Up to the Waves

E-Book Exploration--What's My Choice?

2012-02-03T14:32:00.001-06:00

McGraw Hill's Connect

Son asked me to pay for this textbook he needed for his school: Business Driven Information System 3rd edition by Paige Baltzan. He gave me the link and login information to access the e-book trial version from connect.mcgraw-hill.com. Like any parents, I started to think if there were any ways I could save some money. My first thought was to check the book availability from his school's library, but no luck. I started looking around, here are my options:

1) Purchase from McGraw-Hill that provides two choices

Connect Plus: $96
Connect: $39.99

No matter which version I choose, the online access to the book will expire on July 30, 2012. I won't own the book.

2) Purchase paper copy from www.textbook.com.

Used: $101.38
New: $143.85

I will get 50% cash back when the books are returned to the site by June 30, 2012.

3) Purchase from Amazon.com

Kindle version: $105.95
Paperback: $134.99

4) Purchase from www.inkling.com, accessible only on iPad

Entire book: $139.99
One chapter: $21.99

Later I found out. I really didn't have any choice but pay for the Connect Plus from McGraw Hill. Why? Because it's a required textbook version from the instructor. Look at McGraw Hill's ads about its Connect, which has so many attractive build-in features and tools that any instructor, I'm afraid, can resist taking it. It ties coursework closely with the e-book content and saves instructor lots of time. I can see this really as a publisher driven model that has nothing to do with the library. They aim directly to the instructor. I guess, the publisher might even provide a free copy for the instructor to use for the course. In return the instructor might require the entire class to buy a Connect ebook. When the instructor wants it, the student won't have any choices, will they?

Looking at this model, questions swept through my mind: What's the library future for electronic books? Who are the driven force for electronic books? What can or should libraries do about this, ignore, accept, or do something? What's the best for students?

Rough or Peaceful?

2012-01-03T11:35:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year! Wishing my readers a healthy, happy, and excellent 2012.

How did you feel about your life, rough or peaceful? You can be the driver of your life. I love this saying "attitude is everything!"

New PubMed Advanced Search Builder

2011-12-14T09:40:00.000-06:00

Today new PubMed Advanced search page gave me a Wow! I think it is more user friendly than the old page.

New PubMed Advanced Search Page

The neat thing is you can stay on this page and keep adding different search terms to the search history saving the time to go back and forth between the search results page and search builder page. The search results will be displayed in History. You can easily combine them by clicking the Add button.

I do wish one thing to be added for the new page the Limits, which will make the search even more intuitive.

Where are MeSH Terms in PubMed Mobile?

2011-12-08T17:48:00.001-06:00

While teaching students searching for medical literature, I enforced the importance of expert searching, which started with MeSH database. I also recommended students using MeSH terms associated with each citation as their search terms. For this purpose, I asked students to enter a PMID in the PubMed search box and find the MeSH terms. Interesting thing happened. Several students used iPad2 to search PubMed and they were forced automatically to use PubMed Mobile version. They were not able to find the link to MeSH terms from the mobile site. After some look around, I wasn't able to find the MeSH terms, either.

PubMed Mobile Search Results

What's the solution for that? Click the Standard PubMed link at the left corner of the page, and you will find MeSH terms.

Standard PubMed Search Results

Keep in mind that PubMed Mobile is a light version of PubMed. Standard PubMed link is always available somewhere on the mobile site. You can switch to it whenever needed.

Last Presentation of the Year

2011-12-08T16:18:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I gave a presentation on literature searching to 75 DNP and PhD nursing students. The course director sent me a nice email afterwards:

"Thank you for the excellent presentation you gave to the DNP and PhD students this afternoon! The content of your presentation and the pdf file you have shared will be useful to the students and me as course director. The faculty who are assisting with the course and I can readily refer students to the pdf file to reinforce the information you shared today."

Looking back, I really had a good year with my liaison services to the College of Nursing. The more I actively engaged myself with them, the more return requests I received. A good busy year!

Snow=Good harvest

E-Tracking Reference Statistics

2011-11-04T15:34:00.000-05:00

Desk Statistics Record Sheet

If you want to turn manually recording of Reference Desk statistics into digital, read this article, "How to Build a Desk Statistics Tracker in Less Than an Hour Using Forms in Google Docs" by Sunshine Carter and Thomas Ambrosi from the University of Minnesota–Duluth. The article provided detailed instructions on how to create a form for your library. It would be better and more helpful if Google Docs form provided more functions for data collection and analysis.

My New Article

2011-11-02T16:41:00.000-05:00

Fall Mood

Supporting Evidence-Based Medicine: A Survey of U.S. Medical Librarians, Medical Reference Services Quarterly 2011, 30:4, 365-38.
The most challenging part was to content analyze the three open-ended questions. But we did it!

Contact me if you are interested in the article.

No More Library Workshops!

2011-10-18T13:18:00.000-05:00

Does your library experience low attendance rate to your library workshops? As a librarian instructor, you have worked so hard to get people to attend your workshops, but still not much improvement. Does that mean your patrons do not need the information? Does that mean library workshops have no value to your library community? Librarians all know that is not the case. Here is an innovative way to make some changes: No more workshops in the library! One-on-one and on demand instructional sessions instead.

I look at this as a patron driven change and another level of providing library instruction. I can certainly see some of the advantages of one-on-one or on demand sessions:

Fit into the patron's schedule
Deliver content based on individual's needs or at the point of need
Provide a conformable environment to ask questions -- patrons
Reduce the tense of speaking in public -- librarians

I believe it's time to make a change for better or worse depending on what you think and what content you want to deliver. It might be more effective to turn those workshops that have hands on components into one-on-one sessions.

Want to Start an iPad Program for a Library?

2011-10-14T17:05:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I attended the ALA Webinar, Integrating iPads and Tablets Computers into Library Services (1). I think the presenters did a great job. I hope MLA hosts a similar webcast to show successful iPad programs in health sciences libraries. At least one thing I learned from the webinar was that librarians need to ask questions before setting up a tablet program for their library:

What's it for? Is it for staff development, in-house use such as in class, or for circulating them to library patrons?
What content are you going to load on the device? Content would include apps and tools related to patron needs.
Do you have technical support for the program?
How are you going to train library staff to provide frontline support for the program?

If you already have a tablet program in your library, what's your thought so far?

Taking Photos Using an iPhone

2011-07-08T16:27:00.002-05:00

Want to take good pictures using an iPhone? Here is my experience:

Composition: You are not taking a photo, you are creating one! -- Creative!
Light: Make full use of natural light as iPhone doesn't provide any supplemental light - Critical!
Focus: Tab the object, zoom, focus, and shot - Sharp!
Stillness: Hold a deep breath and be as still as possible when pushing the photo button
Some of my photos taken with an iPhone:

Content Creators: Be Creative!

2011-06-02T15:48:00.001-05:00

Are you a librarian or a medical librarian? Do you use Twitter? Does your library has a twitter account or a Facebook page? As one of the content contributors to our Reference Department's twitter account, library's blog, Flickr, and Facebook page, I constantly felt it is challenging and time consuming to keep the contents in these accounts rolling effectively and feeding it with relevant information quickly. Ideally, I wish our contents were updated while I'm sleeping...

A recent conversation with a librarian friend about feeding twitter account with RSS feeds on some desired topics. "Well, don't depend on those automatically feeds only. This is why you are here and you are the content creator." What he said really got me thinking. Yes, librarians are well known for being content creators in many ways including Web sites, subject guides, pathfinders, instructional materials, and library tutorials. Now content creators has evolved to include twittering, blogging, facebooking, and more. Librarians becoming digital content creators are the result of digital technology and digital reference services. The difference is digital content creators have to come up with contents in a quick and effective way.

If you are the person behind the scene, how do you manage your library's social media accounts to keep them fresh and relevant?

Make it Easy for them

2011-01-23T10:55:00.002-06:00

There is an interesting article, Don't make it easy for them, set me thinking. Yes, students need to learn library research skills. What about faculty members? My point is make it easy for them. Yes, make it easy for them! We call it support faculty teaching, research, and clinical education.

The library outreach programs have provided lots of opportunities for librarians to connect with academic faculties. Years of liaison experience told me faculty members like helpful, personalized, and convenient library services delivered to their desktops. I found myself really enjoy working with them by providing these services. I questioned myself a while ago, "Am I spoiling them by doing so?" One of my librarian friend said, "No, this is called another level of customer service." So, here they are:

Set up automatic email alerts for each faculty on their research topics with My NCBI. This personalized service includes knowing and understanding each faculty member's research interests or topics, constructing a good search for each topic, creating My NCBI account for each faculty, and writing up instructions on how to manage the alerts.
Conduct literature searches for faculty members. This involves not only expert search using related databases, but delivering the search results in the format of their preferences. Sometimes it goes further than that such as organizing citations and retrieving full text articles for them.
Scan articles from the library's print collection to PDFs and send to them via emails. The challenge is basically time especially when I have a busy schedule and when the faculty are rush to need the articles.
Deliver one-on-one library workshop sessions to faculty's offices. This is especially in demand for hands-on workshops. What makes this service welcoming is the focus of individualization. This requires me to get very familiar with the workshop contents and alter the teaching method based on each individual faculty's characteristics and needs.
There are some very basic things we, librarians, expect our users to do them themselves while faculty members expect librarians to do those basic things for them. My liaison philosophy is don't ask, just do it. For example, could you get the full text of this article for me (I know we have online access to the article and she can download it from her desktop.); do we have this book in the library ( I know we do. A catalog search will tell her.); I need this article via interlibrary loan, could you request for me? (I know she can do it online by logging onto her library account.); Could you pull these articles for me from the library stack? I will come and pick up after work (I know the library doesn't offer this service. She can come to the library and do it herself.)

