Themselves in the Ovid Foot?

I sat in on the EBSCO sunrise seminar Monday morning. The clock was winding down for CINAHL access through Ovid, so I figured I better sit in on the EBSCO seminar to learn more about CINAHL through them.

Sam Brooks, Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing began to discuss the amount of full text journals within CINAHL full text. Among the 579 full text journals, 348 have no embargo, 12 have a 90 day or less embargo, 132 have a 7-12 month embargo. There were no journals with an embargo greater than 12 months and there were approximately 12 journals that have a permanent embargo.

What is a permanent embargo? These are the LWW journals that used to be full text within EBSCO CINAHL but are no longer available full text for new articles. This brought up an interesting little revelation.

According to Brooks, the reason Ovid will not have CINAHL is because LWW (who owns Ovid) pulled their full text journals from EBSCO. He said EBSCO has offered to let Ovid have CINAHL back again if they (LWW) will allow full text articles back into the EBSCO databases.

So in the middle of the political business game of keep away, librarians are the victims. But I am wondering if LWW didn't end up shooting themselves in their Ovid foot. I have spoken to many librarians who have Ovid who are beginning to wonder if it is really worth keeping Ovid once they lose CINAHL. After all, Medline is free through PubMed, CINAHL will only be through EBSCO, and there are a lot of other quality EBM databases out there.

The Great Space Debate

Debators

Wayne Peay, director, Spencer S. Eccles health Sciences Library, University of Utah Salt Lake City: Rick Forsman, planning director Denison Memorial Library, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center Denver:

Panelists:

University of Utah Salt Lake City: M.J. Tooey, executive director, Health Sciences and Human Services Library, University of Maryland Baltimore: Jane Bridges, Mercer's Clinical Campus librarian, Health Sciences Library Memorial Health University Medical Center Savannah, GA.

Debates are little hard to summarize since they are very lively and often responses and reactions often build upon each other. I will do my best to summarize.

Wayne offered the For argument:

He mentioned that we (libraries) are not in the paper business anymore. People are coming into the library but they aren't checking out materials as much as they used to. Online resources are what people are using and the rates of usage are increasing. NLM has put many things online, Open Access will succeed, thesis are being scanned and put on CD to be more easily accessible. Libraries were never about books, they were and are about information. Books are just an information source, it is time for us (librarians) to embrace electronic information as the new resource.

Rick offered the Against argument:

Rick said libraries are not one dimensional, and to say that libraries will dump all of the print in favor of all electronic resources is not functional. Since the dawn of time libraries were designed for more than just books. While faculty do not come to the library as much as they used to, students are coming to the library in droves for various reasons, to study, research, discussions, as well as no traditional library activities. The physical library structure carries many roles and messages. The library as building is the springboard to the future to create new usages for space, social interaction, and collaboration.

MJ and Jane gave their library space experiences as panelists.

MJ discussed the issue of space in academic medical libraries. Contents within the library change but the building remains the same. Usage of that space changes. MJ discussed her library is undergoing a renovation where other departments/services, not necessarily associated with libraries were going to be within the library. While it was at first disappointing that library was “giving up” space, she decided to approach it from a position of collaboration and to view those different departments/services as another way to draw more users into the library.

Jane discussed the issue of space within hospital libraries. When she first came to her library, she made a lot of changes to her library space. She tried to make the most of her limited space by removing old material, furniture, and repositioning things. Doing so enabled her to create a space for books, journals, and electronic resources. After a long time working within the limited space she has, she now might be able to expand the library because it looks like it will move to a bigger space. While this is a blessing, that does not solve all issues of space as she mention that the new potential space is very dark and will need more lighting.

The debate was interesting and fun. This topic could be very volatile but was debated with sense of fun and congeniality.

Round Tables

I sat in on the Technology Issues in Hospitals Librarianship where we discussed primarily four Topics: EMRs, IP issues, IT Blocks, Success Stories.

EMRs

Several librarians expressed interest in trying to get their foot in the door regarding EMR selection or just EMRs in general through IT departments or vendors. While many librarians were interested in sticking their big toe into the EMR waters, nobody at the table reported any success.

EMR varieties and vendors platforms also seemed to be cause for concern and produced many more questions than answers. It appears that EMR and information resource integration is platform dependent, which means if your information resources goes belly up or is bought by another company, you may not be able to find another one that works within your hospital's EMR.

Another cause for concern is the lack of standardization with EMRs for information resources linking. It was mentioned that some EMRs just have an “Info” button and it is unclear as to what that info button links to. Does it link to a medical dictionary, FirstConsult, Google, the hospital's formulary guide? Who knows? From what we can tell, it depends on the EMR and how it was set up in the hospital. Equally concerning is that products like FirstConsult are not all inclusive and do not contain nor link to all of the library's resources which also might be useful in an EMR.

