Interview – Roxanne Cox - CHIRS/Reference

One of the main focal points of my interview with Roxanne Cox, was the CHIRS program. This program “Consumer Health Information Resource Service” is a reference service for consumer health questions that are posed by Nebraska residents. An integral portion of the electronic portion of the practicum, CHIRS is a fascinating look at a very specialized reference approach.

In the discussion of the evolution of this program, Roxanne noted that CHIRS started only as a referral service and evolved beyond that to the program that it is today. When a Nebraskan has a consumer health question and it is relayed through CHIRS, the librarian fielding the question researches the literature that is available in both they lay collection, and in the professional literature. The exact needs of the consumer are determined by fairly typical reference interviews, even though the subject material seems anything but typical (from my perspective). The result is a tailored package of information that is provided to the consumer free of charge.

Satisfaction surveys over the last year indicate that most people are satisfied with this program. Roxanne believes the webpage could be better and that it oscillates between population and information professionals as its audience. Web content is done by an in-house web committee, but there is no dedicated staff for web design or content.

She notes that all reference staff answer questions, but the one reference staff member who is an MD as well as a librarian probably has a larger share of the program than the others, utilizing her credentials.

The CHIRS program also has a physical book collection with is the only general public circulation collection. In the past this collection has been heavily borrowed and loaned, but that number is decreasing, presumably with the rise of electronic resources. The collection is still maintained and kept current, however.

The whole program receives about 40-50 requests per month, currently. This is a drop from a high of 110 per month, before the unveiling of the Medline Plus database. The remaining questions, however, and much more complicated, resulting in an almost identical time commitment, despite the drop in numbers. Roxanne was very clear that the reference staff must be very careful not to overstep the need for balanced information, and must not dispense medical advice, only information.

Outside of CHIRS, the general reference department is staffed M-F from 8-5. There re 3 reference librarians, including herself. All other library faculty also rotate on the reference desk. There has been discussion about the possibility of a single service point within the library.

Virtual reference was experimented with for approximately 2 years, then a return to email was made. Chat reference has yet to be implemented.

As is the case in many academic libraries, walk-ins have decreased. It is interesting to note, however that there has been a 70% increase in literature searches.
Reference Departmental Website: http://www.unmc.edu/library/services/reference.html

Interview – Terry Hartman - Education

My first interview of this day was with Terry (Teresa) Hartman, the head of the Education Department at McGoogan. Head is a deceptive term, since she seems to do just about any and all of what might be required for this area. I came away from this interview with pages more notes, ideas, and thoughts than I had from just about any I’d met so far, and I’m sure that this summary does not do the volume of information I was presented justice. As in all of these summaries, I’ll state up front that any errors or misrepresentations are certainly my own.

No discussion of this interview would be complete without me noting one of my favorite new blogs, http://libeducation.blogspot.com. In this blog, Terry frequently puts together interesting user education resources for librarians. A very fun site, and one that should be added to everyone’s favorite list.

In talking about the role of education and outreach, one of the more fascinating statements was the education is everything that a library does. Simple, direct, and startingly true. My perspective as a circulation and collections/facilities person hasn’t led me much into the education sphere, but this statement is a profound and direct take on the state of modern librarianship. She notes that education does not start and end with her position, each librarian is expected to teach.

The work done by Terry also stresses not only bibliographic instruction and that sort of “education”, but also the outreach efforts of the UNMC libraries. This includes both an attempt to better move into the curriculum of the Medical Center, but the promotion of the library and of its tools to various entities throughout the mission of UNMC. A daunting task, in my opinion. She works against the segregation of the libraries from the other academic units, and indeed appears to work against the self-imposed departmental segregation that seems to come naturally to just about every public and academic library that I have seen.

As a result of this daunting set of tasks, she is in charge of all the publicity and promotion of the UNMC libraries, including orientations, national library week, etc. In short, her job is to creation information believers, not just users.

Education Departmental Website: http://www.unmc.edu/library/services/education.html

General discussion

My practicum is divided into both on-site and off-site days. The off-site days are devoted to the development of the electronic tools (more on that in a different post). The on-site days are a series of meetings, interviews, etc. (as indicated by my posting from the previous on-site visit; and discussion and work concerning the off-site days material.

One of the most fascinating things about the first part is the chance to meet a series of individuals and talk about not only their jobs, but themselves. Getting to know them as more than simply librarians (though we know that there is no such thing as a simple librarian!). I cannot express the gratitude I have for each of these professionals taking time from their work to discuss not only their shop, but the profession as a whole, both inside and outside medical libraries. It is a kindness that I hope to repay when I hopefully find myself in their shoes, as I progress in my career.

A return to work!

Sorry for the delay in posting updates, I have just recently returned from a several week vacation wherein the 1500 person event that I have been involved in preparing, came to fruition. It was an outdoor event, so in addition to the usual scheduling and site problems that a large event/conference brings, we also had Missouri weather, portable toilets, and refuse haulers to contend with.

Lots of good experience, and now I'll get back to posting updates, starting with a recap of my last visit to UNMC.

Disussion of Project details

Day 1 – Part 2

As part of the practicum, the second part of which was stated as “ the participant will be asked to use Zoho, which, like Google Applications, is a a web-based productivity suite. . . . [the] project will be to create several pages in a notebook which can ultimately be sent to hospital libraries, public libraries, and others to show consumer health resources in Nebraska.”

In the afternoon, I met with Marie Reidelbach and Marty Magee about the specifics of this project. Having designed a number of web pages in the past, I felt like the move towards a more Web 2.0 project would be very fascinating, specifically given the focus of the project. Using these tools to develop more awareness of resources dovetails nicely with some of the experiences in the past, creating tools, and pushes the envelope quite a bit with content and the technological interface.

