It’s 4:05 on this Friday afternoon and MAHSLIN’s first ever “Action Day” is wrapping up. I want to thank Brandy King, Margo Coletti, Penny Glassman, Judy Nordberg, Kathy McCarthy, and Isabel Lopes for joining me in this inaugural event. Stever Robbins sent me an email earlier in the week, wishing us a good and productive time. I think we can report that we achieved both.

Brandy worked on a blog post (and got her picture taken), Margo got things done for the Hospital Library Section of MLA, Judy and I made progress on subject guides that we’re building for our library’s new website, Isabel worked on her annual review and then a search request, Kathy conquered a folder full of information on copyright along with several last-minute items, and Penny managed to act on tasks while she juggled duties as the librarian on call for reference.

If you missed out on today’s activity, don’t fret, there will be another on the way. It was way too much fun to not hold another. I need this kind of support to be good and productive on a Friday afternoon.

~ Sally

Do you have a project or two that keeps getting pushed down the “to do” list? Are you having trouble staying on track getting that article written, that report or flyer finished, or that presentation presentable? Then join us for our first MAHSLIN ACTION DAY on Friday, October 14th.

Those of you who attended the 2010 annual meeting might recall our keynote speaker, Stever Robbins, telling us about the power and usefulness of Action Days. I’ve been wanting to coordinate one ever since, both for my own benefit and for my colleagues in need of the same help. You can find background and details on the idea from Stever’s “Get it Done Guy” podcast, but in general, here’s how it works:

1. Identify a project/task or two that you want to focus on for a day.
2. Share this with others via a conference call.
3. Check in every hour to share your progress.

It’s really that simple. We help each other be accountable and get those stubborn, “procrastinatable” projects done!

I’ll be working out the arrangements over the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned to the blog and listserv for updates. For now, if you’re interested in taking part, mark your calendars and get ready to Get it Done!

P.S. Your task can be just about anything, even cleaning out your desk drawers or getting “thank you” notes written. And feel free to pass this along to anyone you think will find it interesting and/or helpful. The more, the merrier!

The following was posted by Brandy King, MAHSLIN Membership Chair

Here’s a bit about new MAHSLIN member Karen Lamson:

I recently moved to Worcester to take a Reference and Instruction Librarian position at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Worcester campus. Librarianship is a second career for me having spent 20 years in chemistry laboratories analyzing pharmaceutical products in Western New York. I graduated from the University at Buffalo in 2006 with my MLS and I haven’t looked back. What a wonderful career choice this has been. I look forward to working with MAHSLIN members to create a better learning environment for inquisitive minds. My areas of interest are Evidence-Based Practice, Health Information Literacy, and Embedded Librarianship. I like to cross-stitch, visit museums, and take long hikes with my Rhodesian Ridgeback (Central Massachusetts has wonderful trails and we have only just started to explore)!  I can’t wait to meet you all!

Last year was the first MAHSLIN Annual Meeting that included a fairly successful campaign to chronicle the event’s happenings on Twitter. This year, we’d like to step up those efforts and encourage as many meeting participants as possible to contribute.

At least partially inspired by MLA’s recent efforts, I decided to create–OK, actually I “borrowed” much of this from MLA’s site–a really basic Twitter tutorial to help folks who need a little encouragement to get started and/or become familiar enough to engage in, or simply to follow, the discussion that will take place on May 6.

Step 1: Create an account

• If you already have a Twitter account, proceed to step 2.
• Otherwise, go to http://www.twitter.com
• Click the “Sign Up” button.
• Complete the form to create your account.
• If you need additional help, you can watch this short video.

Step 2: Follow MAHSLIN on Twitter

• Click the “Who To Follow” link at the top of the page.
• Search for MAHSLIN and click the “Follow” button.
• Find at least 3 more people to follow. The best way to do this is to look at the list of people that MAHSLIN follows. You’ll find quite a few of your colleagues on that list, including current MAHSLIN Board members Elaine Alligood and Sally Gore.
• For additional suggestions on finding people to follow, check out step 2 of the MLA Twitter Tutorial.

Step 3: Searching and using hashtag #MAHSLIN

A hashtag is a user-driven convention for connecting a conversation on Twitter. The official hashtag for the meeting is #MAHSLIN. When you search this hashtag in Twitter you will find all the tweets from users who add this to their post. It’s a great way to discover tweets from users even if you do not follow them. Adding a hashtag to your tweet lets you participate in the conversation and can be used anywhere in a post.

Search for the hashtag #MAHSLIN. Prior to the meeting, you’ll only see a few tweets related to planning and promotion, but during the meeting, hopefully the conversation will be much livelier.

Step 4: Messaging

Review the following information about messaging in Twitter. You may find this useful at the conference.

• Replies: @username; Use the at sign (@) and the Twitter username of the person you wish to contact then type a message. These replies are public and can be seen by others.
• ReTweet: RT @username; When someone you are following tweets something you want to share with your friends use the ReTweet option. Others will then be able to see the original message.
• Hashtags: In your tweet, adding the number sign (#) to a commonly used keyword adds the tweet to other users’ results when they search that particular hashtag. When “Tweeting the Meeting,” add #MAHSLIN to all of your tweets to be part of the dialogue.

