The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is seeking input from health information exchange (HIE) project evaluators to participate in studies to assess the usability and usefulness of a revised version of the AHRQ HIE Evaluation Toolkit.

Participants should not have used the AHRQ HIE Evaluation Toolkit.

• Study #1 is a usability study and seeks participants developing an HIE project evaluation plan with limited experience in HIE project evaluation.

• Study #2 seeks participants who will be developing an evaluation plan in the latter part of 2012. Participation in study #2 will require use of a revised HIE Evaluation Toolkit in planning the HIE project evaluation.

Participation in both of the studies includes an interview of up to 90 minutes.  Participants in each study will receive $100.

If interested in participating, please email Westat at HIEevaluationtoolkit@westat.com or call toll-free, 888-653-4336 by May 13, 2012 for Study #1 and by June 1, 2012 for Study #2.  Contact Mary Crimmins at marycrimmins@westat.com for more information.

MAR is pleased to announce that we have set-up our new advisory structure that will consist of a Regional Advisory Committee (RAC) and four Special Advisory Groups (SAGs).  The committees and their members are listed below:

Regional Advisory Committee (consisting of 4 Special Advisory Group Chairs, 4 MLA Chapter representatives and 2 At-Large representatives)

• Marie Ascher, Associate Director, User Support, Education & Research, New York Medical College
• Donna Berryman, Assistant Director, Education and Information, University of Rochester Medical Center
• Aileen McCrillis, Research Librarian, New York University Health Sciences Libraries, NYU Langone Medical Center
• Micki McIntyre, Healthy NJ Coordinator, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Health Science Library
• Joanne Muellenbach, Director, Medical Library, The Commonwealth Medical College
• Jenny Pierce, Public Services Librarian, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Health Science Library
• Neil Rambo, Director, Health Sciences Libraries and Knowledge Informatics; Library Director of the Ehrman Medical Library, New York University Langone Medical Center
• Melissa Ratajeski, Reference Librarian, Health Sciences Library System, University of Pittsburgh
• Maura Sostack, Manager, Medical Librarian, Virtua Health
• Patricia Ulmer, Community Health Librarian, Geisinger Health System

Ex Officio

• Barbara Epstein, Director, Health Sciences Library System, University of Pittsburgh
• Renae Barger, Executive Director, NN/LM MAR

Special Advisory Groups

Outreach to Health Professionals and Public Health Workers

• Chair:  Micki McIntyre, Healthy NJ Coordinator, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Health Science Library
• Traci Bolander, Practice Director, Mid-Atlantic Behavioral Health
• Janet Caruso, Director, Community Education, Mental Health America of Dutchess County, NY
• Barbara Folb, Public Health Informationist / Reference Librarian, Health Sciences Library System, University of Pittsburgh
• Jeff Garvey, Director of Library Services, Hunter-Rice Health Sciences Library, Samaritan Medical Center
• Maggie Potter, Associate Dean for Public Health Practice; Director, Center for Public Health Practice; and Associate Professor of Health Policy & Management, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh
• Christine Schuyler, Commissioner of Human Services, Chautauqua County, NY
• Shelly Warwick, Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacy and Health Outcomes and Director of Library and Information Services, Touro-Harlem Medical Library

Ex Officio

• Kate Flewelling, Outreach Coordinator, NN/LM MAR

Consumer Health

• Chair:  Patricia Ulmer, Community Health Librarian, Geisinger Health System
• Bonnie Anton, Project Manager, eRecord/Patient Educator, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)—St. Margaret Hospital
• Joy Conti, Manager and Parish/Congregational Nurse, UPMC Mercy Hospital and Hill Top Health Ministry Consortium
• Debby Emerson, Executive Director, Central NY Library Resources Council
• Marilyn Jenkins, Executive Director, Allegheny County Library Association
• Deborah Magnan, Associate Librarian, Samuel and Sandra Hekemian Medical Library, Hackensack University Medical Center
• Ophelia Morey, Coordinator of Community Outreach Service, University at Buffalo Health Sciences Library
• Robert Stewart, Director, Asbury Park Public Library, Asbury Park, NJ

