Another view of MLA04

Here is Tom Roper's blog about MLA. Tom's the Information Resources Development Coordinator at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School. He reckons it was only us Brits who were blogging about the event - which adds to the feeling I got from the conference overall that in many ways we're ahead of what the US is doing in terms of health libraries...

Fran

Some interesting quotes...

Just come back from a session entitled "Influencing Change", about how computers and electronic resources are changing the roles of librarians. One of the papers was given by a Gillian Mayman from the University of Michigan, about "Re-inventing Reference in the Digital Age" - how they were moving from traditional enquiry work behind the desk in a library, to other ways of working. She had some pertinent quotes in her presentation, which I thought I'd share:

This one she translated to libraries: "My home is not a place, it is people", (Lois McMaster Bujold, 1991)

"In absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia." (Unknown)

She used this to illustrate how she thinks of libraries: "Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering." (R Buckminster Fuller, 1895 - 1983)

"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." (John Cage, 1912 - 1992)

And to finish with, one of the other participants in the session chimed in with "Library is a service, not a place." Which I think summed up the whole session.

Fran

Small but mighty

The incoming president of the American Medical Library Association used this phrase to describe the MLA in comparison with some other professional associations. However, in a room with over 2500 other librarians (scary thought) I couldn't help feeling that the power of our combined knowledge and experience was pretty mighty! Then I got to thinking about the power of one. Each one of us has the power to do something big and this conference is all about seizing that power. A news item I saw the other day illustrated this perfectly: a bug flew into the open window of a moving car. The woman driver waved her hands in panic as the cicada flew into her face. Unfortunately she also stepped on the gas. The car careered down the street, demolished a fire hydrant and flooded the entire neighbourhood, causing chaos for several hours and leaving everything mud-caked. The clean-up operation will take weeks. All that because of one tiny bug........

Debra Thornton

Geographic Illiteracy and National Security

This was the title of the Keynote address here at Medical Library Association conference in Washington DC. Harm J. de Blij gave a very entertaining and informative talk on the state of geographical literacy in the United States, where only 18% of children are taught geography in schools. His premise was that this has horrifying implications for the country at a time when awareness of the connectivity of the world in spatial terms is crucial to world stability. He said the US is in a race against time with three key threats to national security: environmental change and global warming; the inevitable competition with the China as the next aspiring super power; and the terrorist threat in Iraq.

He also had some very amusing insights into the decline of the British Empire and why you should never trust a Brit in the dark!

Sara Whittaker

Educating the 21st Century Health Professional

This was the programme section I attended yesterday afternoon. There were 4 speakers, 2 of whom talked about the online interactive tutorials that they've developed using a program called Camtasia, and the success they've had using them. Camtasia is similar to a program called RoboDemo that Nick and I are experimenting with. RoboDemo allows us to capture videos of mouse movements on screen. We're looking at using it to make new versions of the NeLH tours, which will make them much more interactive, and actually demonstrate how to search or display search results, etc, as part of the tours.

We were thinking about this before we came to Washington - and it's nice to now have confirmation from our American colleagues that they do work, and are an extremely well-received way of getting information across.

We'll let you know when we get our first one done, soon after we get home - watch this space!

Fran

Presidential Address

Greetings from Washington DC!

Patricia Thibodeau, President of the Medical Library Association, called on all delegates yesterday to "seize the power and be empowered". Speaking as part of her presidential address she also looked briefly at the image of medical librarians and medical libraries in the media, the need for a more international perspective within MLA, the issue of scholarly publishing, and the importance of advocacy. She also identified 3 key themes from her time as president of MLA: the need to revitalise the skill of expert searching, health information literacy within the general population, and the concept of the informationist.

Sara Whittaker

Bloglines and RSS feeds

If you cant download (and more importantly install at work)why not try Bloglines which is server based and you can it get going in seconds www.bloglines.com. As with other Newsreaders you can acccess multiple blogs and feeds from one workspace. Does anyone else have a favourite? If so post a comment by clicking on the posting time below.

Nick

Washington Calling!

Hello All
As you all remember for the competition prize AW03 NeLH was offering 2 places at MLA conference. DLNet Reps Sara Whittaker and Debra Thornton were the lucky winners and are now in Washington together with some of the NeLH team. During the conference we will be posting blog entries about what is going on in and around the conference.

During our time we will also be visting National Library for Medicine and learning more about National Health Library Month.

We are looking forward to hearing about some of the American education programmes.

Fran and Nick

Interactive parenting guide for parents of deaf children by parents of deaf children.

I thought you might be interested in this article and resource, if you were not already aware of it. I have emailed the NDCS for price details and will post them once I receive a reply:

http://www.ndcs.org.uk/news_media/ndcs_press_releases/charity_releases.html#

http://www.ndcs.org.uk/go.rm?id=2315

I'm not having much joy inserting the hyperlinks, but either URL can be cut & pasted into your browser address bar to take you to the article