In order from left to right: Carla Funk, MJ Tooey, Dixie Jones, Jamie Blanck, Ellen Detlefsen
Ellen Detlefsen, School of Information Sciences at University of Pittsburgh
- rethinking librarians and peers beyond the traditional academic, research libraries – roles of public librarians, school librarians
- trends include
- working with diverse populations (LGBT, older adults, etc)
- curriculum design
- consulting
- 1990s first shift of Pitt’s name to Information Sciences (emphasis on plural)
- 2000s beginning of online education, collaboration/sharing of coursework (for the same price of home-school location)
- move towardsinternationality
- at Pitt, 1/3 of students are from countries other than the US
- 2010s: theiSchool movement (Information School)
- 59 iSchools worldwide
- 28 have their roots in a “library school”
- strong emphasis on the human-component
- diversity/inclusion
- Pitt now teaches
- metadata, not cataloging or indexing
- anything digital (digital libraries, digital curation, digital resources management)
- Cross-area collaboration
- Ex: cyberbullying research interest for children’s librarian, as well as
- The Future:
- increasing tuition costs, decreasing grants dollars
- increasing international and undergraduate students
- decreasing number of MLIS students (perhaps short-term)
- jobs aren’t necessarily “new”, but emerging since some others are exploring this already
- librarians embedding in medical journals and blogs
- informationists roles
- systematic reviews – http://youtu.be/5Ezs1DPUKXA; The Incidental Economist
- empowering users in the information commons
- clinical specialist
- consumer health information specialist (we risk losing this to other groups like AMIA, nursing – we need to either define our role or collaborate better with others)
- 4 new directions
- interprofessional education
- geographic information systems
- voice/speech recognition technologies
- EMR/EHR
- translation software
- robotics
- simulation, inventory, pharmacy, senior care (research occurring in Japan), primary care
Ellen says consumer health education is a growing area at the Pittsburgh iSchool particularly in non academic settings #macmla2014
— Ryan Harris (@RyloLH) October 20, 2014
More interest in consumer health info serv in public libraries @ Pitt iSchool #macmla2014
— Christian Minter (@LibGirl09) October 20, 2014
Jaime Blanck, Welch Medical Library at Johns Hopkins University
- Follow informationist model
- Concern that library would go away
- Need to maintain strong collections and maintaining awareness of these resources
- Core services – collections access
- focus on digital
- course reserves housed in Welch sites around campus, check-out based on honor system
- free ILL
- Core services -informationists
- literature searching, systematic reviews
- database training
- present at seminars, rounds, journal clubs, and morning reports
- research consultations
- Embedded services
- clinical discussions (not just searching, but integrated throughout the whole process)
- department research committees
- department office hours, in labs, etc
- curriculum planning and course participation (School and department level)
- Expanding skills to meet user needs – many of these are self-training
- systematic reviews – going beyond the search
- evidence grading http://gradeworkinggroup.org/publications/index.htm
- data management
- Strategic partnerships
- Cochrane Library – Trials Search Coordinators
- Milton S. Eisenhower Library
- Entrepreneurial Library program (data management)
- GIS & data services
- Culture of assessment
- Assessment committee
- Value Survey
- LibAnalytics
- Needs assessment for global health information services (getting ready to do this)
Dixie Jones, Director of Health Sciences Library at LSU Shreveport and MLA Past President
- always going to be a need for accurate, accessible information
- health information literacy and engagement in EHRs
- eScience, compliance with public access, systematic reviews are emerging areas
- other non-traditional spaces for librarians include managing maker-spaces (Jean Shipman), managing the dormitory (Arkansas), being in the Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP)
- we can serve on other non-traditional committees to expand our role and adapt to user needs
- writing services to help with manuscripts, grant applications is also a new area
- Thomas Frey top trends
- communication systems
- all technology ends
- tech size
- time is changing lifestyle
- moving toward verbal society
- global information needs
- global systems
- transitioning from product-based to experience-based societies
MJ Tooey, Executive Director, Health Sciences and Human Services Library at University of Maryland, Baltimore and another MLA past President
- Library having 3-fold way of describing itself
- Expertise
- Resources
- Place – physical and virtual
- important to align with institutional priorities – find the empty spaces and places
- we need to be on equal-footing alongside other professionals
- upcoming trends
- bioinformationist
- health literacy (ex: consent forms in plain language)
- we need to expand our portfolio of those working in the library – for example: instructional designers, data experts, marketing
- scholarly communications/rights management
- GIS
- makerspaces – data visualization, 3D printing, etc
- to address these new items, we can’t be afraid to leave some of these things behind
- stay ahead of trends, so it is easier to find your place
Carla Funk, MLA Executive Director
- library associations are losing members, so they are going out to find like-segments similar to other groups listed before
- we have more men entering medical library field than before
- micro-credentials, such as disaster information specialist and big data, is a growing trend
- global information needs and services
Question
- How to convert soft money positions to hard money?
- MJ noted that her library rethinks every position that reopens. Also, people are much more mobile than they used to be.