Library Notes

Linda Walton, Associate Director, presented a paper at the National Patient Safety Foundation Annual Congress on May 6th in Orlando, Florida. The paper, "Partnering for Patient Empowerment Through Community Awareness: a Hospital-Public Library Collaborative Program", was a joint effort between Linda, cybrarian Lorri Zipperer of Zipperer Project Management, and Roxanne Goeltz, cofounder of Consumers Advancing Patient Safety (CAPS). Lorri and Roxanne have been working closely with Linda on Partnering for Patient Empowerment Through Community Awareness (PPECA) projects for the past year. More information can be found on the PPECA web site.

In collaboration with Linda, Lorri, and Roxanne were Mark Berendsen, Education Librarian, and Mary Gillaspy, Head of the Health Learning Center of Northwestern Memorial Hospital, in the presentation of a poster entitled "Partnering for Patient Empowerment Through Community Awareness" at the 2005 Medical Library Association (MLA) conference held in San Antonio, Texas from May 16th – 20th.

Linda Walton also worked hard all year as co-chair of the 2005 National Program Planning Committee for the MLA conference. At the conference she conducted a half-day continuing education course with Ramune Kubilius, Collection Development and Special Projects Librarian, titled "Health Sciences Collection Development: A Holistic Approach."

In keeping with her focus and interest in special libraries, Ramune also attended the Special Libraries Association annual meeting in Toronto, Ontario, Canada held on June 5th – 8th.

Other Galter staff also presented posters at this year’s MLA conference: Linda O’Dwyer, Education Librarian, Stephanie Kerns, Head, Education and Outreach/Curriculum Librarian, Mark Berendsen, and Jim Brucker, Education Assistant, presented a poster titled "Where’s Your Evidence? Designing and Creating an Interactive Evidence-based Medicine (EBM) Tutorial."

Another poster, "Beyond the Hype: A Long-term Analysis of Website Customization Usage" was presented by Michelle Frisque, Head, Information Systems, Steve Hunt, Web Librarian, Linda Walton, Associate Director, and James Shedlock, Director.

In keeping up with library efforts to provide our users with the latest multimedia technology and services, Stephanie Kerns attended the Slice of Life Conference for Medical Multimedia Developers and Educators held in Portland, Oregon from June 14th – 18th.

James Shedlock will be co-chair of the upcoming 2006 Medical Library Association annual meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. In addition to this commitment Jim has been invited to serve as a member of the Biomedical Library and Informatics Review Committee of the National Library of Medicine. His appointment begins on July 1, 2005 and runs through June 30, 2009.

In addition to their professional affiliations with the Medical Library Association, several Galter staff took part in the American Library Association (ALA) annual meeting held in Chicago from June 23rd – 29th at the McCormick Place Convention Center. The presentation of the poster, "Making Web Content Personal: Introducing the Health SmartLibrary at the Galter Health Sciences Library, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL" was the result of the hard work of Michelle Frisque, Steven Hunt, Linda Walton, James Shedlock, Jonathan Handler, MD and Michael Gillam, MD of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Michelle Frisque was was elected to the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) Board of Directors as a Member at Large.

Ron Sims, Special Collections, attended the 46th annual ALA Pre-Conference of the Rare Book and Manuscript Section held in St. Louis June 21st-24th. The meeting was titled: Bridging the Gap: Education & Special Collections. One of the highlights was a trip to the Missouri Botanical Gardens Archives and Library, where attendees were given the opportunity to handle rare botanicals and herbals and witness processing of plant specimens from around the world.

Mark Berendsen narrated A History of surgery from printed books, instruments and illustrative resources held by the Galter Health Sciences Library at Northwestern Memorial Hospital's Body Trek June 22. Ron Sims selected, annotated and executed, the lecture-slide presentation with the assistance of Jim Brucker and Jeremy Prevost. It was part of the Robert Crown Center's summer program providing students from ages 10 to 13 who team up with physicians and health care providers to discover more about the human body. This year's topic was surgery. A hands-on presentation of the Library's 18th century trepanning set and U. S. Civil War surgical kit were features of the presentation.

Susan Wishnetsky, Serials and Electronic Resources Management Librarian, recently attended the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) annual conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 19th – 22nd. In addition to networking with other serials specialists in her field and attending lectures and presentations, Susan took advantage of the opportunity to satisfy her thirst for the theatre by participating in a skit titled The Workshop as Ida B. Heard.

Congratulations! Graduations and more...

Congratulations go out to several Galter staff who have just completed their academic degrees:

Jim Brucker, Education Assistant, has just completed his Master of Science in Library and Information Science from The Graduate School of Library and Information Science of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Jim has had a long-standing interest in library work, particularly in advanced technological information retrieval development as it relates to patron use.

Jeremy Prevost, Technical Support Consultant, completed his Bachelor of Philosophy in Communication from the School of Continuing Studies of Northwestern University. Jeremy’s academic concentration focused on computer science which complements his busy job here of helping to maintain the library’s many computers.

Patty Sekirka, Program Assistant in the Administration department, has also completed her degree from the School of Continuing Studies of Northwestern University. Patty’s studies of art history and Spanish have earned her a Bachelor of Philosophy degree enabling her to further pursue an arts-oriented career.

Following a lifelong interest of working with animals, Patty also volunteers her time at Brookfield Zoo. There she assists the keepers and helps teach zoo visitors about the animals at the Children’s Zoo and the Hamill Family Play Zoo.

Farewell and good luck to Mike Abel, Library Clerk in the circulation department, on his acceptance into the Valparaiso University School of Law. Congratulations Mike!

Wedding bells were ringing for Linda O’Dwyer, Education Librarian, who happily married her partner Jimmie Meader in a lovely ceremony on the grounds of a beautiful Italian castle in Fiesole, near Florence, Italy, on April 18th. Best wishes to you both!

Welcome

Maureen Clark, a graduate library sciences student from Dominican University, is spending a summer internship here at Galter. During her time here, Maureen will be making an assessment of our public health collection and designing a web resource on open access.

A newsletter for patrons of the Galter Health Sciences Library

Summer 2005 New Series #37

Staff News

Patty Sekirka, BPhil, Program Assistant, p-sekirka@northwestern.edu

Summer 2005

New Series #37