2015 MAC Award for Professional Excellence by a Health Sciences Librarian
MAC is excited to announce that Andrea Ketchum is the winner of the MAC Award for Professional Excellence by a Health Sciences Librarian.
Andrea has been a librarian at the University of Pittsburgh’s Health Sciences Library System (HSLS) since 2002 and is a member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals (AHIP).
From the nomination for this award: “Andrea served as Chair of the Pittsburgh Chapter when it was preparing to merge with MAC. It was a tricky time because the two chapters needed to come to agreement, address MLA procedures, and organize votes of their memberships. Thanks to Andrea’s leadership, the chapter continued its strong performance up to the end, including holding membership meetings, offering CEs, awarding scholarships, and honoring its members.
Teaching Librarian Colleagues
Andrea is a member of the faculty for the HSLS Systematic Review Workshop, and she teaches the important section about searching the grey literature. This workshop is among the most highly respected systematic review workshops for librarians, and is attended by both librarians and researchers from universities, hospitals, professional associations, and government agencies from all over the world.
Scholarship and Research
Through her research, Andrea has helped to cement the librarian’s critical role in evidence-based practice. In 2014, she was part of a team that measured the effectiveness of Medline’s Core Clinical Journals filter and made recommendations for changes. In 2011, she was the first author of a study that examined types of evidence behind of Point of Care tools’ practice recommendations. She also participated in another study that measured the performance of PubMed diagnosis filters and proposed a new method for developing clinically relevant filters.
Developing Special Projects
Andrea currently leads the HSLS Scholarly Communication effort for the University of Pittsburgh’s health sciences research community. In that role she teachers workshops about selecting journals for publication, research productivity assessment, copyright, open access, data sharing and more. She also maintains her library’s website for scholarly communications, and it provides a number of resources that support researchers who cannot attend the workshops. Andrea was also part of the team that developed the HSLS Consumer Information website. This excellent resource was named one of the “Top 10 Sites for Consumer Health” by the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2004. Andrea participated in its later redesign, and the website continues to serve as an important resource for health consumers as well as public libraries providing consumer health services.
Conclusion
Andrea is an excellent colleague and an energetic supporter of the profession. I admire her ability to be innovative, productive, and affable even when faced with great challenges. Andrea has exhibited professional leadership through her chapter officer positions, research focused on health sciences information, and by teaching librarian colleagues. “
Congratulations, Andrea!