View from the 5th – December 2011

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“…resiliency is marked by exquisite emotional agility.”

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In her book, Positivity, Professor Barbara Fredrickson (Kenan Distinguished Professor, UNC-Chapel Hill), suggests that resilience to life’s challenges is best achieved by people with “exquisite emotional agility.” Lately I’ve been telling people how I’m amazed, but not surprised, by our staff’s positive efforts to support our users in these challenging times. The epitome of this is Liza Cahoon, who serves on the frontline taking care of our users at our front desk. As you can read, her efforts resulted in her receiving the 2011 Chancellor’s Award, a prestigious University award given “based on meritorious or distinguished accomplishments in the categories of devotion to duty, innovations, public service, safety/heroism, human relations, and other achievements.”

You can also read more about the UNC Health Sciences Library (HSL)’s positive influence on our users’ learning, teaching, research and patient care in the 2010-2011 Year In Review, Liaison 2.0, I Love MY HSL blog and other stories.

If our efforts have helped our users have more positive experiences, your support has also helped us succeed. On behalf of the more than 500,000 people who visited our library over the past year, we thank you very much. We experienced a 33 percent increase in our donor base last fiscal year. Furthermore, we received the largest single gift in the history of our library – a $225,000 bequest gift from Dr. Benson “Ben” Wilcox (1932-2010), a great friend of the HSL, which resulted in renaming the Historical Collections Reading Room as The Benson Reid Wilcox Historical Collections Reading Room. Even without counting this gift, we raised 44 percent more funds in FY11 than FY10.

On Dec. 9, we hosted a Friends of the HSL reception to thank all of our friends and donors for supporting us over the past year. The reception culminated in a heartfelt endorsement from Sheldon Peck (BS ’63, DDS ’66), donor and member of our Board of Visitors. In my introduction I linked him with other library donors who have entrusted to us rare personal collections. Their belief in sustaining our ability to safeguard these collections for use by current and future generations of library users is inspirational. Dr. Peck plans to add his collection of over 150 rare books in orthodontics and dental medicine to our already strong holdings in this area, along with a substantial gift to support and enhance the collection. He shared his story about how he had built his relationship with library staff over several years, and why he chose us.

Your belief in the value of the Health Sciences Library, as shown by your past support, is reflected in the demonstrated value of our collections and services to users as described in the stories that follow. If your generosity has already been directed toward our library this year, thank you. If you would like to make a gift, you can do so quickly and securely via our online giving page, or by contacting Dwain Teague (919-962-3437 or dteague@email.unc.edu) for more information.

Carol Jenkins
Director, UNC Health Sciences Library

In this Issue:


Year in Review

Last year we debuted our new Year in Review format with the goal of improving how we share the facts, data, and stories that describe the UNC Health Sciences Library (HSL)’s success as a vital part of the University’s mission. This year’s report illustrates an amazing year of accomplishments and contains a wealth of information organized in the following categories:

  • User Benefits
  • Accessing Information
  • Innovation @ HSL
  • Our People
  • HSL by the Numbers
  • Financial information
  • Honor Roll of Donors

We’re continuing to refine this approach and welcome your feedback on any aspect of the report. Please send your comments to dteague@email.unc.edu.

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Librarian 2.0 – A Year in the Life of the Public Health Liaison

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The goal of the UNC Health Sciences Library (HSL)’s Liaison Program is to embed individual librarians with relevant backgrounds and experiences where they can provide outreach to the health affairs schools and to several departments at UNC Hospitals. It is evident that the program has met expectations when one reads a list of activities (including a trip to Uganda) and accomplishments (receiving Adjunct Faculty status) undertaken by Mellanye Lackey, the HSL’s UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health (SPH) liaison. She is a perfect illustration of how the role of librarian has evolved. It’s also clear that the traditional view of a librarian no longer exists at the HSL, because Lackey, like her fellow liaisons, is clearly “Librarian 2.0!”

Providing Answers and Classes

Beyond general requests for help fielded by the HSL, during the last academic year Lackey met with 168 SPH students and faculty for one-on-one consults, some of which occurred while she conducted office hours in the SPH’s main atrium. She also answered 211 questions via email, phone, online chat or Facebook. Furthermore, she taught 33 classes to 630 students during the orientation period. (Overall, members of the SPH requested 1,282 documents via the HSL’s document request service, received 970 consultations and took 521 HSL-led classes.)

