The Universe of Medical Librarianship

MLA 2008

This is my first time to Chicago as well as MLA. I am impressed with the organization of such a large scale conference. It is overwhelming, but there are many helpers along the way to help guide you. The accommodations at the Hyatt are awesome, of course I’m biased because I brought my iPod and the room happens to have an iPod Radio dock. Sweet! Chillin’ to some Radiohead as I write this. That’s all it takes to make me happy. Anyways, two full days into the conference and the experience has been amazing so far. Here are some highlights from the CE courses …

CE Courses

I took two courses, one Thursday (Cheap, Fast, and Decent Strategic Planning for Medical Libraries) and one Friday (Practical Project Management for the Solo Librarian). Both were from 8am to 5pm. Now, I have had 1 hour classes before where I just couldn’t wait to get out of there because they were so dull. This was not the case. A full 8 hour day twice in a row never got boring. Pat Wagner was the instructor for both of my classes. For those that haven’t met Pat, she is an amazing teacher. She has run a consulting/training business with her husband for 30+ years. I would recommend her classes, especially to those librarians with limited resources and support.

A lack of resources, including time and personnel, is a symptom of choices we are making. This quote from her handout is inspiring to me. Instead of worrying about my limited budget, miniscule collection, and 1980s copier (okay, maybe I’m exaggerating…1990s), I need to choose my attitude and decide that these obstacles are not barriers but opportunities. It doesn’t happen in a day, but I can get the budget and personnel that I want. I just need to develop relationships of trust over time and develop the library in to a center that is critical to the higher institution’s mission.

The library’s mission should complement and support the parent organization’s vision, which hopefully has something to do with positive patient outcomes or excellent patient care. After all, isn’t that what hospitals do, save lives? Once the leaders of the hospital recognize and see evidence or see the vision of the library’s mission to “save lives” and how it impacts its customers and community, you will have their full support and your wishes will be granted. Of course, these are my attempts to describe the overall concepts; Pat provides more details.

I feel energized and ready to embrace these ideas and implement them in the library. Great classes! I have one more CE course on Wednesday (Intro to Blogs and Wikis)… just because I’m an Official MLA Conference Blogger, doesn’t mean I’m an expert!