Concern and worry was if I got lots of requests, it might be difficult to handle and it would greatly increase my workload. I took it as a challenge. Reference service hasn't change a lot, we just need to do it in different ways: make it easy for them, but might mean make it difficult for us. This brings to the core of my job -- providing excellent customer service!

A Student in Evidence-Based Medicine for the Medical Librarian

2010-09-05T11:25:00.005-05:00

So exciting! I'm going to be in this 8-week program(9/13-11/5), Evidence-Based Medicine for the Medical Librarian, co-instructed by Connie Schardt and Angela Myatt. As the course description states:

"This course will focus on understanding the skills clinicians need to practice EBM, such as how to formulate relevant questions, efficiently search medical literature and evaluate the evidence for validity and applicability to the patient. The course also will focus on the roles that librarians can play to support EBM."

This is a great learning opportunity for me to systematically understand EBM and how librarians can support EBM. Thanks to the MLA CE award that made my dream to attend this course came true!

The course will cover four modules. I quickly identified my focus for each module:

Module 1: Introduction and Question Building -- study design and how to construct the well-built question

Module 2: Selecting Resources and Conducting the Search -- framework for formulating the search strategy and basic EBM terminology for searching Medline

Module 3: Evaluating the Evidence -- Appraising articles in therapy,diagnosis,
harm/etiology,and systematic reviews, and understanding EBM Statistics

Module 4: Roles for Librarians and Final Assignment -- EBM and nursing

Looking forward to the first week!

Texting a Librarian Using a GV Number: Pros and Cons

2010-08-09T10:48:00.002-05:00

I finally got a Google Voice (GV) number for my library to launch Text a Librarian reference service! After running some tests, it seems to work well so far. To monitor the service, the text messages are forwarded to the library email account. A FAQ page was created to help those who need more information about this service.

There are two ways to send messages (SMS) using a Google Voice (GV) number:

1). Sending text messages from Gmail Chat box

Pros:

Avoid SMS charges
Convenient for Gmail account holders
Convenient for patrons without a cellphone
Act like live chat or IM

Cons

Some learning curve for the initial setup. Users have to know where to enable SMS to send a text message
Have to have internet connection to be able to send and receive text messages

2). Sending text messages from a cellphone

Pros:

Instant, direct, and fast communications
Convenient for those who have text message service from their cellphone carriers
No internet connection is needed

Cons:

display sender's cellphone number

From the stand point of providing Text a Librarian service, here are my wish list for GV:

Be able to choose a desired GV phone number
Be able to reply to the text message from any non-Gmail accounts once GV messages are forwarded
Be able to archive text messages in a meaningful way within GV account (e.g., create folders or subfolders)

You are welcome to share your experience in using GV to provide library services.

Doodle -- Online Signup Sheet

2010-06-07T15:57:00.013-05:00

In the past three years, I was co-teaching with our nursing faculty on a 2-credit course--Informatics for Healthcare. We had over 60 students each year and we required them to work on Never Event group project. Each group had three students. We had used Wikispaces, Google sites, and our campus wiki for students to sign up for their topics and wiki served as group project site for online collaboration.

Now here comes this year. This course has a new instructor and we decided not to use wiki as online collaboration tool. When it came to have more than 60 students sign up for their never event topics and areas, what tool can we use except using a traditional paper signup sheet? With this question in mind, I tried Google forms and couldn't make them to work for our purpose. One of my friend suggested trying Doodle, which is known for scheduling events. I hadn't seen people use it for signing up for tasks, at least not among my colleagues and peers. Wow, it only took three steps to create a poll: name your poll, enter choices, set up settings, and done. Then Doodle generated an URL to be sent to participants. From the participants' site, it is even simple: click the poll URL, enter their names, make selections, and save.

Good things about Doodle:

Create as many options as you wish
Control how many choices one participant can make
Make participants' choices visible or invisible to them
Control who has permission to edit choices or results
No signup is needed to participate in the poll
Form display layout in mobile devices looks great
Explore results to an Excel spreadsheet
Free

Not so good things about Doodle:

Can't type a long sentence into an option box, which means you will have to use key words to describe your choices.
There is no way to create a multiple choice form. For example, if you have a topic, you need to have more than one students to sign up for that topic, you will have to repeat the topic with choices such as this.
The horizontal layout of the form on the Web is difficult to navigate especially when you have a lot of choices.

In general, Doodle making choices feature serves the purpose of signing up group work quite well. Unfortunately, it didn't get used for this course. The primary instructor decided to stick to a paper signup form. I totally understand a paper form is always the safer and traditional method and most people feel comfortable with.

This got me to think that adopting technology in teaching and learning takes effort and risk. Not everyone is willing to take the risk and go beyond their comfort zone. I also think there might be even better tools out there for signing up group work. Send me the link if you know of any.

Mobile Literate Librarian

2010-04-21T10:35:00.004-05:00

Are you a mobile literate librarian or should we all be one? What are the competencies and skills a mobile literate librarian should have? This is an excellent presentation:

CIL2010 Mobile Literacy on Prezi

A Happy and Typical Wednesday

2010-03-03T16:40:00.011-06:00

My day started with the good news: LISTEN grant will fund my travel to MLA 2010 in Washington D.C. Another good new arrived in the mail. I was awarded the MLA CE Grant to take this eight-week curse: Evidence-Based Medicine and Medical Librarian taught by Connie Schardt and Angela Myatt. I wanted to take this course long time ago and now I felt my dream came true finally!

This is my big day in 2010! Other than the good news, I think I had a productive and enjoyable day:

Finished reviewing and editing two articles for our library newsletter;
Had a phone consultation with a PhD student on how to search PubMed and CINAHL effectively. We also talked about how to use EndNote to collect references in these two databases;
Showed a faculty member and a student how to use the book scanner;
Accidentally found links not working within our online databases due to our domain name change. Reported the problems to the E-Services Department and they got fixed instantly;
Two hours staffing the Reference Desk;
Of course, enjoyed the sunshine during my one-hour lunch break.

I really enjoy my job and I know I will have a good day tomorrow!

Search PubMed and Get PDF Right Away!

2009-10-23T08:07:00.009-05:00

I blogged about Pubget pros and cons a while ago. Pubget launched a new feature yesterday: Pubget PaperPlane. With this new feature, you search PubMed and get PDF full text right away. Watch this short video from Pubget:

BOLTs--Brief Online Learning Tutorials

2009-10-15T09:44:00.001-05:00

After almost 3 years of hard work, two LISTEN modules and online tutorials (BOLTs) are finally up and running and open to the world.

What can you do with the stuff we created?

Use BOLTs to show students how to research quality information. BOLTs are short and sweet snippets especially geared for student nurses and workforce nurses to learn seeking information and technology for evidence-based nursing practice. However, you will find them also useful and helpful for others who are interested in learning information seeking and technology.

Encourage your nursing students or workforce nurses to participate in LISTEN project. There are three ways to do this: face-to-face workshop, online scenario, and online tutorials (BOLTs). The online scenario includes two MedSurg modules (See image). To participate and get CEU credits, visit LISTEN project website.

What librarians said about BOLTs?

I just did a quick listen to the How do you .....Database to Use module and it is awesome.
The page looks great--nice graphics. And, the content is quite extensive. Very ice job.
Great job! Very informative.
Wow! The BOLTs are great. Nicely done!
This is great! Congratulations to you and your colleagues, and many thanks for sharing with the rest of us. We will happily credit your project as we make use of what you've done.

You are welcome to send in your comments and feedback to the LISTEN team.

Going to Woods Hole, MA

2009-09-15T09:30:00.002-05:00

I'm extremely grateful to be awarded BML/NLM fellowship to study biomedical informatics in Woods Hole, MA from September 20-26. When I was informed I was put in the waiting list, I already had a plan to send in my application again for next year. I think I'm just that lucky! Someone canceled the trip and here I'm getting ready to go!

I have been co-instructor in Informatics for Healthcare since 2006 and got involved in teaching library sessions in Dental Informatics course this year, but I still feel nervous as to limited knowledge about what it is and what I'm going to do there. Looking at the course schedule and the required reading list for each day, I feel the intensity and challenge I'm going to face.

Despite the feeling of uncertainty, one thing I'm pretty sure is that I'm going to enjoy the training and learning experience. There are 30 participants from 30 different institutions across the country. The experience will enrich my knowledge as a medical librarian, but may look at informatics from a different perspective.

I've got words from my director that when I return from this one-week intensive course, I would be our library's biomedical informatics professional and liaison to the campus for this initiative.

Pubget: Pros and Cons

2009-09-02T21:24:00.001-05:00

I have been testing Pubget for some time and finally came up with this summary. Since quite a lot of good things and excitement were covered about Pubget, my point of view might be a bit different in that I approached the service from the point of end users, and yet they are only my opinions.