The conversation covered potential formats, such as the order of various slides and the types of content and layout. Previous to this conversation, I had begun working with Zoho, in anticipation for this project, so I had some idea of the directions that were available to us. I was also provided with a variety of information on the various resources to examine outside of the discussion time.

After defining a more specific audience (public libraries), we discussed the tools we wished to emphasize. These are: Medline Plus, GoLocal Nebraska, and CHIRS, as well as sections on additional web resources and some discussion on the evaluation of websites. We discussed a variety of easily available software including Fireshot (a Mozilla app for screenshots) and a tutorial builder.

We concluded with a discussion of the calendar and the order in which the project would be completed. I felt that my previous web design experience was of tremendous value in this part of the project. Next session I’ll have some more in-depth meetings with Marie, and the Education and Reference departments to discuss the various services and databases to be included in this project. After that, I feel that I will be able to go from experimenting with the software to beginning actual design processes.

Literature Review

Whitcomb, M. (2006, April). The future of academic health centers. Academic Medicine, 81,(4), 299-300.

Dr. Woefl provide this particular article in part to illustrate some of the changes facing academic health centers such as UNMC. Obviously, as part of the educational instruction at UNMC, the UNMC libraries is directly challenged by the changing face of not only libraries but the hospitals, faculty and students that they serve.

Dr. Whitcomb notes that “there are good reasons for believing that in the not-too-distant future, a growing number of students and residents will be learning clinical medicine outside of AHC’s” (para. 3). The main thrust of this article is the way in with the redesign of medical core training, as well as specialized training will move out of the teaching hospital environment and into ambulatory care.

The result for academic health centers as outlined by Dr. Whitcomb is the hiring of physicians from outside the institution to provide care, or using clinical faculty to provide service. More importantly from the academic health center library perspective, however (not mentioned by Dr. Whitcomb) will be the accessibility of information by these residents and students. Already, we have discussed in my practicum the digital gulf that many scholarly communication licensing agreements have on different constituencies of the libraries. How will this outsourcing of students affect that?

The long and short of this article is the rapidly changing face of medical education within the current medical environment. It will indeed to interesting to see how academic health center libraries respond to these changes.

UNMC Strategic Planning - Dr. Nancy Woefl

For the first actual face-to-face part of my practicum experience, I had an extended meeting with Dr. Nancy Woefl for an administrative overview of UNMC libraries, which included strategic planning, fiscal control, and development. So many of the financial aspects did not have time to be developed, so we are looking at a future meeting to discuss finances and other such aspects in more detail.

First, I have to say I was very impressed with Dr. Woefl, and the amount of time that she dedicated to my practicum, already. Having worked with many facets of administration in the past, I realize the enormity of a 4 hour scheduling block by a director of an academic library. No small feat, in and of itself. My desire to understand more of the academic health library and its administration was certainly addressed in this session. The conversation and presented materials ranged over a wide variety of subjects, and I hope to address some of the highlights in this post, though I would be remiss to use this blog as a complete portrayal of the fascinating conversation.

This most interesting aspect that I walked away from this was the understanding of the multiple constituencies and “masters” that are involved in the UNMC situation. Serving an academic institution and a private hospital is no easy task. Something made further complicated by things such as licensing issues and academic appointments. One of the most intriguing facets of the an academic health library was the emphasis on the medical patient. In other academic libraries, both that I have worked in and studied, no other library seems to have the immediate and important constituency. For example, a literary analysis (of which I have done many) might lack a resource, but that lack does not result in the possibility of loss of life.

I had expressed an interest in strategic planning, no small part as a result of the excellent course on that very subject that I had completed the previous semester at Mizzou (Bossaler, LeBeau, and Robinson as instructors). The most fascinating part of strategic planning at UNMC libraries was its role within the strategic plan at UNMC overall. More than once, the referral to the process as an independent “juggernaut” was made. One that the libraries were required to participate in, and sync with. Each of UNMC’s goals were also the libraries goals, though specific steps and particular foci were the result of the individual departments applicability to such. How each department met these goals, how they were benchmarked, etc. varied, and it was interesting to discuss both the historical and proposed changes to such.

One of the most interesting approaches was the UNMC libraries examination of the strategic issues as outlined by the parent organization, then surveying the staff for ways to address these issues. In order to make sense of the many, many methods provided, the results of the staff discussions were placed the site “Survey Monkey” (http://www.surveymonkey.com/). The results of this survey were then placed into a “cost-benefit grid” to identify which solutions were both fiscally feasible and had maximum impact. These refined results, then served as the basis of the institutional priorities and planning for the libraries.

As mentioned previously funding was briefly discussed, and further discussions with be taking place to more completely understand the totality of this subject. We briefly reviewed the 40-50 individual cost centers which fund the libraries, and began discussing the role the Foundation plays in funding the libraries. We also briefly discussed state funding the tax situation in Nebraska and how they effect the UNMC libraries.

Of course, financial aspects are not the only pressures that the UNMC libraries face. Like all libraries, the explosion of digital information and the scholarly publishing crisis affect UNMC libraries greatly. Of especial interest in this area is the recent NIH (National Institutes of Health) mandate for the deposit of publicly funded grant research in the digital commons. More information on this can be found at: http://www.nih.gov/icd/od/ocpl/index.html. This publication requirement places additional stresses on the UNMC libraries in their role as interfaces between the academic and private medical communities and scholarly communication.