Teaching Emerging Technologies for Public Health

During the Spring 2011 semester Lackey taught Emerging Technologies for Public Health to 27 SPH students. Because social web technologies are highly effective mechanisms for public health communications, the class exposed students to a variety of social media tools and emerging technologies and asked them to apply that knowledge to a real-life, global, public health issue or challenge. The course was held both online and in a state-of-the-art computing lab. Feedback on the course has resulted in Lackey teaching the course again next semester with new global content.

Joining the Faculty

After four years of teaching SPH students and faculty, the SPH rewarded Lackey with adjunct faculty status. The appointment clearly speaks to the School’s recognition of the successful immersion of Lackey within the SPH’s academic infrastructure.

Librarian in Uganda

In April 2011, Lackey traveled with a medical mission to Mulago Hospital in Kampala, Uganda. The trip was organized by the UNC Project-Uganda Medical Mission, which was established to support sustainable delivery of compassionate and competent health care to infants, children, and adolescents in Uganda. In a blog entry during the trip, Lackey asked the question, “Why bring a librarian to a global health medical mission?” From the moment they arrived in Uganda, team members benefitted from Lackey’s expertise as a result of her ability to connect them to the information they needed to conduct their work. She supported doctors and nurses from UNC Department of Pediatrics as they performed surgeries. She also conducted trainings for local doctors and nurses, and investigated sustainable technology and education opportunities that they could benefit from on an ongoing basis. She was also able to provide them with access to HSL managed resources by taking advantage of the HINARI Programme, which was set up by the World Health Organization together with major publishers, to enable developing countries to gain access to one of the world’s largest collections of biomedical and health literature. In a recent conference that reported on HINARI trainings that were conducted during 2010-2011, Lackey’s HINARI training in Uganda was identified as the only academic library in the U.S. to report a training.

Archiving SPH Master’s Papers

Lackey is working with the Carolina Digital Repository to archive the master’s papers from the SPH’s Maternal and Child Health department and the Public Health Leadership Program. The project is starting small for now, but there are plans to expand to more SPH departments. “I’m so excited about this project,” says Lackey. “I know it will catch like wildfire, and then the scholarship of masters students will be preserved and made available for others to use in the future.”

Helping Achieve Healthy People 2020 Goals

Lackey also worked with the National Library of Medicine to develop search strategies for the Global Health section of the Healthy People 2020 goals, which provides science-based, 10-year national objectives for improving the health of all Americans. These strategies enabled researchers to access the latest information related to the goals quickly and easily.

These are all examples of how the role of the liaison to the SPH is changing the relationship between our library and our users. Lackey is just one example of that changing relationship at the HSL. As you can read in the 2010-2011 Year in Review, our library is full of other examples. You can also read about another example of the success of the Liaison Program from the last issue View from the 5th: Behind the Scenes: Helping UNC Health Care Implement Performance Improvement and Best Practices.

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Liaison Program Expands to Help Translational Research

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As a result of slashed budgets and fierce competition for grants, researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill (UNC) have wanted access to someone who can, on their behalf, peruse grant-searching databases for funding to underwrite research on health and medicine. In an effort to address this need, the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences (NC TraCS) Institute at UNC approached the UNC Health Sciences Library (HSL) in hopes of enlisting the expertise of a trained librarian.

“Having a grant scout to help you find funding for your research project can make a big difference,” said Javed Mostafa, Ph.D., one of the NC TraCS leaders. “I would think it is the most important fundamental thing the university can do. Any advantage that can be gained by using resources like that will help relieve the stress and strain of doing research.”

At the time Rachel Lerner was a soon-to-be graduate of the School of Library and Information Science at UNC, where she focused her studies on corporate libraries, along with knowledge management. She was also wrapping up her Graduate Assistantship at the HSL. As a result, Lerner was a natural fit for the new NC TraCS knowledge management librarian, a position she started in June 2011.