Pubget was added our proxy server for some time. With the Pubget proxy URL, patrons will be asked to log in if they are off campus. If log in successfully, remote access to the library is granted and articles in PDF formats are retrieved, which is the beauty and unique feature of Pubget.

Pubget was tested on Mac and PC using Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari both on campus and off campus. Here are some pros and cons based on my experience:

Pros

Save time and provide quick access to PDF articles the library has subscribed to. Pubget searches retrieve PDF documents instantly. On campus access works well in getting PDF files.
Share information. Patrons are able to email PDF files to anyone specified. This is good for group projects and journal clubs. One article can be sent to multiple emails at the same time and it can also be sent to social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
Manage and organize information. References in Pubget can be exported to EndNote and RefWork. Tags can be assigned to individual reference.
Stay current. Patrons can create email alerts or RSS feed on their topic of interest to get update articles. They can also browse latest issues of their favorite journals from Pubget. The favorite journal list can be customized to show on their Pubget home page.
Save information. PDF files retrieved from Pubget can be saved/kept in Pubget server. Patrons can use their gmail account to log in Pubget if they don't want to create a separate account with Pubget.
Revisit search history. Search history kept in Pubget's personal account can be marked as favorite searches and optionally can be used to get up-to-date articles without setting up email alerts or RSS feed.

Cons

Using MeSH to search Pubget is not working unless exact MeSH terms are entered to run the search.
PDFs are loaded and displayed inconsistently. Sometimes Pubget searches didn't display PDF files even the library owns the journal, which happens more often via off-campus access.
The Keepers (saved references) within Pubget are kept in one pot. Users can not create separate folders to organize their saved articles.
There is no way for patrons to select more than one articles or select a list of articles. Consequently, patrons have to choose one article at a time if they want to share, email, export, or save articles . This is especially inconvenient when they want to share a list of articles with people. "Shared all your keepers" link did not show as promised.
An article sent from Pubget produces a link to the article not sending the actual article. Consequently, if the article is not freely available on the Internet, the recipient will not be able to download the article.
When exporting references from Pubget to EndNote, only authors and titles are imported. Neither PDF full-text nor URLs are imported into EndNote.

Pubget is only one of the 3rd party life science search engines that tries to create shortcut to search PubMed. If you are a serious researcher, my advise is using the 3rd party search engines with caution or as a pre-search. Getting comfortable and familiar using PubMed itself is your goal. If you need assistance using PubMed, contact your medical librarians.

My Library Day : July 31, 2009

2009-07-31T23:27:00.004-05:00

This was really an interesting project! I have been enjoying reading a day in the life of librarians. Mine is routine mostly, but with challenges every single day.

Here was my day, Friday, July 31, 2009. I found it quite difficult to record exact time frame for things I did during the 8-hour for work plus 1 hour for lunch.

Woke up at 5:30 am, spent 20 minutes preparing breakfast and lunch for my son and husband, and headed for gym. It is my daily routine to workout in gym for one hour before going to work. During the one-hour workout I watched TV feeding my brain with national and local headlines or news.
Work started at 8 am when staffed the Reference Desk for one hour. It was quiet this morning. I quickly checked Ask a Librarian email account and my work email to see if there were things that needed immediate responses.
Posted a library tip to the library blog for our scientific editor, who once in a while sent out Library Tips to the campus via email. Whenever he posts a tip, I would repeat the tip in the library's blog.
Logged in the library's Twitter account to view followers' tweets and posted tweets to the library's Twitter account.
Answered two email questions from Ask a Librarian email account. One requested research help and the other was about off-campus log-in problem.
At 9 am, telephone meeting with LISTEN project coordinator and my supervisor about BOLT (Brief Online Learning Tutorials) we developed for LISTEN modules. 10% of my time devotes to this grant project since July 2007.
Right after the BOLT meeting, two nursing students came for help with their group project. I spent 40 minutes with them searching PubMed and showing them how to limit searches and retrieved full text articles.
During my one-hour lunch break (11-12 pm), I stepped out the library and took a nice 20-minute walk. After the heavy rain and tornado sweeping through some areas of the city last nigh, it turned out to be a beautiful day.
My second shift at the Reference Desk was from 12 - 1pm. I was able to use this hour preparing budget report for the SC/MLA '09 Local Arrangement Committee meeting as I am the conference treasurer. The meeting was held from 2-3:30 pm.
I spent 30 minutes going through my RSS feeds briefly and bookmarked interesting information to my delicious page, and saved some favorite articles to my EverNote site.
Spent one hour on my social web profile to maintain a professional appearance on the social Web. Two people subscribed to my FriendFeed, three people requested to follow me on Twitter, one person added me as a contact in slideshare.net, one Facebook friend made two comments on my wall.
At 5 pm, I finished my 3rd shift at the Desk and went home.

What I enjoy most is everyday is not the same.

Google Voice SMS -- Libraries

2009-07-18T20:56:00.008-05:00

I've been playing with Google Voice since I received the invitation to pick my GV number.

Awesome things I like about GV:

Use GV SMS. When people text me back, I can receive their text messages either from my cell phone or my GV interface.
Forward my home phone to my GV number and choose to listen to voice messages or view them in my email right from my computer.
Transcribe voice messages left at my home phone to text messages and email messages and deliver them either to my cellphone or GV interface.

I still consider myself a beginner of using GV and there are more GV features for further exploration and experience.

While I was testing GV SMS, one thought came to my mind: can libraries use this feature to provide SMS reference service? We can call it Text a Librarian. Thinking about this I immediately sent a request to get a GV number for the library.

I can almost see how Text a Librarian comes live:

Patrons send text messages to the library's GV number from their cellphone, desktop, and laptops. Librarians login libraries' Google Voice account and answer questions using GV interface like the way they were using Instant Message.

Note that pick a GV number carefully. If you want to change your GV number later, you will be charged $10 for the change fee.

EBM Survey Results

2009-06-08T17:24:00.010-05:00

Last year, we surveyed practicing medical librarians related to their roles in supporting and enhancing evidence-based medicine (EBM) practice and here are the preliminary results on the 11 multiple choice questions. We got a total of 596 valid responses to the survey questions with 51 % coming from hospital libraries, 42% from academic libraries, and 7% from special libraries. Some survey result highlights:

The most frequently reported role is to provide EBM research to users, followed by teaching EBM, and contributing to EBM initiatives in their institutions.
Hospital librarians are most active in providing EBM research.
Academic librarians are most active in teaching EBM.
Attending journal clubs, morning reports, and medical rounds is not a popular responsibility among medical librarians.

The survey results were presented at the Canadian Association of Information Science (CAIS) 2009 Conference and published in the conference proceedings. Here is the presentation:

Exploring the Real World: Medical Librarians' Involvement in Supporting EBM Practice

View more Microsoft Word documents from lwu5.

Our next step will be looking into librarians' comments to get some idea about what they really thought about their EBM roles.

Hawaii Notes and Pictures

2009-06-04T16:10:00.004-05:00

Going to MLA Annual Conferences has been part of my professional activities since 2004. This year like previous years, MLA sparkled lots of excitement and ideas. Most important of all, I gave a presentation entitled "Infusing Information Literacy Skills by Researching 'Never Events' at the conference. Without the financial support from the LISTEN project, I might not have been in the conference.

Infusing Information Literacy Skills by Researching 'Never Events'

View more Microsoft Word documents from lwu5.

As you know, I always have lots of pictures from the Conference and pictures about Hawaii.

The best and the outstanding among us

The very exciting thing to do in Hawaii was to go snorkeling at Hanauma Bay.

Swimming with fishes

The most touching event was to watch the Lantern Floating Hawaii on the Memorial Day at the AlA Moana Beach Park.

Lantern Floating Hawaii 2009

My first time inside a submarine and saw up-close magic of Hawaii's undersea world.

Undersea world

Hawaii features in ABC Stores that are more than churches.

ABC Store for tourists

The Big Island Tour took us to the Black Sand Beach.

Black sand --"Chicken of the Sea"

Monkey pod trees are everywhere in Hawaii. I've never seen so magnificent banyan trees there.

Over 100 year-old banyan tree

Monkey pod tree

Walking and swimming along Waikiki Beach felt like in paradise.

By the beach

I really enjoyed shooting sunset pictures along the beaches.

Sunset at sea

This is a place worth visiting again! I know I will have a waterproof camera case when I revisit Hawaii some day.

The Joy of Stress

2009-04-27T17:00:00.007-05:00

I like reading articles that provide food for thought such as this one "The joy of stress" by Cath Jones from BMJ Careers. The article talks about the stress in medical profession and how some health care professionals interpreted work stress.

Is there a profession stress free? Is there anyone working in a profession free of stress? Most likely no if you want to do a better job and advance your career. The attitude and interpretation of stress really makes a difference in career advancement. Take library instruction as an example. More and more librarians are required to teach especially in academic libraries. It is not unusual librarians resist in teaching and many don't like teaching at all or maybe afraid of teaching. True. What teaching involves can stress you out such as developing curriculum, writing class notes, preparing class materials/handouts, creating subject related exercises, practicing how to deliver the class effectively, and modifying class content constantly based on students' level. Worse of all, you have to overcome the fear of speaking in public. No doubt, the whole procedure can be really stressful and sweating. I had the experience of butterfly in my stomach and palm sweat. Even though I teach once every month, I still feel stressful and nervous before each class.