IPs

Hospital librarians seem to have particular difficulties regarding IT and IP address. Many of the members of the round table mentioned how hospital IT administrators seem completely unaware of how the hospital's IP addresses effect electronic database access. There were many stories where the IT department changed the hospital's IP addresses completely and forgot to tell anybody (including the library), where IT departments added a whole new range and neglected to tell anybody (including the library), and where IT departments allowed different hospitals within the same overall system (or maybe different systems) to share IP ranges. All of these scenarios led to the same problem, hospital employees couldn't access research databases who use IP authentication as the standard for authenticating access.

After sharing some of these horror stories we began to discuss Athens as a possible solution to the IP mess.

We continued our complaints regarding our IT department when we began to discuss the issue of blocking sites from use. Each library mentioned a site or type of media that is blocked by IT on their hospital computers. Some mentioned Yahoo Mail, others mentioned Wikis, Blogger, Bloglines, all streaming videos, iTunes, etc. Librarians expressed their frustration about having these things blocked. Some of the things that librarians want to do are: create a nursing research and care wiki, create online tutorials, help patrons download medical podcasts, read professional blogs, showcase professional blogs to patrons, link to high quality surgical and medical videos. The librarians can't do any of this because of the blocks set by their IT departments.

The round table discussion was soon becoming a IT complaint session and our moderator nicely turned the discussion on success stories (IT or technology in general). It was generally agreed upon by most of the librarians that they had the most success in dealing with IT after they had found an ally within the department. However, it was also noted that some hospitals have LARGE IT departments and experience a lot of turnover or movement from within. So once the librarians finally established their credentials and found an IT friend, that person soon disappeared, leaving the librarians to start from scratch searching for another IT friend.

The round table was an interesting discussion and provided hospital librarians with ideas on how to deal with technology issues.

MLA - The First Real Day

For me the opening reception was ‘business as usual’ and that’s just fine for me. Catching up with friends and colleagues over a few drinks and a good meal are the perfect way to start MLA.

Te first plenary session is also a pleasure as we are reminded of the goals and objectives that the president established from the previous year. Jean Shipman reminded us that Aviation, Navigation (ANC), and Communication were themes that she asked us to carry with us throughout the year. As she rolled through the long list of accomplishments last year, I was reminded of the amount of work that MLA completes over the course of a year. Many of these accomplishments I don’t not aware of until they are completed. Who knew Jean was such a great photographer.

The McGoverrn lecture is probably the highlight for me each year at MLA. Arthur Caplan spoke about Bioethics and the challenges of conflict of interest even within peer reviewed journals. He raised several great points including bias that can occur from the group funding the study either for monetary, political, or other reasons. We as librarians rely upon this peer review process as the as assurance that the information is good and valid. So if the peer review process cannot be trusted, what should we do? This is a hard question. He brought up the point that more open disclosure might help reveal biases from groups who may have an interest in seeing certain outcomes arrive out of a study. Should the editorial process be more transparent? Sure, it sounds like a great idea. Now, how to do we do that?

Other things to note.

I loved the space session, the only problem was that I agreed with each debater.

The posters rooms were hot and cramped.

Bart

Poster Session I

Every year the posters seem to be more polished and the presenters eager to talk about their project or research. Having the abstract to look at ahead of time really helps to focus on those you might be really interested in. But, as you go from one to another, there is always something that you had not planned to examine carefully that catches your eye. Today, for me, that was the poster on the Health Education Assets Library (12), a digital library that provides freely accessible digital teaching resources of the highest quality.

Posters that I sought out are mostly related to technology or the Web where my interests lie. I always pick up some new idea when visiting posters. For example, when visiting poster (13), Organizing Electronic Resources with a Database Driven Website, I learned that there are free versions of Cold Fusion or something akin that we could explore. (http://medib.bu.edu)

Some of the other posters I visited:

• (8) Staying Ahead of the Curve... A Continuous and Systematic Approach to Evaluating Electronic Resources. (http://www.mclibrary.duke.edu/)
• (4) What Can We Learn From Statistics? Revolutionizing In-House Statistical Collection Through Automation. (http://www.mclibrary.duke.edu/)
• (16) Library Website 2.0: Integrating Wiki Software to Enhance Content of the Libary's Website(http://southmed.usouthal.edu/library/)
• (17) Putting Wikis to Work in Libraries (http://library.med.utah.edu/)
• (30) Clinical Medical Librarian Services for Nurses (http://southmed.usouthal.edu/library/)
• (31) Broaden Your Reach: Instant Messaging from the Reference Desk: It's Worth It. (http://jeffline.jefferson.edu/SML/reference/ask.html)
• (32) Putting Library Resources on Our Users' Desktops (http://www.library.ucsf.edu/research/galentools/)
• (35) Using a Wiki for the Reference Desk (http://www.library.drexel.edu/)

Plenary Session II: McGovern Lecture

“Peer Review in Science and Medicine: Does It or Can It Work?”
Lecturer: Arthur Caplan, Director, Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Caplan addressed the issues of "conflict of interest" and the quality "peer-review process." Some of the points made during the lecture can be reviewed in "Halfway there: the struggle to manage conflicts of interest", an editorial by him in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (J Clin Invest. 2007 March 1; 117(3): 509–510.)

