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LAC June 12, 2012

LIBRARY ADVISORY COMMITTEE

MEETING MINUTES
June 12, 2012 7:30am
C1800

Members Present: Tim Cooper, Ali Jaffry, Stephanie Patton, John Richie, Edwin Robles, Joan Ruffle, Vicky Schirm, Zhaohia Yang

Library faculty present: Cynthia Robinson, Nancy Adams, Esther Dell, Robyn Reed

Cynthia Robinson, HHSL Director, opened the meeting. Refreshments were provided.

1. Library Update

  • Robyn Reed, Biomedical Informatics/Emerging Technologies Librarian: Robyn Reed, MA, MLIS was introduced as the newest library faculty hire. Robyn has a master’s degree in pharmacology and toxicology and comes from a previous career in biochemical and drug discovery research. She had a National Library of Medicine biomedical informatics traineeship at the Univ. of Pittsburgh and will support biomedical informatics research here at Penn State Hershey.
  • Collection Access & Support Librarian: An offer will be made this week for this faculty position, filling a position left vacation through retirement. [NOTE: As of 7/5/2012, the offer was made and accepted and the new hire will be on board 7/30/2012.]
  • Budget: The budget has remained flat. The library requested but did not receive additional funding and our carryover from vacancies is dwindling although costs to recruit for vacant positions was lower than budgeted. Average inflation from vendors of journals and other resources is projected at 9% for the coming year, leading to a projected shortfall in our 2012/13 budget which, because the library is very conservative in other fiscal areas, may mean we need to cancel subscriptions to some journals or other resources. Cancellation will take into account usage, price, interlibrary statistics, strategic importance to the institution, and other factors.
  • PSU Profiles: All faculty are reminded to update your profile on this system (http://profiles.psu.edu) and add publications to your list. This system is publicly facing and showcases the research interests and output of our faculty. The local Profiles team is working to add profiles for faculty in The Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences and the Social Science Research Institute.
  • NLM Civil War Medicine Exhibit Feb-March 2013: Harrell HSL will host this traveling exhibit in partnership with the Dept. of Humanities. Speakers are planned for this event which occurs during the 150th anniversary year of the Battle of Gettysburg.

2. Harrell HSL Collections – David Brennan:

  • Serials 360 is a University Libraries Discovery Tool which provides access to all library resources. It allows the user to link to full-text across the University Libraries no matter  where they start their search. Problems arise due to the fact that Hershey campus is a separate network which results in issues with this tool. David is working with the Serials 360 vendor and University Libraries IT to resolve this issue.

3. Evidence-Based Practice and Curricular Involvement – Nancy Adams

The library is integrated into the medical, graduate, and residency curricula here at Penn State Hershey. Nancy Adams, Coordinator of Education & Instruction, outlined this
integration, which includes:

  • several touches in the form of guest lectures throughout the 4-year medical curriculum, especially within the required EBM 713 and 723 courses;
  • presentations to residents in various departments;
  • integration in nursing curricula and the Nursing Research Council;
  • clinical rounding to coach residents in the use of EBM information resources for answering clinical questions;
  • and guest lectures in graduate courses.
  • Almost every library faculty member is involved in instruction in some way to teach students how to use the information resources provided by the library, search efficiently, and manage the information that they find.

A long-term research project assessing graduate medical students’ skills and knowledge in evidence-based medicine began in 2011. The 2011 and 2012 cohort have been assessed. Results will inform the EBM curriculum and show how changes in the curriculum lead to changes in students’ skill and knowledge base.

4. Questions/concerns from faculty?

  • One attendee asked whether faculty would be notified of cancellation decisions before they were finalized. Answer: We take into account many factors, including size of the group affected, usage of the journal, and cost—we make decisions after careful analysis of how the cancellation would affect the institution. We know that no matter what decision is made, someone will be affected.
  • One attendee asked for more details on clinical rounding that librarians have done. Answer: this was an experiment that the library tried that proved to be a great learning experience for the clinicians, who learned more about our resources, and the librarians, who learned HOW the clinicians use them. We’d like to continue doing it as often as we are able (it can be labor intensive given our small staff).
  • One attendee asked about whether it would be reasonable to charge students a subscription fee to subsidize the cost of UpToDate. Answer: This would not be the library’s decision. 
  • One attendee asked what is the best way to let his residents know about other clinical information resources besides for UpToDate, and if there could be a link to Dynamed on the desktop. Answer: All of our clinical resources are listed at http://harrell.library.psu.edu/clinicaltools. We are working on ways to get the library website and our resources more available and known to clinical faculty and staff.

Meeting adjourned at 8:05 am