Is it a good thing feeling stressed? I would use quotations from the article to tell how I love and look at stress.

“To live without stress would be to live in a vegetative state.”

“Pressure is good. It keeps me motivated.”

“Yes, it is a pressurised environment but if you have the right mindset it is enjoyable. It’s about seeing situations as a challenge, searching your own knowledge and looking inside yourself to overcome the problems you face. I find that if I want to perform well I need to have the stick rather than the carrot and that’s why I’ve been attracted to this particular role.”

What is your take?

When Enough information is Enough?

2009-04-10T10:04:00.002-05:00

Either doing literature reviews, creating presentation slides, or working on projects, students and faculty constantly struggle with not finding enough information or retrieving too much information. A while ago, I was asked when enough information is enough? Honestly, I also have this question in mind just that it didn't occur to me to summarize it. My answer is simple: it depends on what you need.

Say, you are writing an article or working on your PhD dissertation and you need to do a literature review to see what had been published on this area and if anyone has done similar research. Information can never be enough until you've exhausted all the resources. This has to be a thorough search to get everything relevant out into your plate.

Say, you are writing a grant proposal, you've got a few good articles. You were wondering whether you still need to spend more time looking for more articles. You might stop here if the information you got can provide adequate justification for your proposal.

Say, you are a student trying to research on a topic for your course assignment. You don't have to do a comprehensive search. A few good articles might help you get the work done beautifully.

Say, you are doing a research and you need to look for side effects or adverse reactions of a certain drug used on human beings. It is critical to search the literature comprehensively and properly to ensure you won't miss a single published report of side effects or adverse reactions related to the drug.

My points are:

Focus on what you are doing. If you don't know what you are doing, you will never know when information is enough.
Understand what you need. If you don't understand what you need, you will never know when information is enough.

Communications: Campus vs Library

2009-03-30T09:01:00.003-05:00

My library just joined Twitter, a step forward to get into the loop of social media. This is not one person’s initiative or one person's passion at the library, it is a decision from the library's Reference and Outreach Service Department. The first idea was to publicize library's resources and services and the second idea was to explore possible channel to deliver library services. To make this communication channel effective and helpful, it would be interested to know and look around how UTHSC campus communicates with faculty and students. Thanks for Brian Mattews' post that sparked my idea to look around. I especially like this and would like to share with my blog readers:

"Stop thinking about just the library for a moment and consider how others on campus communicate with students as well. How can you work together with them?"

Let's compare:

http://www.twitter.com/uthsc --- Yes. The library just opened a Twitter account.
http://www.youtube.com/uthsc --- No.
http://www.utmem.edu/facebook --- No.
http://www.delicious.com/uthsc --- Yes. The library has a delicious a account.
http://www.utmem.edu/wikipedia --- No.

How can/should the library communicate with campus?

Creating Context for Technology...

2009-03-22T10:40:00.005-05:00

Love this article! It's a news piece published in the most recent [57(2), March-April 2009, 116-118] Nursing Outllook written by Dr. Kathy Malloch, "Creating context for technology: new realities for structure, media, space, and time." In the article, Dr. Malloch states:

"The very nature of health care and the ways in which health care services are organized, packaged, delivered, and evaluated have been forever changed by the technology advances in clinical care, teaching, documentation, and data storage. Specifically, changes have occurred in four areas: the availability and sharing of information; the media used for knowledge transfer; the range and types of relationships between and among providers, educators, students, and patients; and the time required to transfer and share information. These changes are driving the creation of new structures to support this evolving work."

Reading the article and pondering what medical libraries and librarians can take to meet the needs from the health care changes?

What Faculty Members Need of a Librarian?

2009-03-09T21:15:00.002-05:00

As a library faculty and library liaison to the College of Nursing (CON) and the College of Pharmacy (COP), I've been looking for ways to bring library services and resources to support the educational and research needs of the colleges served. Recently I conducted a two-minute survey with the intend to get to know what faculty members need of a librarian and to bring library liaison services to another level. Only in three days since the survey was distributed, 29 CON and COP faculty members answered the questions. I'm hoping to get more in the next few days. Here is a brief overview of the survey results, which already provided some food for thought.

When asked whether they wanted to receive information or tips about library resources and services, 66% says yes and 86% prefers using email. I'm not surprised only 34% of the faculty are interested in bringing a librarian into their courses to deliver a 20-minute session about using library resources effectively for their students. I think partly because they don't really know what a librarian can do for them. I'm delighted to know 48% of the faculty expressed interests in attending the library workshop, Staying Current for which I'm the instructor. 31% of them already have their own way of keeping up to date. Four (14%) faculty members would like to have one-on-one sessions to learn about tools and resources for staying current on their research topics.

The survey asks "What would you like your librarian to do for you?" and it yielded some interesting responses:

"Assist with complex literature searches. (Which I already get and am very grateful for)."
"Help with student literature searches (when I refer a student to the librarian)."
"An one-on-one session for new tools and methods."
"Reference Manager or Endnote instruction."
"It would be nice to have the librarian present an update on material at one of our Department faculty meetings."
"Searches. Obtain difficult to find articles."
"Assist with a literature search in preparation for NIH grant."
"Come into classes (DNP and PhD) as part of a workshop at the start of the term to help students learn how to conduct literature searches."
"I am wondering if a presentation to our professional staff regarding clinical resources available through the Library? I don't think staff are completely aware of what is available."
"Our graduate students take courses online and many do not live in or near Memphis, so they are limited to online library access. With that in mind, could you set up a repository of on-demand online tutorials and tools designated specifically for students so that they do not have to wade through the scheduled, on-campus, and/or faculty resources in order to find what they need quickly and efficiently? Could you make the workshops available for on-demand online viewing?"

Sounds familiar? For librarians who have liaison responsibilities to CON or COP, the mini survey results might offer some helpful insight and thoughts on what faculty members need of a librarian. Based on the 29 responses, faculty members expect librarians:

To provide expert literature searches to support research and educational programs
To offer instructional sessions or workshops to their students on literature searching
To be the information messenger between the college and the library
To be flexible in offering library workshops considering the needs of distance learning community

The faculty members' responses implied that they are aware of librarians' expertise in information retrieval and information management. Their responses also presented a lot of opportunities for librarians to take. I would further summarize the survey results and plan my liaison services in another post. Suggestions and comments are welcome!

Manage Information Manage your Career

2009-02-16T16:30:00.001-06:00

Since my last presentation in January for a group of DNP students about how to use My NCBI to manage information, I had several individual literature searching consultation sessions with nursing PhD students. There is no doubt, all students are keen to learn how to conduct an effective literature search using scholarly resources. Set aside literature searches, one thing struck me the most was how to organize information once they were retrieved from either Internet sites or databases. It is like a product assembly-line process. The product won't be a finished product until you carry it out through to the finish line. Again I feel strongly for my saying managing information, managing your career. The ability and knowledge of managing information is critical in conducting research and even leading to career success.

Based on my own experience on using social bookmarking sites to organize information, I found the following sites serve me well for different purposes. I hope my experience can be of help in making decisions. There are many good tools out there that you might find them useful, too. So many choices! What to choose? The key is to get start seriously and devote some time getting to know the tools and stick to those met your needs.

Del.icio.us -- Collect general Web sites or Internet resources. It is a generic social bookmarking site that can bookmark almost everything from the Internet. I use this site to bookmark my favorite sites. Descriptions can be added to each bookmark.
2collab -- Manage journal articles especially those from Science Direct and Scopus. Unique features include pre-assigned research fields providing a way to browse and organize bookmarks in a broader subject than an individual tag, the ability to select bookmarks to create a new list, and the ability to create RSS feeds for any list filtered by groups or research fields. I use this site to collect journal articles and assign them to different groups. I also use this site to keep track of my published articles.
CiteUlike -- Manage journal articles. Unique features include the capability of uploading PDF files associate with the bookmarks so that they can be accessed from any computers. I use this site to collect and store PDF articles for future reading or for group projects. Another feature I like about CiteUlike is the article reviews written by site users. You can also write reviews about an article and share with others.

Other tools I use to organize information are services directly from database publishers.

My NCBI -- Organize references, create folders, and save searches while searching PubMed/Medline. My NCBI does several things for me: set up automatically email alerts or subscribe to RSS Feeds on topics I need to get updates on a regular basis, collect references and group them into topics and folders, save PubMed searches, and create my bibliographies.
My EBSCOhost -- Manage references, create collections, and save searches while searching CINAHL@EBSCOhost. I use My EBSCOhost to save CINAHL searches and assign references into different folders. I can also share the folders with my peers. My EBSCOhost is especially helpful when I can't use social bookmarking sites to bookmark an EBSCOhost article due to access issues.

Here came another question: "I have collected my references in several places. How am I going to pull them into one central location for my paper?" The solution is to log in each of these sites and export your references to reference manage software like EndNote and RefWorks.

I always believe finding the right tools to mange information can save time and boost productivity.

