Congratulations to all of Library Journal's 2009 Movers and Shakers. Here are the medical librarians that were in this year's group of library shaking people. If after reading about these people it makes you think of somebody who also deserves to be Mover and Shaker, consider nominating them for the 2010 because LJ has already started compiling their own personal lists for next year. Yeah Medical Librarians!



Congratulations!



Rachel Walden, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville: Rachel writes and contributes to women's health issues on Our Bodies, Our Blog, Women's Health News blog, and for the newsletter of the National Women's Health Network, Women's Health Activist. Walden is also well known for her actions regarding the POPLINE abortion controversy, where she spread the word regarding the issue through her blog and by contacting reproductive rights and feminist activists.



Dean Giustini, Vancouver General Hospital, BC: Dean is a blogger, twitterer, and wiki-er, and is actively looking at technology and librarianship and created the UBC Health Library Wiki for health librarians to store and share the information they were using to teach. Is also an active participant in Web 3.0 and Semantic Web discussions, and he recently helped secure a $1 million donation toward improving the Biomedical Branch Library and starting a clinical librarian program at Vancouver General Hospital.



Melissa Rethlefsen, Mayo Clinic Libraries, Rochester, MN: Melissa is the education technology librarian at the Mayo Clinic. She and another colleague developed three online courses for faculty; Mayo Clinic Libraries 2.0 (for library staff), Web 2.0 for Faculty (for Mayo Clinic faculty and staff), and Web 2.0 for Nurse Educators. She is has written many articles and coauthored the book Internet Cool Tools for Physicians (which I have been reading during my lunch breaks).

Labels: Leadership

T. Scott writes an interesting post on the MLA Connections blog about MLA President Mary Ryan's task force looking into MLA's Code of Ethics for Health Sciences Librarianship. Specifically Mary is interested in conflict of interest issues and how they might apply to the Code and MLA disclosure policies.
It would seem that institutions' policies on conflict of interest are varied across the United States. Scott mentions a story about a vendor withdrawing their sponsorship of a conference because of the organizing library's institutional conflict of interest policies prohibit it. I remember going to a conference (can't remember where and when) there was a bunch of us librarians on the airport shuttle going to the hotel. Once we found out we were all librarians we got to chatting. The topic came up about the free shuttle bus transportation, sponsored by a vendor, that provided attendees with a ride to/from the conference and the hotel. One of the librarians mentioned as a government employee she was not allowed to take the shuttle bus because it would be considered a conflict of interest. She had to either walk (too far), take public transportation, or rent a car.
I am all for full disclosure and trying to prevent conflicts of interest but this instance just seemed to be taking the policy to the extreme. I think MLA's Code of Ethics and disclosure policies are important. However, as Scott mentions "each of has to live within the rules established by the institutions that employ us" and I wonder how effective or helpful MLA's policies would be to deal with the broad range of institutional policies that its membership adhere to.

It is something to mull over. If you have any thoughts, consider registering with MLA Connections and commenting on the topic.

Labels: Leadership, MLA

Do have great ideas bursting out of you? Or do you want to change the way things are done, shake things up a little bit? Get involved.

The Medical Library Association Board reviews MLA's strategic plan regularly and they revising it as changes in the profession and health care occur. "The strategic plan drives the association’s priorities for each year and is the basis for the association’s business plan." This year, the Board wants you (picture a board member pointing at you ala Uncle Sam) an MLA member to comment on the strategic plan and make suggestions. You can access the Strategic Plan at http://www.mlanet.org/about/strategic.html. You join the discussion through the MLA Connections members' blog. The comment period will end on October 31, 2008. Visit MLA Connections today to register.

Commenting and submitting your thoughts on the grand plan is great and nice way to get involved, but lets say you were thinking of other methods to be involved. If so, you should consider applying for a 2009/2010 MLA Committee Position. October 31, is the deadline for applications. Being on a committee will not only help develop your leadership and networking skills, but it is another way for you to become involved in the organization. You must complete the application available online. You will need your MLANET username/ID and password to enter this members-only section. There are a whole slew of committees to satisfy many varied interests.

Labels: Leadership, MLA

Library Journal is looking for Movers and Shakers for 2009. The Library Journal Mover & Shaker Award recognizes approximately 50 individuals in the United States and Canada who are considered “emerging leaders in the library world.”

Check out the winners from last year in the medical/health library world.

The deadline for submission is November 10, 2008. So if you know somebody is "innovative, creative, and making a difference," nominate them. Nominees can be from all walks of library life, from "librarians to vendors to others who work in the library field."

Labels: Leadership

I flew into Chicago yesterday. I got checked in and despite some confusion between the hotel staff and I about Internet access, I am up and blogging. Whoo hoo.

This morning I had the opportunity to take an interesting MLA Continuing Education class, Gaining Leadership Skills Without Formally Supervising People taught by Natalie Kay Reed.

This class focused on learning various leadership skills without formally supervising people. In other works you don't have to be a manager or a supervisor and we learned that leadership is not mutually exclusive to management. Just because you are a manager doesn't necessary mean that you are a leader. Just because you are a leader within a group doesn't mean that you are the supervisor or manager either.

Leadership focuses on achieving goals to make a change. Management focuses on control, organization, and order.

Within the class we learned that various organizations MLA, SLA, Management, etc. all have their core leadership skills. They are all very similar, but have their own slant tailored to the organization.

In the class we learned about the various leadership skills and discussed our experiences with leaders who used these skills. After the discussion we looked at the skills and wrote down which skills were important to us. Then we discussed our spheres of influence, in other words our personal and professional encounters in our daily lives. For example: my personal spheres of influence include my family, my swim team, school PTA, friends, etc. My professional spheres could be my job at the library, my state association, committee work, hospital work groups, etc. Then we looked at the leadership skills that we thought were important to us and began to look at we would use them within our spheres. We then created action plans as to how we could better develop our skills and continue learning and developing our leadership skills.

It was a very interesting class and I think the best part of it was listening to other participants thoughts and discussing the qualities and skills of leaders. It has inspired me to develop a few of these skills and grow a little bit more professionally and personally.

Labels: ContinuingEducation, Leadership, MLA2008