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MLA Annual Meeting Program, Orlando FL |
Oral History Committee
Time Travel with Some of Our Most Memorable Mentors
Lucretia W. McClure.
Separate paths to greatness
The purpose of this paper is to outline the contributions of two Medical Library Association members: Frank Bradway Rogers, M.D., and Estelle Brodman, Ph.D. The method for determining this was a review of the careers and publications of the two individuals with the addition of personal recollections. Traveling back in time to document the accomplishments and contributions to MLA and the profession of medical librarianship brings to light the way they advanced our work. Frank Bradway Rogers, M.D., was both librarian and physician; Estelle Brodman, Ph.D., was both librarian and historian. Their careers led them down different paths, but both achieved greatness. I was blessed with their friendship and consider both my mentors. I met Brad Rogers on November 22, 1963, the day of President Kennedy's assassination. My class in Denver University Library School was visiting the Denison Memorial Library at the University of Colorado where he was the library director. It was an occasion never to be forgotten. He is recognized for the development of automation at the National Library of Medicine and for his leadership as head of a medical school library. He was also a fine binder and an acknowledged author and historian. I met Estelle Brodman at the Upstate New York and Ontario Chapter of MLA meeting in 1964 when she was MLA president. Her achievements include the standards of scholarship she established as author, historian, and editor of the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, her direction and vision as director of the Library at Washington University, and her contributions as an educator. Both made a difference to our work and our understanding of librarianship and should continue to be acknowledged by the association.
Stephen J. Greenberg, PhD
Faces on a Medal: Collegiality and Friendship in the Early MLA
In 1976, the Medical Library Association issued a commemorative medal picturing three of its founders: George Gould, William Osler, and Margaret Charlton. Recent research into the history of MLA, especially that by Jennifer Connor, gives new perspectives upon the roles of these founders and others but does not fully explain the complex mentoring relationships among these figures and such other MLA giants as Marcia Noyes, John Ruhrah, and Elizabeth Thies. This paper will attempt to address that gap.
Richard Nollan and Thomas Singarella,
Back to the Future: Buchan's Domestic Medicine, Exercise and Preventive Medicine
Purpose: We will look at this influential work in the history of medicine in the United States in the context of changes occurring in health care in the last 30 years. Setting: The UT Health Sciences Library is an academic medical center, which opened its Health Sciences Historical Collections in 1996. A year ago the HSHC published its web page, which highlights the HSHC's focus on the history of health care, especially in Tennessee and the Mid-South. Brief Description: This presentation discusses one book which contributed toward the practical evolution of medicine, and exercise as regimen, therapy, and prevention. Discussion/Conclusion: In 1769, William Buchan, a Scottish physician, published what today would be called a comprehensive consumer guide to medicine. The HSHC owns an American printing of the this work, and a first edition of the work as edited by Samuel Powel Griffitts in 1795. Buchan's purpose was to make medical knowledge generally available, to deter quackery, promote nursing and childcare in the home, and to contribute to a more cooperative relationship between doctor and patient. It contains his advice for avoiding sickness by improving, among other things, hygiene, exercise, good parenting, and breast-feeding. Physicians criticized Dr. Buchan for giving away trade secrets. Nevertheless, his book became a best seller in Britain and was translated into French, Spanish, German and Russian and others. We live in a new era of medicine, which can be characterized by the increasing importance of preventive forms of health behavior and an increased emphasis on prevention and control. Preventive medicine is the branch of medical science concerned with the prevention of disease and with promotion of physical and mental health. Since the 1960s, there has been considerable interest among many Americans and lifestyle health care: jogging a bicycling, health foods, special diets, sports and exercise, yoga and meditation, health spas, reformed smoking and drinking habits.
Wayne J. Peay and Rachael Anderson
IAIMS -- What We Got Right and What We Didn’t
Laura P. Barrett, MLS; Victor Basile, MLS, MPA; Judith Cohn, MLS
A mutually beneficial impact of IAIMS on the UMDNJ libraries strategic planning process: what's in it for the libraries?
Purpose: Describe the positive influence and results of two simultaneous processes. The impact of IAIMS planning and the university libraries strategic planning processes at an academic health sciences institution is described.
Setting/Participants/Resources: The University Libraries of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey serve eight health sciences schools on six campuses located throughout New Jersey, in addition to distance learners throughout the United States. The university librarian was both the principal investigator and a co-director of an IAIMS Strategic Planning Grant.