Cool Tools for Physicians and More

2009-02-08T14:43:00.004-06:00

There is a saying managing your credit, managing your life. My saying is managing information, managing your career. In today's information explosion era the ability to manage information effectively and efficiently is critical. I believe anyone who wants to be professional in their field needs to stay current and keep themselves up to date. To do so, a bag of cool tools is essential. I'm trilled after reading the Internet Cool Tools for Physicians by Melissa Rethlefsen, David Rothman, and Daniel Mojon. I would say those cool tools are not only put together for physicians, but for anyone who wants to be professional in their field. I found them useful, relevant, and interesting for my career as a medical librarian.

Earlier in March 2008, MLA host an eight-week online CE course Web 2.0 101: Introduction to Second Generation Web Tools to MLA members. Currently MLA Social Networking Software Task Force is offering CE opportunities entitled Dig Deeper with Social Media: short courses on emerging online tools for MLA members. The Southeastern Atlantic and Greater Midwest regions of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine also offered an online CE course, Geeks Bearing Gifts in both regions. What does all this for? It's a call for medical librarians to explore, experience, test, and discuss Web 2.0 technologies and Internet tools and its potential uses in medical libraries. Internet Cool Tools for Physicians takes a deep look at these cool and neat tools that are useful not just for physicians. I would suggest reading and even owing this book if you have these questions or if you are asked these questions:

Where to find comprehensive tips in searching Google from basics to Scholar?
How to use RSS feeds to keep current?
How to create a RSS feed for the information that doesn't offer it?
How to export Google Reader subscriptions to another aggregator?
How to combine multiple feeds into one single feed?
What if I still want RSS items delivered to me via email?
How to use iGoogle as a personalized start page?
What can a wiki do to meet a professional need?
How to create a live survey using Google Docs?
How to take notes on the Web pages I like and share with others?

Internet Cool Tools for Physicians provides answers to all these questions and those tools can make your life a lot more easy in the Internet world. I'm guessing the 2nd edition of the book will have have a section on micro-blogging in health care. While physicians, let's expand this group to health care professionals and health care educators, are using those cool tools, what medical librarians should do and can do in terms of providing library services? Medical librarians are challenged. This is not in the future, it is happening now whether you like it or not.

I love trying new stuff and believe good information should be shared. Since my library is undergoing financial difficulty, adding a book to the collection is hardly possible. I'm thinking of donating the book to the library and let more people benefit from those cool and neat tools.

Did Google Read Me?

2009-02-02T16:14:00.003-06:00

I didn't pay much attention to the new Google Reader layout since it came live until T. Scott's recent blog entry showed up on the right panel of my Google Reader. I don't think I had subscribed to his feed. Why did it show up in my reader? Digging deeper, I finally woke up. It was a recommendation list generated automatically by Google. According to Google, the recommendations list is automatically generated. It takes into account the feeds I've already subscribed to, as well as information from my Web History, including my location. Aggregated across many users, Google collects the information that it thinks I might be interested in. Isn't this scary? Where does Google go from here?

Personality, Interests, and Social Media

2009-01-02T08:39:00.018-06:00

Canadian medical librarian Dean Giustini's recent post wondered why not more Canadian librarians were on Twitter. I also have the same feeling here since most of my librarian friends are not on Twitter, either. Dean's post got me to think about whether there is a link between personality and social media. What is social media? I don't quite like the definition from Wikipedia, so I came up with my own version. Social media is composed of all sorts of Web 2.0 tools (e.g., blog, micro-blog, wiki, video, online photo sharing, social networking, and social bookmarking) that people use to interact with each other on the Internet. Social media provides a platform for users to generate content, share information, and communicate with each other.

It has been more than one year since I started exploring and experimenting Web 2.0 tools. I've been a blog reader for over a year. The blogs I subscribe to including those from librarians, library associations, med students, healthcare professionals, library school faculty members, and tech geeks. I'm on Twitter for a year following different people I'm interested in. My observation and experience told me that those who are active on social media have shared some common interests and personalities. I think this connection might explain something as to why some librarians are active while others are not in using social media to interact with library patrons or their peers.

People who are active on social media:

Love to share themselves online
Enjoy writing
Are willing to put effort and spend extra time to embrace new technologies
Are literal not conservative
Are eager to interact with people online
Are not afraid of inviting people into their solitude

Those are the group of people who are more likely to use social media to communicate with others online. Another key is interests. I always believe interests can motivate people to do the impossible. No interests, no motivation, let along participation. Consequently, they would never know the benefits and the goods of those tools and they would not think about applying the tools either to their work or to their personal life. Of course, there are other factors that might be in the way such as lack of time. Again, back to motivation. Interestingly, when people have no motivation doing something, they can easily find 100 excuses not doing it. This is just my personal observation and feelings. Shot me if I'm wrong.

5 Things for 2009

2009-01-01T11:34:00.007-06:00

It's so nice to have two weeks in a row staying home relaxing and catching up. 2008 is the Year of Rat and I'm one of the rat people. Looking back, I considered myself pretty lucky in the past year because I had worked so hard to achieve my goals. Here I am in the year of 2009. These are 5 primary things I will do or promise to do daily in the New Year.

1. Workout: 60 minutes a day and 250 miles (jogging) per week
2. Cooking and eating healthy food: 5 servings of fresh vegetables and
fruits per day
3. Writing: unlimited hours per week
4. Working on my photo gallery: 5 hours per week
5. Keeping in touch with my network: unlimited hours per week

You may wonder why I set unlimited hours for #3 and #4. Well, these two items are closely related to my career and professional development. The more I spend time on them the more I feel I'm rich. I'm happy and golden to do all these things in my daily routine. Luckiness will continue to be my friend in 2009, I believe.

Wishing everyone a healthy, happy, and prosperous 2009!

Going to Hawaii for MLA'09

2008-12-21T21:45:00.001-06:00

Great news! My paper abstract was accepted for presentation at MLA'09 in Hawaii. Sad news! I can't get any financial support from my institution. A few weeks ago, it was announced that all travel budget would be freeze for the coming year except travels essential to the university. I submitted my abstract in October hoping that the acceptance would provide me the first justification to go to the meeting as I always did in the past 5 years. However, economy has gone down so quickly that I have to consider paying my own way to attend the meeting.

Since I was on my current job in August 2003, I had been lucky to get full support from my library to attend two professional conferences each year. I really have nothing to complain about so far. In a few days I have to make the decision: to go or not to go. The major concern is how much I need to go to MLA'09 in Hawaii?

Airfare: $746, the cheapest ticket I could get from AA as of yesterday (December 20)
Hotel: $199 per night x 4 days=$796 + plus tax
Conference registration: $295 (Conference only)
Transportation and food: $200
I need at least $2000 !

I know this is the minimum $ for a trip to Hawaii. I might get some support from the LISTEN grant to cover portion of the travel. I'm thinking of other strategies that can reduce the cost such as rooming with two conference attendees, finding another cheaper hotel, shopping airfare plus hotel together, or using a travel agent to book tickets. I also have another plan in mind. Since this trip could be once-in-a lifetime, I have to satisfy my photography desire. Of course, that would increase my spending.

I am going to spend more time on the Internet looking for good deals during the holiday. I also hope to find good deals to Hawaii using Twitter.

Journey to Web 2.0 and Library 2.0

2008-12-15T10:52:00.002-06:00

I always enjoy trying new stuff, learning new stuff, and relating them to my work life and personal life. It has been more than one year since I started exploring and experimenting Web 2.0 tools. Overall, it has been an exciting learning experience. My exploration was put together in the slides below. You might have your own version with different views and feelings, the bad and the good?

Web2.0--A Medical Librarian's Version

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: librarians tools)

And here is my experience using Google Site to collaborate a committee work:

Professional Committee Work The Wiki Way

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: wiki web)

Twitters and Tweets

2008-12-09T11:10:00.001-06:00

I have been on Twitter for almost 8 months now and
I found it very interesting and amazing that people post information in less than 140 characters. The screen shot is a list of my top 10 favorite tweets ending at 11 am, Dec, 8, 2008.

From my perspective, what's good about twitter?

It feeds me with the information I need quickly and saves me time to look around
It trains me moving toward a networked librarian
It opens up a colorful virtual world and I see myself swimming with those smart and informed people
It tells me what my peers are reading, thinking, and experiencing
It inspires me in many ways both professionally and personally

When starting using Twitter, I felt a wast of time reading those updates. However, I also saw its potential and some benefits. It took me a while to decide whose updates I would like to follow. Yes. Doing homework is essential in order to know your niche and follow the right people to get the right information. Twitter is becoming attractive to me.

Are You a Networked Librarian?

2008-12-01T15:24:00.013-06:00

Wow! While watching this 5-minute YouTube video, the Networked Student, originally loaded by Wendy Drexler, I couldn't help thinking what library services academic libraries will provide and what kind of skills librarians should acquire in order to provide the services to the networked students of the 21st century.

I think a networked librarian, at least, knows how these things are functioning and get a feel of and understand how they are connected together to create learning opportunities:

Social networking (e.g., Facebook, Linkedin, MySpace)
Social bookmarking (e.g., Delicious, Digg, CiteUlike, Connotea, Foxmarks)
Blog, blogging, and microblogging (e.g., Twitter, FriendFeed, Pownce)
Photo sharing (e.g., flickr, Picasa, Kodak Gallery)
RSS feed Readers (e.g., Google Reader, iGoogle, Bloglines, My Yahoo!)
Online collaboration (e.g., Google Docs, Wiki)
Information sharing using all the online tools mentioned above.