He feels that librarians can make a difference in helping to restore credibility of the peer-review process by questioning publishers about their process. The process should be more transparent to the readers of the articles. He suggested that reviewers be paid and that, at least in academia, peer-reviewing should be counted significantly in promotion and tenure.

He explored the role of press releases and media exposure in hyperbolizing newly published research as "a breakthrough." And, reminded us that science is a process and not an event. Breakthroughs only come in retrospect after study and replication of research findings.

Dr. Caplan has a regular column on MSNBC.com called Breaking Bioethics.

New Member's Breakfast

The New Member Breakfast gives those new to an MLA meeting an opportunity to meet with more experienced meeting goers and with their Colleague Connections. For those of you not familar with Colleague Connections, it is a kind of mentoring program for the meeting that matches a new member with someone who can help them gain more from the meeting and often goes beyond the meeting. Those attending the breakfast get introduced to MLA and get tips on becoming more active.

I met with my Colleague Connection, Tyla Tew, a Digital Content Librarian from VCU. Also joining us at our table was another librarian from her library - Alan Williams, Education Librarian. Both are new to MLA. It's delightful to see young, enthusiastic faces.

One sees many of the same faces every year. All of us have a good time mentoring new members. (Let me put in a plug here. Why don't your volunteer as a New Member Mentor next year and join the fun?)

Carla Funk, Executive Director of MLA, introduced the group to staff who can help them She mentioned that there are a record number of new members this year.

Jean Shipman, the current MLA President, spoke to the group. She mentioned that although she's attended many meetings, each meeting has its own nuance. And, one can collect new friends each year. She encouraged everyone to become active in the association. "MLA needs you and you need MLA." The remainder of the speakers gave tips about becoming more active.

Mark Funk, incoming President, mentioned his new agenda for MLA which he will talk about in his inaugural speech. It takes a long time to get noticed when you are new to the profession and the organization. People talk about paying your dues. But he has some ideas that might make it easier through using new technology like wikis and blogs to participate and get noticed.

Pam Reese - a representative from Chapter Council - encouraged new members to get involved on chapter level. She suggested that they might want to attend the sharing round tables at this meeting as a way to meet new people with like interests.

Jei Li - representing the MLA Sections -- echoed her sentiments. Sections are ways of becoming active based on issues of interest.

Shannon Jones is an example of a new member who decided that the organization need a new SIG (Special Interest Group) and formed the New Member SIG for those people who wanted to join other new members. MLA News has provided a new column for that group. She mentioned that there will be a get-together for that SIG at the Hard Rock Cafe across the street. (Sorry, I didn't get the day/time.)

As last year, the New Member Breakfast was honored with a short talk by a revered MLA Fellow, Lucretia McClure, who shared her "Pearls of Wisdom."

We do have the best in new technologies but often find ourselves being squeezed by commercial enterprises like new advances in music delivery, gaming, etc. We need to be more knowledgeable about all of these technologies and incorporate them into our libraries. We must outdo... -- missed that. (If anyone heard it, please comment.)

We [sic] librarians have the best minds; the most curious minds. Let's remember what Estelle Broadman wrote, "Money talks, but people count."

When Lucretia went to her first meeting, she didn't know anyone. So, she sat at lunch with different people everyday and soon found friends who are friends to this day. She mentioned that in getting to know the organization, reflect upon things that happen at this meeting. For example, the Janet Doe Lecture is named for someone very active in the organization. When you go to the awards luncheon, the awards are all named after MLAers who were very active.

Think about their accomplishments. And, if you don't know about them, you can easily go to PubMed Central and find them in the online Journal of the Medical Library Association.

There is change all around us, but the one constant is friendship in a professional association environment. You will have become a part of a vast association of like-minded librarians. If you need advice, we are here for each other. You can have real power as a member of an association.

People count - staff, users, colleagues.

A thinking librarian is the best resource in the library.

Look for new members who have a green ribbon affixed to their badges or maybe even bright shiny green Mardi Gras beads around their necks. Give them a smile and engage them in discussions. Make their first meeting one to remember.

MLANET Redesign?