Initially, she worked on matching the funding opportunities she uncovered to the more than 300 projects that have been funded through the TraCS pilot award program. But after 6 months in the position, she has expanded her work to all NC TraCS investigators in need of her services. Researchers can set up an appointment with her or visit during drop-in office hours. Not surprisingly, Lerner spends a lot of her time in the library, but she also frequents the Brinkhous-Bullitt building, where NC TraCS staff are located.

Lerner isn’t just focusing on grants. She is also helping scientists identify opportunities for collaboration through her work on Reach NC, an internet-based initiative that enables users to find experts within North Carolina higher education and research institutions. As NC TraCS works with UNC and General Administration to roll out the new web portal to UNC’s medical campus this month, Lerner is on hand to field feedback from users. Some of the issues she expects to address are false attribution, missing publications, disambiguation and user interface problems.

“I would absolutely love to help facilitate research, and grant-seeking is certainly an important part of that,” said Lerner. “I want to see Reach NC being used as a tool at the 17 campuses that are currently staging sites. I hope to integrate myself into NC TraCS and to be seen as part of the network there and not as a novelty. There is a lot that a librarian can do for researchers here.”

NC TraCS is one of 60 medical research institutions working together as a national consortium to improve the way biomedical research is conducted across the country.

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Director Receives MLA’s Highest Honor

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Carol Jenkins, Director of the UNC Health Sciences Library, received the 2011 Marcia C. Noyes Award, the highest honor conferred by the Medical Library Association (MLA). The award follows on the heels of Jenkins receiving the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries’ (AAHSL) prestigious Cornerstone Award for significant impact on academic health sciences librarianship in 2010.

The following is taken from a story published by the MLA following an awards ceremony at the organization’s annual meeting:

Jenkins has and continues to be a strong leader and mentor for medical librarianship. She has twice served on the MLA Board of Directors and served as president of MLA and of the AAHSL. While serving as MLA president-elect, she conceived of the Center of Research and Education (CORE) and presented it as a presidential priority. CORE has developed into a major MLA activity, and its website offers important resources to MLA and the profession.

Jenkins has been a strong impetus to the expansion of education, career development, and mentorship opportunities for health sciences librarians. Under her leadership, the UNC Health Sciences Library has served as a major training, research, and project site for students at the UNC School of Information and Library Science. Her membership in and leadership of the National Library of Medicine (NLM)/AAHSL Leadership Fellows program has resulted in populating vacant AAHSL directorships and deputy directorships with graduates of the program. She was a critical force in developing and sustaining the program, which has served as a model for the MLA “Rising Stars” program, from the Emerging MLA Leaders Task Force, of which Jenkins is currently serving as chair.

Jenkins has served on and chaired numerous other MLA committees. She was chair of the Task Force on Professional Development, Fellowship and Honorary Membership Jury, and Janet Doe Lectureship Jury, and a member of the Board of Directors, National Program Committee, Governmental Relations Committee, Nominating Committee, Informationist Conference Task Force, Task Force to Develop MLA’s Center of Research and Education (CORE), and Joint MLA/AAHSL Legislative Task Force. Her regional activities include participation in the MLA Mid-Atlantic Chapter (MAC) Honors and Awards Committee, North Carolina Area Health Education Center (AHEC) Task Force on the Future of AHEC Libraries, North Carolina Consumer Health Information Statewide Advisory Committee, NLM Biomedical Library and Informatics Review Committee, and numerous other committees and advisory groups.

Since the beginning of her career, Jenkins has given presentations, seminars, and instruction on a variety of medical librarianship topics. She has also been awarded many grants and honors. She is currently an MLA Fellow, and a Distinguished Member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals, and has served as a mentor for the NLM/AAHSL Leadership Fellows program.

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New “I Love My HSL” Blog Garners Users’ and Professional Attention

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The UNC Health Sciences Library (HSL) launched a new blog earlier this year designed to encourage anyone who interacts with the HSL to share their stories and/or comments about what it is they love about the library — resources, services, people or anything else. Because it is called “I Love My HSL,” the blog was deliberately launched to coincide with Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 2011. (The full URL for the blog is https://ilovemyhsl.web.unc.edu.)