If you a librarian and don't use those tools, how are you going to understand patron needs and provide library services in the networked learning environment? Maybe, you think it is too time consuming to get into the pool and learn to swim in the online world. However, if you don't get your feet wet, you will never know how to swim. I believe networked students need networked librarians. It depends on whether you want to be one and how you prepare yourself to be one.

Fun Stuff

2008-11-22T20:11:00.007-06:00

While reading The Krafty Librarian's recent post, I couldn't help putting my blog on the scale. Interestingly, Typealyzer also considered my blog as the type of ISTP-The Mechanics:

"The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters."

I think all it said is mostly true about me except the last sentence. I have never thought about driving race cars. Driving a stick shift Honda Element might be considered enjoying adventure but not the same as driving a race car. Working as policemen and firefighters has never come across my mind. I know, at least, one thing it didn't catch me: my dream career is to be a professional photographer.

I then tried entering several other blogs I enjoy reading frequently. The Myers-Brigg analysis on those blogs almost matched my judgment about those blogs' authors. It did tell something. At least, it told me what kind of blog I like to read: ISTP-The Mechanics.

As for the reading level of my blog, I'm shock. The Blog Readability Test classified my blog's reading level as Genius. This can't be true as English is not my first language.

All is for fun, though!

Dear Med Student

2008-11-20T12:41:00.006-06:00

Waiting, in vain, for a month hoping to get a reply from a 4th year med student who complained about our library catalog, I think I need to say something. Here is the email we received about a month ago:

"I am a 4th year med student and think the new library catalog format is garbage. I cannot get on pubmed or uptodate like I used to and when I search the catalog even simple basic medical concepts return little to no results. This is severely affecting my ability to gather information and is very discouraging when compared to other institutions access to appropriate research/educational material."

This kind of message would make every medical librarian restless and want to offer the best help they can. The student's complaint about the library catalog didn't worry me much because the new search interface is really simple and easy to use. I tried searching PubMed and UpToDate, both showed up in seconds at the very top of the search results with links to the databases. What struck me the most was something underneath the complaint--the student's information literacy skills and knowledge of researching the library. Obviously, the student had a hard time finding information he needed to complete his course assignments. Let me guess. He didn't know the difference between an online database and the library's catalog. It happened quite often when students with a list of readings from their professors came to the library to retrieve the full text articles, they started searching the catalog by entering the article titles to conduct the search. Of course, nothing came out. Another possible diagnosis. The student had a research topic for a course project. He wanted to know what literatures are available out there. He started searching the catalog. Of course, it would retrieve a list of books and journals, which made him frustrated because he couldn't go into each item to view the content.

Dear med student, if you could spare some time with a medical librarian either by phone, by email, by Live Chat, or drop by the library, your life would be much easier. The librarian would orientate you navigating the library and its resources and point you to the right direction where to look for what you need. Dear med student, don't let this happen again, contact your librarian.

My Story

2008-11-13T09:27:00.004-06:00

I was asked by CHILI (Careers in Health Information, Librarianship, and Informatics) project directors to blog about my experiences working in a library before I received my MLIS degree and how that experiences helped me to be what I am today. Imagine, I'm talking to a group of high school kids visiting my library hoping to inspire them to enter medical librarianship.

During the first semester in McGill Library School, I had no idea of what kind of libraries (i.e., special library, public library, academic library, and hospital library) I should set my feet on in the future. By the end of the first semester something happened that changed my career life. I failed in Dr. Beheshti's Information System Design, a required and core course for all Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) students. I lost 3 credits! I had a gloomy Christmas for the year 1999 pondering and reflecting how to be more effective and efficient in coping with the Winter 2000 required courses. I was told I must take another course to make up for the lost credits as soon as possible. The earliest chance I could have was Spring 2000 and the only available selective course was Health Sciences Information. I had no choice but registered for the course in order to get the 3 credits back. It turned out to be the turning point in my life. I pictured my career goal from vague to crystal clear by the time I competed the course. I knew what I wanted to be, a medical librarian, a health sciences librarian. I started building my career path by looking for any kind of part-time job or volunteer work or anything that would lead me in achieving my career goal. My every first experience was working as a volunteer in the Nurses' Library in Montreal General Hospital in Canada, part of the McGill University Health Center (MUHC). Another step I took was to take a Practicum and worked at Royal Victoria Medical Library. The Practicum gave me the opportunity to create current awareness program for doctors and physicians. Working 2-3 hours a week in the Nurses' Library, slowly and gradually, I touched almost every aspect of the library's functions from shelving to cataloging. The then librarian, Lynn Kiraly-Batist, was nice and professional, who inspired me and trained me to be a professional medical librarian. She showed me many of the things that were not taught in the library school.

By the time I received my MLIS degree in 2001, I was offered a part-time position as a research librarian working for McGill University School of Nursing. It was there I was given a lot of chances to conduct literature searches on medical literature for nursing faculty members. In 2002, after Mrs. Kiraly-Batist moved to another hospital library, I was hired to work solo and manage the Nurses' Library and worked on every aspect of the library including collection development, acquisitions, serials, cataloging, interlibrary loan services, reference and instructional services, training volunteers, recruiting and hiring library research assistants. These experiences helped me understand many of the health science resources either print or electronically and greatly enrich my professional knowledge as a medical librarian. They also laid a solid foundation for me to grow in the field of medical librarianship.

Being a reference librarian in a health sciences library is very challenged and this is the part I like most. Challenges always motivate me and inspire me to keep pursuing for career advancement. I have been active in serving on professional committees of the Medical Library Association (MLA) and Southern Chapter of the MLA, presenting posters and papers at professional conferences, writing and researching related to reference services, and networking with medical librarians across the country. Looking back, I'm grateful and happy for every little step and effort I have been taken to lead me to where I am today. I always believe working persistently towards one's goal will eventually lead you to what you want to be.

Echo: Feeling Responsible for Everything

2008-11-08T07:48:00.019-06:00

Have you ever had this nagging feeling as onellums expressed in ACRLog while working at the reference desk? We are lucky to have our Web team and Circulation to cove many of the requests and problems related to computers, printing system, and copy machines. Whenever we received those questions or requests, we would just do referral. However, I do receive other requests at the reference desk and probably I shouldn't fill:

Blank CDs and CD markers
Spoons and forks
Advil® ( I always keep a bottle in my office)
Tissues
Printing online articles
Retrieving a book from the shelf and put it at Circulation for them to pick up
Photocopying articles
PDFing articles from print collection

I, too, find myself easily get lost in the ephemera of students’ and faculty's needs! I was told we didn't provide these services, part of the reason was we were lack of people. My reason to take them up was pretty simple: It's hard for me to tolerate patrons leaving the library without getting what they need. I believe library is a great place and promoting the library starts with minor things we might not even consider important. However, little things mean something for each individual patron.

I always enjoy helping others and by doing so I get help, too. Does that make me a bad librarian? Does offering extra help go beyond my responsibilities?

Rachel 's Unstuck Strategies

2008-11-04T08:17:00.008-06:00

We sometimes got stuck no matter we were new to the profession or even at junior or senior level. At the Southern Chapter of the Medical Library Association (SC/MLA) Annual Meeting last week, Rachel Singer Gordon gave a wonderful speech about how to get unstuck when difficult episodes appeared. Here are her 12 strategies to get unstuck:

Set goal: realistic and small objectives
Address your own mindset: identifying negative thoughts and what drew you to the profession
Identify and overcome obstacles
Defeat the status with bias: trying one little change every week
Defeat procrastination: go back to your goals
Get by with a little help from your friends
Keep learning and innovating
Cultivate resilience and neoteny (carry youthful characteristic into adulthood)
Go around if you can't go forward
Realize that change is inevitable
Be proactive: don't sit around waiting
Work from a place of personal and professional power: realize your value and skills

Are you inspired?

Nursing Resources Wiki

2008-10-23T12:38:00.007-05:00

A few days ago, Pam Sherwill initiated a collaborative project on Nursing and Allied Health Resource Section Listerv. The project was to collect nursing resources freely available on the Internet. Very soon more than 80 NAHRS/MLA members responded and expressed interests in contributing to the project. I was motivated and deeply touched! Here is the wiki I created for the project.

Let's wish it grow and useful...

Hi! Doc, Do You Really Care V. 2

2008-10-22T17:45:00.010-05:00

A while ago, I blogged about my son's visit to a dermatologist. When it came to the date of the follow-up visit, I determined no matter how busy I was, I must go with him. My son was still hoping the doctor would prescribe him some kind of cream for his stretch marks. On the date of the office visit, we waited for two hours before seeing the doctor. We talked about those stretch marks again and complained the cream he prescribed last time was for dry and itchy skin. In addition it cost $60. I told the doctor it was unreasonable to pay $60 dollars for the cream. The doctor murmured to me or to himself he did not understand why the creams for stretch marks were so expensive. He went out for a while and came back with a piece of paper (see picture on the right). Obviously it was a $2 off coupon. On the coupon, words said "AmLactin XL Moisturizing Lotion Ultraplex Formulation. Locate behind pharmacy counter nationwide. Ask your pharmacist." The doctor asked my son to tried this over the counter cream and see how it worked. The appointment only took 3 minutes. We were scheduled a third visit.