A kiosk is currently available on the 5th floor of the conference hotel (near check-in and the conference gift shop) that offers up a redesigned version of MLANET for your review. I haven't had a chance to play around with the site yet, but did notice that there are numerous pop-up menus for navigation on the left-hand side, which can be difficult for some users or in some browsers. However, from a very quick glance, the site did appear to use more white space and a cleaner design. If you get a chance, stop by the kiosk, give the site a test drive, and come on back here to leave your comments. I'll update this post with more details after I've had a chance to take it for a spin.

Job Placement at MLA

As of this morning, the Job Placement Center is open, in rooms 402/403 of the Marriott. If you're looking for a job, complete a form on-site for review by potential employers with information such as contact details, preferred job type (administrative, public services, technical, or other), education, qualifications, and experience. Your form will go in a binder by last name with your assigned applicant #, which employers can then review. If a job tickles your fancy, leave a note for the employer at the Center suggesting a meeting. Also, remember to check your own envelope (marked with your applicant #) for messages from employers interested in you!

If you have an open position or two, post your job openings at the Center, which are in binders by state for review by potential employees. There are several applicants looking for jobs - yours may just be a perfect match!

More information is available online at http://www.mlanet.org/am/am2007/events/placement.html.

Job Placement Center hours are:

Saturday, May 19 9:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.

Sunday, May 20 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

Monday, May 21 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

Tuesday, May 22 9:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.

On Saturday Morning at MLA

Well, I can breathe now that the teaching is over. When I teach a CE course at MLA, I seem to be on automatic pilot until it is all over. I know that I eat and sleep and do all the normal things one does, but I don't seem to be in the conference mode until I'm done with teaching. My roommate is extremely kind and acts as my guide dog until I surface. She even got my registration packet for me before I arrived. Now I can look around and participate in networking, etc., which is excellent at this meeting every year.

As usual, the CE folks from MLA had everything well in hand. All the equipment worked; all the handouts and name tents (and markers) were there. It is a comfort to know that I won't have to worry about the technical details when I teach at MLA. The students were eager and dug into the course with relish. Of course by the end of the 8-hour course, all of us were a little dingy. Thanks, folks, for a great day of learning.

I'm fortunate in that I have my own laptop in my room and can access my email there and don't have to wait at a station. I, too, wish that the hotel had free WiFi. So many place do these days.

I'm looking forward to greeting familiar MLA colleagues and meeting new folks today as people start arriving for the general meeting. I might even get a little sightseeing in today before the Welcome Reception and exhibits this evening. See you then.... M

Email, Email, Where Can I Check My Email

Email Center
Originally uploaded by mak1173.

One nice thing I noticed yesterday at registration were the four email stations already set up and running. (I appologize that this photo is a little dark, I don't have my fancy shmancy imaging software to lighten it up.) This is nice because those of us who take CE classes have the opportunity to check our email before the official beginning of the conference (a day and a half later).

I hope there will be more stations within the technology showcase or in the exhibit area, because there is no free wifi in the hotel and I am sure there will be quite a line when the conference gets underway. This also brings me to another issue....the hunt for wifi hotspots. Now that I finally have a laptop, I feel like a bird migrating to the next available wifi watering hole.

The LAC has been very helpful at providing a list of locations offering free WiFi but I would have liked to have had free WiFi at the hotel. Perhaps as MLA looks at future conventions, they could negotiate free WiFi to attendees who stay in the hotel, because $10/day for hotel WiFi is outrageous.

Hall of Exhibits

Hall of Exhibits
Originally uploaded by mak1173.

Here is a snap shot of the Hall of Exhibits as exhibitors begin to start setting up their tables.

LIVE from MLA 2007

Hi everyone, I am in Philadelphia and just finished attending the Library Director: Knowledge, Skills, and Career Paths. Yes, one of my career goals to become a director some day, and I have been taking baby steps toward that direction.

The class is taught by Wayne Peay, FMLA, director, Eccles Health Sciences Library, University of Utah-Salt Lake City; Rick Forsman, AHIP, FMLA, project director, Denison Memorial Library and Health Sciences Center, University of Colorado-Denver; James Shedlock, AHIP, director, Galter Health Sciences Library, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL; and Elizabeth Eaton, executive director, Houston Academy of Medicine/Texas Medical Center Library-Houston.

Class description (provided by MLA)
Issues facing academic health sciences library directors—including budgets and planning, fundraising, politics, and organizational strategy—will be discussed. Career paths and strategies for obtaining necessary skills will be emphasized.

It was a wonderful class, I learned so much from the class. I think the most helpful part of the class was the break out session. We were able to pick the brains and ask questions from these library directors and get their thoughts on various topics and issues. My only wish was that they spend a little more time on career paths leading toward library director positions. Life is never straight forward and I think it would have been helpful to see what things in our circuitous career paths that we should do and look for on the way.

The Krafty Librarian

The Krafty Librarian
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Hi. :)