To date, the blog has received a lot of attention from library users expressing what they love about the HSL with comments like:

  • “I have no great story to tell. I just want to take a moment to say how great everyone at the HSL has been to me as a student at UNC-CH. Whether in person at the main desk, over the phone, or chatting via the internet, whenever I have asked for help the staff have been unfailingly friendly, interested, and (most important) very helpful.”
  • “You have been very helpful in advocating for the faculty to retain the journals critical to our research mission.”
  • “I was stuck with some research and asked Mellanye to help…she was AMAZING and had given me suggestions and articles within minutes. It was really a lifesaver and SUCH a huge relief to know that we have people like Mellanye that we can turn to for our research needs.”

In conjunction with the blog, earlier this semester posters were put up throughout the library giving people the opportunity write down their answer to “I Love My HSL Because…” The results where interesting, helpful and at times funny (we learned, for instance that users refer to the HSL as “Hizzel!”). Answers were also represented in a wordle image of a reindeer, which was featured on the HSL’s holiday card.

“We want to have fun with this (thus the less formal name chosen for the blog), but the overarching purpose of it is very serious,” said Matt Marvin, Communications Manager at the HSL. “The response to date has been extremely gratifying.”

Creators of the blog view it as an experiment in Appreciative Inquiry (AI) (see more about AI at http://guides.hsl.unc.edu/AI) that has the potential to help the HSL and its users on a number of different levels. The goal is to use the blog to gather information that will help foster positive outcomes internally, but it has also generated a lot of interest externally. For instance, the creators were asked to present a poster at a prominent library conference and have also been invited to submit a video about the project for an international conference about AI to be held in Belgium next year.

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HSL Board Member Receives State’s Highest Honor

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The UNC Health Sciences Library (HSL) congratulates Dr. Charles E. Hamner, a member of the HSL’s Board of Visitors who during a Nov. 10 ceremony at the N.C. Museum of History became one of six recipients of this year’s North Carolina Award, North Carolina’s highest civilian honor.

“Dr. Hamner’s lifelong experience supporting innovation and economic development in the health and biosciences, especially in North Carolina, has made him an invaluable advocate for our library,” said director of the HSL Carol Jenkins. “He knows the importance of libraries, and the HSL in particular, to quality science, excellent teaching and learning, and health benefits to communities and individuals.”

Dr. Hamner is well known for his pivotal role in advancing North Carolina and the RTP to preeminence within the biosciences industry. His name stands out as a biotechnology pioneer whose accomplishments have brought a huge new industry to the state. Under Dr. Hamner’s leadership, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center provided biotechnology workshops for 1,000 high school teachers, with the result that 100,000 students learned about life sciences careers in the biotech industry. To move research results from the laboratory to the market, Dr. Hamner developed a convertible loan fund that helped 52 startup companies obtain $450 million in venture capital. Among the 14 top biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies he helped recruit to the area were Bayer, BASF, Biogen and Wyeth. These companies built $900 million worth of facilities and created 6,000 new jobs in North Carolina. The state spent millions promoting Dr. Hamner’s biotechnology business plan, but it has reaped billions from the effort.

After leading the North Carolina Biotechnology Center for 14 years, Dr. Hamner retired on March 31, 2002. Throughout his research career, he has authored more than 50 scientific publications, co-authored chapters in 12 books on reproductive physiology and biochemistry, and edited two editions of Drug Development. A lifetime gardener and tennis player, Dr. Hamner lives with his wife in Chapel Hill, N.C.

A biography of Dr. Hamner is available online.

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Partnering With Micro-Consulting for North Carolina

During the 2010-2011 Academic Year, the UNC Health Sciences Library (HSL) will be providing space and offering information and education services for Micro-Consulting for North Carolina (MCforNC) https://uncstudentorgs.collegiatelink.net/organization/microconsulting-for-north-carolina.

MCforNC is a non-profit started by students and recent graduates of UNC-Chapel Hill (UNC) and Duke University that provides consulting services for North Carolina non-profits by connecting teams of student volunteers with selected non-profit clients. MCforNC plans to support six or seven student project teams for non-profit clients each semester.