With the $2 off coupon, I went to the pharmacy. I handed over the coupon to the gentleman at the drop-off window and asked him to check the price for me. Soon he returned with a box saying $29.99. I asked him what the cream mainly for. He explained that the ingredients information showed it was a heavy-duty moisturizer. I asked whether the cream was for stretch marks. He said he didn't see this information. I doubted whether he was a pharmacist and he said he was an intern. To make sure he gave me the correct information, he went to a real pharmacist and they both agreed the cream was only a superior moisturizer.

Here is the thing. My insurance paid $390 for the two visits while I paid $40. I didn't get the right medication and useful information. Did I purchase the cream? Nope! Hi! Doc, if you really care, tell the why and how. If you really care, give realistic suggestions. I canceled the 3rd appointment today. My son is still looking forward for a cream for the stretch marks.

Burnout

2008-10-03T18:10:00.007-05:00

With so many to do and only a few hours each day, I felt burnout at least for the past three years. Many a time, I could not get done what I planned to do from my to do list. Part of the reasons was it's sometimes hard to anticipate what I would be asked or requested to do from patrons. The requests could be from staffing the Reference Desk, or from Ask a Librarian email, or from phone call, or from my liaison departments. Some literature search requests could take me days to fill. In addition, career development, grant project, and exploring new services also needs lots of time, effort, and thought. I got to find a way out.

My recent strategy turned out pretty effective. Each day, prioritize a list of things from my to do list leaving enough room for unanticipated tasks. Once I got one item done, crossed it out. By the end of the day, even though I did not get to do what I planned to do, I could see on the sheet a couple of cross-outs. I did accomplish a lot in a day! Sometimes more than 10 items. Instead of feeling irritated due to burnout, I felt positive and good about myself. Meanwhile, I realized I can't do everything I wanted to do. It is OK to let go and say no.

My Wish list for My NCBI

2008-10-03T17:30:00.005-05:00

I have been a big fan of My NCBI since it was called Cubby. With the My NCBI redesigned came live, I have a couple of wishes.

Add features (i.e., export references, print, email, and save) within my Collections
Be able to choose to display all references in one page within my single collection instead of clicking on next page
Be able to delete my Saved Searches in My Saved Data section
Be able to delete my Saved Searches in Saved Search Settings, the page that can set up automatic email alerts
On My Saved Data page, add some text (i.e., delete and update searches) along with Manage my Saved Searches and Manage my Collections
Be able to add selected citations from my Collections to My Bibliography
Be able to add selected citations from PubMed search and add them to My Bibliography directly just like adding citations to my Collections from the Send button
Be able to edit my saved searches

Am I just stupid not aware of these features in the new My NCBI?

Web Search Strategies in Plain English

2008-09-24T04:32:00.003-05:00

Common Craft just released another video designed to help get more out of your web searches. Does it help for library patrons?

You are Invited to Take This Survey

2008-09-22T12:20:00.003-05:00

Are you a medical librarian? Please help me by taking this survey. The purpose of the survey is to explore the roles of health sciences librarians in enhancing and supporting evidence-based medicine (EBM) practice. Results will be reported only for research purposes. The survey will take no more than 10 minutes.

Here is the direct link to the survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=ghjbae2_2fJaeUMVJ_2bK7z0HA_3d_3d

The Joy of Collaboration, Teaching, and Learning

2008-09-13T16:13:00.002-05:00

As a health sciences librarian, I consider myself pretty lucky to be given the chance to co-teach with Dr. Cynthia Russell in a 2 credit course: NSG505 Informatics for Healthcare since 2006. In the previous two years, part of the class that I was involved in was assisting students researching and searching for information on WebQuest clinical topics. As for 2008 class, we challenged the students to research on the current hot topics in healthcare: never events. The assignment was the development of a comprehensive wiki page focused on a specific never event or never events in general (25% of course grade) of their choice. More than 70 students signed up for 28 never event topics with three in a group each researching on background information about a never event, the effects of a never event from different perspectives (e.g., family, healthcare professionals, healthcare facilities, and insurers), and other arguments or supportive strategies a never event should or should not be on the list. The challenge for students came from two aspects: searching for relevant and quality information to answer questions, and synthesizing and conveying the information onto a wiki page. This offers a great opportunity for students to demonstrate how well their information technology (IT) competencies and information literacy (IL) competencies were as most of them belong to Generation Y. As they think they are computer savvy, when it comes to research and professional activities, are they as good as they claim to be?

During the course students looked for information and worked on their wiki pages, I was swamped, crazy, but happy to help them. Especially the few days before the due date, I received more than 90 email requests, provided more than 20 one-on-one consultations, and got more than 20 SMS messages. In addition, I delivered mini-talks before each face-to-face class on library skills and tips on searching for information using library resources and online resources. The assignment itself was also a challenge to the instructors. We designed just-in-time guides, tutorials, and handouts put on the course wiki page and Blackboard to help students with searching and finding related information. We also brought in a nursing PhD student to assist students in locating information for their assignments. The nursing faculty, the health sciences librarian, and the nursing PhD student have only one goal in mind: help students to achieve success.

I was inspired and impressed as the course moved forward, especially the two learning just-in- time modules developed by Dr. Russell: Searching for Web Resources and Distinguishing Types of Literature. When librarians develop online tutorials or subject guides, they always ask themselves what their patrons need. Few has the answer and just do it out of their own creativity and assumptions. I think these two narrated slide presentations give librarians some ideas on what the students need and what the teaching faculty expect of librarians.

What I have learned from the teaching faculty included innovative ways in using technology to deliver teaching content; creative teaching methods to engage students in learning and critical thinking; and enthusiasm in guiding and helping students. Seeing students grow I feel myself grow, too.

Google Chrome

2008-09-09T20:33:00.003-05:00

I always like to play with new stuff. It's been a few days since Google Chrome was launched, I could not wait to try it. As I'm using a Mac at work, I have to try it at home on a PC. It was not as impressive and exciting as it was claimed to be. I ran into some problems. I was not able to install bookmark adds-on. Each time I clicked on Download, it opened a .xpi file. I followed the instructions and still couldn't get it down. After several attempts, I got tired. I ran into another problem. After I logged in my Google email account, I was not able to see any of the email messages. The whole window was frozen and then a small window appeared giving me two options: Kill it or Wait. I tried both and still couldn't get the page open. Sigh! Am I using the wrong browser?

Google Reader in Plain English

2008-09-03T11:04:00.005-05:00

Hoping it had more information about Google Reader. Thinking this might be a good introduction to old baby boomers who like emails.

Hi, Doc! Do you Really Care?

2008-08-24T18:36:00.004-05:00

Last week, my son had to see a dermatologist for some red stretch marks developed around and under his arms. I didn't go with him as I was at work. Later I asked my son how was the doctor's visit and what the doctor said. I really expected the doctor would say something that a teenage would take as professional advice or opinion. My son handed over me two pages of information with doctor's two check marks under Striae Distensae. My son told me the doctor was going to give him some cream for those marks. From a medical librarian's eye, it looked like the two pages were photocopied from a book chapter called "Abnormalities of Dermal Fibrous and Elastic tissue." The information obviously was written for health care professionals not for patients. I asked my son whether he read the information. He said nope. I asked again whether the doctor told him why he developed those marks. He answered nope. The only word from the doctor as he could remember was he would have some cream for the marks.

Ok. As a teenager, my son might have memory problem. However, what concerns me is the information the doctor distributed to the patient. Hi! doctors, if you really care, customize the information for your patient. If you really care, use patient pamphlets not photocopy the medical book pages. If you really care, take some time and look through these trusted health information recommended by the Medical Library Association. Your patients would really appreciated your care.

Conference Goes for Green

2008-08-21T10:11:00.003-05:00

A few days ago, I had a chat with a friend who is going to present at LITA National Forum. She told me LITA would provide a flash drive containing a complete set of handouts for each Forum attendee. I think this is an excellent idea. If MLA or our Chapter Annual Meeting could do the same, it would be much appreciated by many of the members. At least it will save time, money, and paper to print out handouts either for the conference or after the conference.

Another Podcast Live

2008-08-08T08:56:00.003-05:00

Thanks to our summer interns Xin and Treshain, the podcast I created on searching the online catalog was updated with screen shots.

It's Because I'm an Expert

2008-07-26T15:42:00.012-05:00

Stephanie's recent post, What Do Faculty Want of Librarians, got me looking back the past 6 years since I became an academic health sciences librarian. These are the things faculty members enjoyed having a connection with me, a health sciences librarian:

Get full text articles, print or electronic, at the point of need.
Conduct literature searches on their projects and research topics.
Update their course materials each year.
Update their dissertation references on a regular basis. Some of them are working on their PhD degrees while teaching in the departments.
Teach their students on how to use the library's resources to complete course assignments.
Create workshops tailed to a specific group of students.
Set up automatically email alerts on their research topics or on their favorite journals' TOCs.
Send out brief news, tips, and resources related to their fields.

