Congratulations to Rebekah Miller, a recipient of the 2021 MAC Award for Professional Excellence by a New Health Sciences Librarian
The Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Medical Library Association is very happy to announce that Rebekah Miller is the winner of the 2020 MAC Award for Professional Excellence by a New Health Sciences Librarian.
Rebekah currently works as Research and Instruction Librarian at the University of Pittsburgh, Health Sciences Library System. She has excelled in the responsibilities of her position while also managing to make time to be heavily involved in activities that move the profession forward. As the liaison for the School of Nursing and the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), she has developed relationships by providing excellent instruction and literature searching services. She continually looks to identify relevant, new topics and techniques to engage learners and incorporate critical pedagogy.
In her role as an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) liaison Rebekah conducts very specialized literature searches to support the Animal Welfare Act, a skill set that not many librarians have. To help support and mentor librarians considering expansion of their role to include IACUC support, Rebecca co-authored a chapter, “Librarians and the IACUC: practical approaches for performing alternatives searches and providing support,” in an upcoming (2021) MLA book “Finding Your Seat at the Table: Roles for Librarians on Institutional Regulatory Boards and Committees.” In addition, she recently co-authored an invited peer-reviewed manuscript “Changes that have impacted searching for alternatives, a librarian’s perspective” for the upcoming 50th special anniversary issue of Alternatives to Laboratory Animals.
Her contributions extend to the profession through her membership on the MAC/MLA Diversity & Inclusion Committee, where she assisted the group with a virtual speaker series. Rebekah is applauded for planning and overseeing the successful 2020 MAC/MLA annual meeting during a time of great flux and uncertainty. As co-chair for the annual meeting and exhibits committee, Rebekah rapidly led a committee to move the in-person meeting virtually, identify a virtual platform, organize virtual speakers and recruit virtual exhibitors. Much to Rebekah’s credit, the conference was a success and reached 153 chapter members. Post-conference feedback indicated that 98% of respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with the meeting.
In addition to her recent MAC work, she is a member of the Medical Library Association and has presented at conferences on topics that advance health sciences librarianship. Rebekah is becoming a leader in the health sciences and medical field in aspects of critical librarianship: health literacy and critical thinking, accessibility, and health equity. Rebekah’s commitment to creating accessible and inclusive materials is noteworthy. She has extended this work to the MAC Diversity and Inclusion Committee by revising their outreach materials, earning her the informal title, ‘Marketing and Accessibility Task Force Leader.’
Rebekah Miller is not only great at her day-to-day work, but she finds time to try new ideas to find improvements over the status quo, and then teach other librarians what she discovers. It is very apparent that as Rebekah’s professional experience has developed, she has made it a high priority to share her expertise and new ideas with others.
Congratulations, Rebekah!