This year-long HSL/MCforNC pilot project is part of HSL efforts to look at ways that the library could support innovation and collaboration at UNC. It is also in response to the Innovate@Carolina initiative started by Chancellor Thorp, which the HSL has embraced by creating the Innovate@HSL initiative. Furthermore, it also coincides with a period of time when the HSL is rethinking the use of some of its space. By working with groups and measuring the impact of the collaboration, the HSL hopes to learn more about how this kind of partnership could work with other groups and organizations.

Several aspects make the MCforNC group a good fit for the Innovate@HSL initiative:

  • The work is interdisciplinary, collaborative, and innovative.
  • Partners and students come from a wide range of disciplines including health affairs.
  • Past clients include ASHA (American Social Health Association), Arc of Orange County (advocacy and services for people with developmental disabilities) and Genesis Home (provides housing and supportive services to foster independence to end homelessness).
  • MCforNC needs a physical presence for visibility, recruiting, project team workspace and client meetings, and UNC Career Services space that MCforNC used before was no longer available.
  • Student volunteers benefit from experiential learning opportunities and they can cite these projects on their resumés.
  • Clients benefit from students’ innovative ideas, expertise, time, and energy.
  • Project teams often need training and help in doing market research – assistance that the library provides.
  • MCforNC has done impact assessments for clients and is willing to work with HSL to measure the impact of our collaborative work with them.

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Liza Cahoon Receives 2011 Chancellor’s Award

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The UNC Health Sciences Library (HSL)’s Elizabeth “Liza” Cahoon, an Information Associate with the HSL’s User Services department, was one of five recipients of the 2011 Chancellor’s Award. Liza is the fourth HSL staff member to receive the prestigious award in the past decade. She formally accepted the award during a ceremony at the Carolina Inn on Sept. 15, 2011, hosted by Chancellor Holden Thorp.

The Chancellor’s Award Program was established in 1991 to recognize the contributions made by UNC Chapel Hill employees based on meritorious or distinguished accomplishments in the categories of devotion to duty, innovations, public service, safety/heroism, human relations, and other achievements. Recipients of the award will receive a monetary and a leave reward. Furthermore, they are automatically nominated for the 2011 Governor’s Award of Excellence

Earlier this year, Liza also received the HSL’s Award of Excellence for superior results above and beyond the call of duty and superior attitude and service values as demonstrated by resourcefulness and helpfulness; generosity of time and spirit; creativity leading to improved services or productivity; willingness to take risks and try new ideas; and clearly communicating a high standard of service or achievement. The HSL customarily nominates recipients of this annual award for the Chancellor’s Award.

“What sets Liza apart?” asked Carol Jenkins, director of the HSL, during the library’s 2011 Awards Ceremony. “She is one of those who are here early in the morning, on weekends and other times when the rest of us are enjoying a few extra winks or other ‘away time’ activities. We depend on her to uphold our high standards of user service, and she always does, both in her own service and in the support she provides to her co-workers and to the student workers she now oversees. Liza coordinates the Information Associates team, which is responsible for problem-solving and ongoing process improvement in direct public services. Her co-workers and supervisors recognize and value the expertise Liza brings to this role.”

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Easing Hospital Professionals’ Access to UpToDate and CME

As part of an ongoing effort to better support the health care professionals we serve, the UNC Health Sciences Library (HSL) worked in tandem with UNC Hospitals’ technology group to provide a new and easier way for UNC Health Care professionals to accrue Continuing Medical Education (CME) credit.

Specifically, the team integrated UpToDate with the UNC Hospitals’ WebCIS Electronic Medical Record System (available on clinical workstations within UNC Health Care, as well as to authorized users off-campus). As a result of this project, WebCIS users are now able to accrue CME credit by performing research queries within UpToDate. To date, nearly 300 people have registered to take advantage of this new, convenient service.

Usage data shows that UpToDate is a highly valued clinical information resource licensed by HSL for our users. In fact, as result of its popularity and despite its significant expense, the HSL decided to expand the license so that users could access UpToDate from off campus. This resulted in a significant increase in usage (visits to the resource increased by as much as 5000 in the month the new expanded access was first launched).

This license expansion and added service is a great example of how HSL librarians work diligently to maximize the value of the resources we manage.

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Last modified: 05/26/21