In the past two years, I have been the library liaison to 9 academic units, including 2 colleges, 4 departments, and 3 divisions. I felt grateful and honored to be invited to co-teach with a nursing faculty in Informatics for Healthcare since 2006. I'm also a team member in this nursing information literacy grant--LISTEN. I felt I'm not quite understood as an academic librarian, though. I've tried to find ways to promote what I can do for the faculty and my departments. This comes back to Stephanie's invitation and question: "what can you do to help your department?"

Twitter for Medicine and Health

2008-06-22T16:50:00.005-05:00

Curious about Twitter and its use in medicine and healthcare? PF. Anderson's slides give you a good review.

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Mashups & API: Last Week Assignments!

2008-04-30T15:01:00.010-05:00

1. Pick a mashup… any mashup
The medical mashups reviewed in Allan Cho's article are good examples. I tried to find some more related to medical or health and ended up getting several dead links. Then I had to pick any mashup. I searched the programmableweb and found Adactio Elsewhere. I like it. The author put together a variety of personal information from across the web in one place via Ajax scripting and the APIs from Upcoming.org, Flickr, Amazon, and Del.icio.us. Under one roof, you can browse author's Flickr pictures, Amazon wish list, the newest links he tagged on Magnolia, his incoming events, and RSS feeds from his friends and colleagues. Cool!

2. What these bloggers said about privacy?
The search yielded 9570 results. On the first search results page (20 results), none of the librarian bloggers talked about "privacy" in their blog posts. Instead, the commercial sites about free credit reports and privacy protection software appeared three times on the page. Do I need to go to the next page? No. It was not worth browsing further more. This made me think why the search was not able to retrieve relevant results? This also motivated me to create a search roll using Rollyo-- I'm My Own Doctor: searching for health information from 20+ trusted Web sites I selected. I tested a few search on my newly created search roll, I'm satisfied with the results. However, I still can't find the answer to the question.

My Podcast

2008-04-23T16:53:00.001-05:00

Just loaded one podcast on my library's site. Click here to listen.

Podcasting and Online Hosted Video

2008-04-21T08:46:00.004-05:00

Podcasting has great potentials for library instruction and library resource promotion. Our library has been doing podcasting since 2007. They are less than 5-minute audio and video files that summarize the highlights of library workshops and orientations. Podcasts include information on health information resources, database search strategies, literature and resource guides, Internet safety tips, general orientation to the library, etc. Patrons can view the podcasts on their computers or download them to their iPods or MP3 players. RSS feed is enable for subscription by using the most popular feed readers (e.g, Google Reader, Live bookmark, My Yahoo, and Bloglines).
YouTube is another way for promoting library resources and library services.
Discover Information Literacy is one of the videos I like:

Online Photo Sharing

2008-04-15T12:39:00.007-05:00

As more and more people use online photo sharing tools, they could be an effective way to promote library and library resources. Have a look at this library slide show in Flickr . I use Flickr to create two photo galleries. All the pictures that were tagged with Computer in Libraries 2008 and libraries from Flickr show in my blog.

Here are some of the libraries and library associations that have presences on Flickr:
ALA
Abilene Public Library
ACRL
Boston Public Library
Library of Congress
University of Vermont
UTHSC Library
Waukee Public Library
Yale Science Libraries

I believe there are much more out there.

Web Office Tools

2008-04-07T16:31:00.001-05:00

Considering the fact that these tools facilitate collaboration and document sharing, they have great potential in the future. Google Doc is an excellent example. It integrates email, calendar, contacts, documents, PPT, and spreadsheets under one roof. However, security is always an issue. Make sure to back up documents somewhere else.

Steps to Create My NCBI Collection while Searching PubMed/Medline

2008-04-05T14:44:00.002-05:00

On April 4, 2008, PubMed released adding Collections to the Send to drop-down menu . Users don't have to send their references to Clipboard before sending to Collections. This was a great improvement. You can search PubMed and add what you want to your Collections or create new Collection. This slideshow will demo the howto.

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JAMA Weekly Video

2008-04-04T20:43:00.002-05:00

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) produces a weekly video report. I just learned how to embed it on the blog.

Social Bookmarking

2008-03-31T09:22:00.008-05:00

I started using del.icio.us in Nov. 2007 when my office computer had some problem and automatically removed all my bookmarks in IE, Firefox, and Safari. Now I don't have to bookmark my favorite sites in several computers. Believe it or not I use several computers on a daily basis: two at the reference desk, one PC and one Mac in my office, and one Mac and one PC laptop at home. del.icio.us helps me organize my bookmarks in one central location and I can access them whenever I want. I also use 2collab to organize research articles. When I was in Scopus or ScienceDirect, just one click, the article citations will be bookmarked in my 2collab site.

So, what do social bookmarking tools mean to libraries and library patrons? Our Reference & Outreach Department created a delicious account hoping that it can be served as a resource portal for reference staff. This site is still under development. Another project I have been working on is LISTEN grant. The project team created a delicious site to organize useful Web sites and provide easy access to its users. An online presentation, "Using a Social Bookmark Site to Assist in Diffusion of Online Information to Support Professional Practices", will talk about our experiences with a social bookmarking site as a means of providing a central repository for online information related to information literacy and evidence-based practices in nursing. It will be presented at the 13th TCC Worldwide Online Conference in April 15-17, 2008.

Is social bookmarking all that good? What is the other side of the world? When bookmarked article citations on campus, it's better to find the citations to add to your site from free PubMed if available, otherwise, you would be frustrated. On campus bookmarks to articles will give you access to full text articles the library subscribed to while you tried to access them off-campus, the access would be denied.

Potential for research assistance? It might be helpful and useful to create interest groups using social bookmarking tools such as 2collab, CiteULike, or Connotea. Then invite faculty members to participate in the group activities. Social bookmarking tools can also be used to created subject guides for different group patrons such as nursing, pharmacy, medicine, occupation therapy... I might have a try.

FlickrSLiDR--Cool!

2008-03-29T20:05:00.013-05:00

flickrSLiDR allows you to easily embed the classic flickr slideshows on your blog. I just did it to slide show some pictures about my library

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Blogs and wikis created by medical librarians

2008-03-24T20:20:00.002-05:00

It's inspired and interesting to see those blogs and wikis created by MLA members. There are so many creative and amazing minds out there!

Social Networking Tools

2008-03-23T20:41:00.005-05:00

It's been lots of fun exploring social networking tools like MySpace, Facebook, and Linkedin. The questions are:

How can social networking be used by MLA to connect members?

Social networking tools provide an unlimited virtual space for people to connect with each other. MLA can take this advantage to connect its members such as creating online forums, working groups, or interest groups, organizing meetings, setting up recruitment booth, promoting MLA stuff, etc.

Should your library have a Facebook or MySpace page?

Definitely! It provides another venue for libraries and librarians to reach out to their users and promote library resources and library services. As more and more users have presence in Facebook or MySpace and use those tools to communicate with other people, libraries should also have a space or presence there.

Are there privacy concerns for individuals when using social networking sites?
Yes. Privacy is always a big concern in the virtual space. It is effortless for the Internet constantly collect and aggregate personal information. Website managers can easily record and track users' every action, which can lead to legal consequences. Before signing up for each site, make use how personal information is collected and used. Users need to have a second thought what to put and what not to put up there.

What did you like or not like about your experience with Facebook or MySpace?
I like the fact that people, either friends or non-friends, can meet and connect instantly without geographical limitation. What I don't like? It could be addictive and it could be time consuming to build a good profile and interact with people in a regular basis. If my library has a space there, I can't imagine who can invest so much time to monitor its activities and hold users' interest.

Hopefuly, in the near future, monitoring library's social networking sites is included in librarians' daily routine responsibility just like staffing the reference desk and providing library instructions. More research needs to be done as to how libraries can grow and interact with their patrons in the virtual environment.

A blog vs. a wiki

2008-03-19T11:32:00.004-05:00

The blog owner writes and publishes their stories or posts and has full control over the blog content. Blog readers can only comment on the posts. They can not edit blog content. What's good for a blog -- library news, new resource updates, and library services. A wiki allows users to easily create and edit content. Wikis are often used for group collaboration and everyone can contribute. What's good for a wiki - subject guides, e-profiles, department notebook, etc.

RSS feeds at the library

2008-03-10T12:56:00.008-05:00

RSS could be used in several ways at the library. RSS feed for library newsletter to tell people what is happening in the library. RSS feed for new books to alert library patrons about new books at the library. RSS feed for library podcast. On a frequent basis, our library produces podcasts on a series of topics in using library resources. Patrons can register to get updates on new podcasts. RSS feed for database topic searches and alerts to journals' latest table of contents.

Library patrons can use RSS feeds to organize information and keep current on their research area, such as get updates about news, stay current on topics of their interest, collect blogs of their interest and share information with their colleagues, etc. RSS feeds can bring all the latest information in one location and save time to search for the information in databases or the Web again and again.

Lots of potentials using RSS feeds for librarians to explore. The question is "if we build them and promote them, are they going to be used?" Changing patrons behavior of organizing information is a hard shell. Breaking the shell needs time and effort. Even among librarians, many have never used Web 2.0 tools to organize information either personally or professionally, let along implementing and persuading patrons to try new things.

I believe Web 2.0, the new generation of web services, will play an important role in the future of library services. Whether we like it or not, it will change the way libraries provide services.