Thursday, June 17, 2010

Money is coming down from HHS to improve the primary care workforce, according to this story from California Healthline: http://www.californiahealthline.org/articles/2010/6/17/hhs-pledges-250m-to-strengthen-primary-care-work-force-nationwide.aspx.
They are outlining plans to create additional residency slots for primary care. I sure hope that someone is planning to use some of the funding to increase medical library-based access to point-of-care and evidence-based medicine information resources for these additional 500 professionals in training...please say that information resources will also be supported, please?? I really want these (and all health) professionals to have their brain cells renewed through information access.
4 Reasons Why the Library Should Affect Your College Choice http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2010/06/17/4-reasons-why-the-library-affects-your-college-choice.html
Jeff Greer of US News has written my article for me. When I give tours of our medical library to prospective students (ranging from 7th grade up to graduate students), I ALWAYS stress that they should look at the libraries when they tour campuses, and give our library's features for comparison. Individual study rooms, wireless access throughout, student and public computers, copy machines (yes, they are still needed) with copy service (so the students are not required to step inside the library), 24/7 access through the web site, free search service (it is not asking us a favor to request a search - it is our job, and what we went to graduate school to do, funny enough), one-on-one education opportunities so that we can adapt best to the students' schedule... all of that and more. Students could purchase a house with the money they spend on education - they should consider the library their living room, central to their academic career. If they don't make use of the library effectively, it is like they never left the porch of their house.

I am so lucky to work with a team of librarians that believe in service - to the point that we strive to be the librarians we never had and wished for during our own academic careers.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Story about embedded librarians at Johns Hopkins in the USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-06-09-IHE-embedded-librarians-Johns-Hopkins09_ST_N.htm
Another post about the UC libraries and faculty protesting Nature's price hike:
http://today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/uc-libraries-faculty-protest-proposed-160117.aspx

Thursday, June 10, 2010

A book of interest to librarians, since we serve our fellow humans who utilize networks to interact with us and each other:
Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, by Clay Shirky
-link to Amazon listing: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400116813/

-coverage on the book in BoingBoing: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/10/clay-shirkys-cogniti.html

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Library news -

1. California libraries gearing up to fight Nature
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/06/california-libraries-gearing-up-for-fight-against-nature.ars
The news is also posted on a Nature blog: http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2010/06/uc_threatens_systemwide_boycot.html

2. National Academies sees libraries as leaders in data preservation: http://www.wo.ala.org/districtdispatch/?p=4954

Sunday, June 06, 2010

Hang in there, Glamouramama v(^_^)v Boa - not all librarians are like the one you ran into in February:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glamboa/4323952999/.

During these days of eliminated positions and slashed budgets, we must remember to work together to meet the mission, not eat our own. And good work can be done on Facebook, Twitter, Google News, BoingBoing, in front of the candy machine, when getting coffee and/or water - it is called networking.

Thursday, June 03, 2010

Our students usually head to Wikipedia at some time or other. Here is a blog entry about recent research on the validity of cancer information on Wikipedia - you may want to share the findings with your students during upcoming orientations:

Wikipedia Cancer Info Passes Muster
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkup/2010/06/wikipedia_cancer_info_passes_m.html?wprss=checkup

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

A primary school in Manchester, England, is testing a new method of checking out books - by using childrens' thumbprint scans serve as their identity to check out books: Children, 4, 'to be fingerprinted to borrow school books from library' http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7771112/Children-as-young-as-4-to-be-fingerprinted-to-borrow-school-books.html.
The story says this comes after a plan was floated to use students' fingerprints to access payment of their school lunches.
This would put another spin on the information we don't keep around the library about our patrons. I imagine that the FBI would love to be able to pull fingerprints along with usage records during a Patriot Act visit.