With funding and assistance from the School of Medicine, the HSL First Floor will be renovated, beginning this summer. The existing computer lab and stack area will be transformed into an information commons area that will also function as a computer-based testing center when needed for that purpose. A new computer instruction room, two new conference rooms, and expanded first floor restrooms are also part of the plan.

Books classified A through V are being relocated on third floor, while remaining books will be shelved in a compact shelving area that will be created along the west wall on first floor. Print journals have been compressed on third floor, and we will add only the bound volumes for those titles that we must still purchase in print.

The first floor renovation will also include improved heating and cooling for the entire building.  On first floor, improved lighting and a noise masking system to aid concentration will be installed. The renovation schedule has not yet been finalized, but we have an estimate for completion in November, 2011.

Darell Schmick had a “resource tip”  article published in the February issue of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Library newsletter:

http://hslibrary.ucdenver.edu/newsletter/archives/appendixFEB11.html#6 (adapted from his presentation here last fall)

Stop by the Health Sciences Library’s table at the 4^th Annual Women’s Wellness fair! The fair will take place on March 4^th from 11:00 am to 1:30 pm in Memorial Union. There will be healthy snacks and information from more than 20 campus and community organizations. The event is free and open to MU students, faculty and staff. Hosted by the Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Women.

Barbara Jones recently attended the Diagnostic Errors in Medicine Conference in Toronto.

Poster presentation  –  “Hospital Surveys: Health Sciences Libraries Influence Patient Care” (authors  – Deborah Ward, MaryEllen Cullinan Sievert, Dirk Burhans and Barbara Jones)

Panel presentation – “Can Evidence-Based medicine Help Reduce Diagnostic Error?” (Barbara Jones)

Barb Jones and Rebecca Graves presented papers at the 84^th Annual American School Health Association Conference in Kansas City, MO.

“Information Literacy Skill-Building in School Nursing Practice”  Louise Miller, Marjorie Cole, Barbara Jones and Rebecca Graves.

“Communicating About Health Literacy: Empowering Individuals, Systems and Society” Susan Centner and Barbara Jones.

In collaboration with colleagues at Texas A&M and Washington State, Trenton Boyd and Kate Anderson have published the 3^rd edition of the Basic List of veterinary serials.

Ugaz AG, Boyd CT, Croft VF, Carrigan EE, Anderson KM. Basic list of veterinary medical serials, third edition: using a decision matrix to update the core list of veterinary journals. J Med Libr Assoc. 2010 Oct;98(4):282-92. PubMed PMID: 20936066.

Available in PubMed Central: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2947140/

On October 9, the HSL Research Team took first place among the research posters presented at the Midcontinental Chapter of the Medical Library Association Annual Meeting in Wichita, KS. The poster presents data from the first group of four hospitals that participated in the study.  All of the hospital librarians who participated are listed as co-authors.

The poster, “Views of the Library:  A Regional Study in Selected Missouri and Colorado Libraries,” by Deborah Ward, MA, MLS; MaryEllen Cullinan Sievert, MLS; Ph.D.; Dirk Burhans, Ph.D.; Barbara Jones, MLS; Margaret Bandy, MLS; Jerry Carlson, MLS, AHIP; Sandy Decker; Holly Henderson,  MA, has been submitted to MOspace for archiving. It has been posted on the wall in the HSL Conference Room, and you are welcome to come see it if you prefer that to viewing it online.

For background, the study was carried out in three phases.

1.     Preliminary studies conducted with the MU Departments of Child Health, Internal Medicine, and Family & Community Medicine gave us positive data and the confidence to extend the methodology beyond our institution.

2.     A similar study at the University of Colorado at Denver (as a comparator to the MU HSL), fostered the study of two hospitals in Missouri and two hospitals in Colorado for the collection of comparable data. The poster that won the award is a product of the four hospital studies.

3.     Additional studies at the hospitals of interested librarians in the six-state region served by the Midcontinental Region of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine are now in progress.

Findings from these studies are valuable for the advocacy efforts of Barb Jones, whose special project area for the region is library advocacy. This work is important because hospital library closure is a reality faced by health sciences librarians. The health care climate is one in which value must be presented to decision-makers in order to receive continuing funding. Our goal is to publish articles that hospital librarians in our region, and beyond, can use to highlight their value to their administrators.

MaryEllen Sievert and Dirk Burhans have an established record of supporting practicing librarians here at MU in library research, and we hope that they will be willing to shift their focus to support the broader research needs of the MU Libraries in the future.

Submitted by Deb Ward, 10/14/10

Stanley Choi, candidate for the HSL Information Services Librarian position, will give his presentation on Monday, Oct. 11, from 10-11, 330 HSL. The topic is: Pretend that you are talking to a group of clinicians, and teach them some of the differences between Google Scholar and PubMed, and when to use each.

Miller Louise C; Graves Rebecca S; Jones Barbara B; Sievert Maryellen C
Beyond google: finding and evaluating web-based information for community-based nursing practice.
International journal of nursing education scholarship 2010;7(1):Article31