Step 5: Twitter Tools

For some useful information about Twitter apps available for your mobile device, see step 5 of the MLA Twitter tutorial.

That’s about all you need to know to get started. Remember to follow @MAHSLIN on Twitter, and to search and use the #MAHSLIN hashtag to take part in all the information sharing on May 6.

If you have any questions, please feel free to shoot me an email at dmccloskey@partners.org.

Looking forward to seeing and “hearing” what you have to tweet at the meeting.

I just read an Interesting item from Jakob Nielsen about search strategies.  Jakob Nielsen is a web usability expert & guru; his observations are spot-on evidence for the importance of us-librarians in the search process:  searching for clinicians at the point of need, training clinicians what they don’t know about how to search, training clinicians when to get help with search, when to question the reliability of their results. . . and more!

Jakob Nielsen writes:  “Although some analysts questioned the finding of search dominance, it’s a user behavior that gets stronger every year. Today, many users are so reliant on search that it’s undermining their problem-solving abilities. Ironically, the better search gets, the more dangerous it gets as people increasingly assume that whatever the search engine coughs up must be the answer.”

Thus, users increasingly rely on individual pages listed by search engines instead of finding better ways to tackle problems!  Not us necessarily, but our users/clinicians may very well be doing it!

This is what could be termed as a risk of users’ accepting bad results as good results or the normalization of deviance.  Loosely, the definition of the expression “normalization of deviance” as applied to human behavior and in our case, search behavior, was invented by a sociologist, Diane Vaughan, and represents when individuals in a system, over time, change the rules of what has been found an appropriate and safe behavior to one which is less appropriate and less safe because each individual finds that other individuals are changing the rules in the same way. So that behavior which is deviating from the established rules is now being made normal and common by this phenomenon—and in our world, more dangerous, as well!

Check it out. . .  perhaps you can use this in your own institution to change a few minds. . . Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox for April 11:  http://www.useit.com/alertbox/search-skills.html

I grew up not too far from Williamsburg, VA. I was put in the stocks often as a child.

Along those lines, she’s asked me to ask you to bring a couple of things with you on the day of the Meeting. One of these is an empty pill or a similar type of small bottle. If you have an extra or two, you might want to toss them in your bag too, just in case some folks forget. I plan to do that. The other thing is a picture of you as a child. Again, I’m not sure what she’s going to have us do with these things, but I look forward to finding out. I imagine they will be good props to help us engage our creative sides and think about new ways to work in our ever-changing profession.

Registration is open and early bird prices run through April 22^nd! We also have discounted rates for students and first-time attendees. Invite a friend, introduce a new person to our professional organization, encourage a colleague to give MAHSLIN a try. Satisfaction guaranteed.

~ Sally Gore, 2011 MAHSLIN Program Chair

To follow up on my article about copyright in the MAHSLIN Network News Winter 2011 issue, I’d like to begin a discussion on the MAHSLIN blog. What would you share about some of the following?

With the advances in digital technology, it is SO easy to search, copy, paste, and send materials without giving a thought to copyright implications and the possible risks of charges of infringement. This area has become so involved and of such importance to our faculty members at the Medical School, that it is now my full-time job to provide information on copyright to our patrons.

I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one at the library, so while I can’t give any legal advice, I CAN point people to reliable, relevant resources that help them in their work. One way I do this is by maintaining a Copyright Resources subject guide on my Library’s website that provides easy access to many of the resources I’ve gathered over time. I also provide one-on-one consultations and offer workshops for faculty, students and staff. And all the while, I’m learning more about the “murky gray field of copyright.”

There are many myths and misunderstandings about copyright in academia. There is the notion that “any educational use is ‘Fair Use’ and that permission isn’t needed” in a (non-profit) educational situation. This isn’t always true and some of what I share with our faculty comes as a great surprise, to say the least!

Are you faced with copyright issues in your work? I’m particularly wondering what sorts of copyright issues come up in a clinical setting? How are they handled? Who handles them? What role do you as a medical librarian play? What role do you think the Library can and should play?

Thanks for your thoughts!

What does any of this have to do with MAHSLIN’s Annual Meeting? Well for one thing, if the tournament is nearing an end and baseball season is about to start, it means spring is here! There’s only a little more than a month left before this year’s Annual Meeting. Secondly, busted brackets remind me of breaking out of our own stereotypes and trappings. A great thing about the basketball tournaments is any team can surprise another at any time. You always know what the outcome is supposed to be, but a lot of times a little ol’ team jumps up and plays like no one imagined they could, knocking off a powerhouse program with a grand reputation. And afterward, you almost always hear the coach and the players say, “We knew we could do it!”