Brief Description: The participation of the university libraries administration and staff on the university-wide IAIMS Strategic Planning Committees fostered regular contact with key university information technology and academic administrators. These individuals were able to implement technology infrastructure enhancements essential to the implementation of university libraries goals, which in turn became part of the university's Information Technology Strategic Plan. The ongoing contact also resulted in university libraries administrators being appointed to other technology advisory committees of the university that control the dispersal of funds for other relevant projects.
Results/Outcome: Essential technology infrastructure enhancements necessary to the implementation of a new Web-based integrated library system, as well as other university libraries technology and facility renovation initiatives, have occurred. Funding has been secured for significantly expanded electronic full-text resources.
Evaluation Method: The university awaits notification of award of an IAIMS Operational Phase Grant from the National Library of Medicine in recognition of its readiness to implement its university-wide Information Technology Strategic Plan. The plan incorporates ambitious targets for the university libraries, and establishes a center for health informatics that the university libraries will support with training and services.
Nancy K. Roderer; Regina Kenny Marone
Library contributions to IAIMS
Health Science libraries have been a key participant in IAIMS and have both contributed to and been affected by its goal of integrated information management in a variety of ways. This presentation starts from the perspective of contributions that libraries have made to IAIMS, tracing the roles described in the Matheson-Cooper report and their evolution over the years. Based on personal observation and a review of the literature, areas of contribution are described. Related benefits to the library are also identified. Libraries have been actively involved in the incorporation of scholarly resources into the overall information flow addressed by IAIMS. Through these efforts, they have modeled the development of new systems that enhance information flow. Librarians have direct experience with the information behaviors of a wide range of users and contribute this perspective to the overall effort. Similarly, library expertise in the area of the organization of information has been useful in creating more integrated systems. Libraries have benefited from IAIMS not only through the development of new systems but also through the broader exposure of faculty, students, and staff to library services. Libraries generally bring an institution-wide perspective to issues and problems in the decentralized academic medical center. Another contribution that they have made to the IAIMS efforts stems from their formal and informal relationships with a wide range of organizational units. This has worked both ways, also serving to enhance the library's relationships with other units. Closer affiliation with information technology units in particular has often meant a healthy dialog about the rights and responsibilities of both users and service organizations and of alternative funding models for information activities. The result, greater creativity and flexibility in funding mechanisms, has benefited all of the participants in IAIMS, including libraries. Finally, libraries have provided leadership to IAIMS, as in several institutions where the library director has been the IAIMS principal investigator. Alternately, they have served as catalysts, providing a neutral territory in which different organizational units can work together. Recognition of these forms of leadership has served to enhance the perception of the library in the institution.
Valerie Florance
IAIMS: The Next Generation
Consumer and Patient Health Information
Don H. Buchanan
Using consumer health information to enhance knowledge and attitudes of parents with a low birth weight child admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit
Purpose: Presenting an overview of how a consumer health information service can work with a clinical program and patient educators to evaluate an intervention utilizing consumer health information.
Setting/Subjects: 300 parents of consecutive admissions of premature infants weighing less than 1,000 grams, admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit in an academic health sciences center.
Methodology: Experimental design, utilizing random block assignment of parents to one of three interventions, namely routine patient education, routine patient education plus a book on prematurity, or routine patient education plus introductory exploration of Internet Websites on prematurity. Measures include pre- and post-test of knowledge and post intervention questionnaire.
Results: Study is presently underway, and no results are available. Presentation will focus on preliminary issues such as design of study, developing budgets, preparing a research proposal, finding funding, and analysis of your results. Emphasis will be on developing research from "non-researchers" (i.e., research from librarians in partnership with clinical programs).
Discussion/Conclusion: Medical librarians, especially those involved in the provision of consumer health information, have an important role in developing research into the efficacy and effectiveness of consumer health information. Developing the evidence for the effectiveness of consumer health information has lagged behind many other interventions, and we will discuss some of the reasons for this, Finally, we will share lessons learned during the development of a major trial of consumer health information interventions.
Jonathan D. Eldredge, MLS, Ph.D,. AHIP
Humor amidst the otherwise serious pursuit of research
Purpose: To relay practical principles for conducting research through humorous examples.
Setting/Subjects: The author's own experiences enhanced with other researchers' humorous experiences.
Methodology: Case studies based upon researchers' experiences.
Results: To be reported fully at the time of the presentation. Preliminary results suggest that the principles of correct methods for the following research protocol can be learned from researchers' experiences: 1. Reducing human bias in the initial research design and hypotheses. 2. Selection of a representative population for an attitudinal survey. 3. Researchers need to understand their data.
Conclusions: To be reported fully at the time of the presentation. Preliminary results point to the serious lessons on proper research techniques learned from other researchers' humorous mistakes.
2001 Program
10/23/01