I read a blog posting yesterday about a nice, handy app for smart phones that cuts down on shelf reading time. The headline read, “Awesome Augmented Reality App Could Save Librarians Hours“. Not to say we don’t still have to spend some time keeping our resources in order, particularly if we work in single-person libraries, but personally, I found the title to be driving home, yet again, the stereotype of the librarian as nothing more than a keeper of books. As we all know, the more we fail to bust this idea to smithereens, the more insecure our future becomes. Particularly in medical and health sciences librarianship.

This year’s meeting is about demonstrating to ourselves – and inspiring one another with – our “busting the brackets” mentality. We know we are different than that stereotype. We know we do so much more than check in serials and check out books. A number of MAHSLIN members have stepped up to take part in this year’s meeting, to show off their programs, their ideas, and their “out of the box” thinking that helps their patrons know just how valuable the services and the people of their library are. Join the excitement and register to attend the Annual Meeting TODAY! When the cameras are rolling, you don’t want to miss saying, “We knew we could do it all along!”

Hope to see you there! ~ Sally Gore, MAHSLIN Vice President and Program Chair

It’s a little known fact that I drove my ’66 Corvair to Woodstock in 1969 to see Joe Cocker and Janis Joplin.  A hyper-cheap hippie student, I mapped out a route that avoided toll roads and wound up missing all the traffic.  While I can’t say my luck has consistently held since then, I can say, emphatically, I’ve been the beneficiary of great advice by my friends over the years.  With that support in mind, The MAHSLIN Board wants to help members experience that same Joe Cocker feeling of friendly support. . . Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends!

Last September, I wrote about the Board brainstorming how we could help our members during tough times, and now it’s here–we’ve got the door open to help when you need it:  mahslin-mentors@googlegroups.com

The Board brainstormed how we could help MAHSLIN members in the throes of Library drama or just worried that their library is in jeopardy of closing.   We aimed for something totally informal, no heavy lifting for anyone, confidential, fast in the moment support.

Now, I’m happy to say our members can reach out and get a little help in the form of a personal bit of one on one coaching, advice, or strategic counsel.

Whether you’re in the midst of a minor drama, crisis, management surprise, or just need a bit of wisdom from a confidential colleague, you can send an email to our new email group:  mahslin-mentors@googlegroups.com and get some help!

We’re a few seasoned MAHSLIN members who’ve volunteered to help:   send a email to the group and a mentor will reply to you, then you both take it from there, it’s confidential, short term, practical advice, and no records are kept.

MAHSLIN Mentors is not reference help or ILL or resource help.  It is just-in-time advice, counsel, coaching, and practical strategic assistance when you’re pulling out your hair.

Give it a try if you’re in need of a friend!  mahslin-mentors@googlegroups.com

Let me know what you think!

Elaine Alligood
MAHSLIN President

Did you see that Super Moon the other night? I found myself scanning the horizon for a good hour before it ever rose. I kept thinking, “It’s dark already, where IS that Super Moon?!” But then, just when I was about to give up, I saw a very bright glow between a couple of buildings towards downtown (Worcester, that is). Sure enough, it was right on time. 7:39 pm. And as I watched it come up, it really was SUPER!

In our ever changing profession, sometimes it may feel like we’re all scanning a dark sky, looking for something special. Looking for something that might give us a clue to where we’re heading as medical and health sciences librarians. For me, that’s what the theme of this year’s annual meeting is all about. Last year, we began looking. We began thinking about the ways in which we are and can be the change in our organizations and institutions. Through the presentation of the different speakers, we began to catch a glimpse of the glow on the horizon. This year, that super moon – the super stories of our peers and colleagues – is going to shine brightly on everyone there!

Now, as if it’s even possible you need more enticement and/or persuasion to register for the meeting besides my describing it akin to rare and extraordinary astronomical events, let me introduce you to a couple of our speakers. (I’ll do this once-a-week or so over the time leading up to the conference, just so you’ll be as excited as I am about it.) Let me tell you of one project we’ll hear about during the morning session, a project that demonstrates really well how we’re “Thinking Outside of the Box”, expanding our roles and being the change that health sciences librarians can be.

Lisa Palmer, MLIS and Kathleen Biebel, PhD, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, are going to share about their collaboration to produce an online eJournal, Psychiatry Issue Briefs. Once a newsletter produced within the department, printed out, and stored in someone’s file folders (real and virtual), the Psychiatry Departments newsletter was in need of a professional face lift. As a clinician, Dr. Biebel knew the content she wanted to easily share with others. As a cataloger, institutional repository librarian, and metadata thinker, Lisa had the skills and knowledge to meed Dr. Beibel’s needs. Together, they sat down and came up with what has been a very successful, well-received solution.

This is just one of a dozen and more stories you’re going to hear at this year’s Annual Meeting. You will learn how we’re stretching our skills and knowledge towards new endeavors, how we’re re-purposing some of our expertise so that we can help our patrons to see the many different ways we can serve them. The goal is to share and to learn, to inspire one another, to build networks of support, and to come away ready to reach for the moon! [Couldn't resist - ]

So mark those calendars and register today! All the information you need is on the MAHSLIN website.

Hope to see you there!

~ Sally Gore, VP & 2011 Program Chair