Ex Officio

• Lydia Collins, Consumer Health Coordinator, NN/LM MAR

Hospital Libraries

• Chair:  Maura Sostack, Manager, Medical Librarian, Virtua Health
• Helen Ann Brown Epstein, Head, Education and Outreach, Weill Cornell Medical Library Weill Cornell Medical College
• Tami Hartzell, Clinical and Translational Science Librarian, Rochester General Hospital
• Barbara Henry, Community Health Librarian, Christiana Care Health System
• Claire Joseph, Director, Redish Medical Library, South Nassau Communities Hospital
• Joan Napolitano, Manager, Hospital Library Services Program, Metropolitan New York Library Council
• Priscilla Stephenson, Chief, Library Service/Medical Media, Philadelphia VA Medical Center
• Angela Thor, Medical Circuit Librarian, Central New York Library Resources Council

Ex Officio

• Michelle Burda, Network and Advocacy Coordinator, NN/LM MAR

Resource and Academic Libraries

• Chair:  Marie Ascher, Associate Director, User Support, Education & Research, New York Medical College
• Barbara Cavanaugh, Director, Biomedical Library; Associate Director, Health Sciences Libraries, University of Pennsylvania
• David Nolfi, Health Sciences Librarian, Duquesne University
• Debra Rand, Assistant Dean and Director for Health Sciences Libraries, Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine, North Shore-LIJ Health System
• Cynthia Robinson, Director, George T. Harrell Health Sciences Library, Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Penn State College of Medicine
• Neil Romanosky, Assistant Director for Administration, NYU Health Sciences Libraries
• Julia Sollenberger, Associate Vice President and Director, Medical Center Libraries and Technologies, University of Rochester
• Gloria Wilson, Reference/Health Sciences Librarian, Library Learning Center, Long Island University—Brooklyn

Ex Officio

• Missy Harvey, Technology & Communication Coordinator, NN/LM MAR

Designing Libraries for the 21st Century

May 16-18, 2012

University of Calgary

Program and Registration

http://library.ucalgary.ca/lib21

The Taylor Family Digital Library, which opened in September 2011 at the University of Calgary, offered a unique opportunity to rethink the library’s physical space, technology infrastructure, and program of services.

In this leadership symposium, we will explore the trends and concepts shaping the design and services of this library and other 21^st century libraries, learning centres and specialized library spaces.  Speakers will include library and university administrators, architects, designers, technologists, and campus planners from Calgary and across North America.

Symposium sessions will include:

• Realizing the Vision
• Creating Spaces for Learning
• Planning for New Buildings on Campus
• Rethinking Library Space: The Academic, Information and Technology Contexts
• The Architect’s Perspective
• Designing Specialized Spaces in Libraries
• In Conversation – One Building: Multiple Perspectives
• Technologies: Pushing the Boundaries
• A Year or Two Later – Lessons Learned

This will be of interest to academic administrators, librarians, technologists, architects, and designers.

This conference is being co-organized by:

Tom Hickerson                                               Joan K. Lippincott

Vice Provost & University Librarian            Associate Executive Director

University of Calgary                                     Coalition for Networked Information

For information, please contact:

Donna Livingstone, Communications Director

Libraries & Cultural Resources, University of Calgary

403-220-3511     livingsd@ucalgary.ca

You may be interested in a new resource called the DMPTool (https://dmp.cdlib.org/).  Using the DMPTool templates and guidance, your researchers can:

• Create ready-to-use data management plans for specific funding agencies
• Meet requirements for data management plans
• Get step-by-step instructions and guidance for data management plan
• Learn about resources and services available at your institution to fulfill the data management requirements of their grants

Several universities and organizations are developing the DMPTool, led by the California Digital Library and the University of Virginia Library’s Scientific Data Consulting Group (SciDaC) (http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/brown/data/).

Mark these dates in your calendar and join us for the following workshops…

January 9th:

• Valuing Your Library: Needs Assessment, Program Development, and Program Evaluation (Pittsburgh, PA)
• Nursing on the Net: Health Care Resources You Can Use (Online: 1/9/2012 – 2/3/2012)

January 17th:  Patient Safety Resource Seminar: Librarians on the Front Lines (Online: 1/17/2012 – 2/17/2012)

January 23rd:  EBM for Librarians (Bronx, NY)

February 6th:  Beyond an Apple a Day: Providing Consumer Health Information at Your Library (Online: 2/6/2012 – 3/9/2012)

Measuring Your Impact: Using Evaluation for Library Advocacy

Library users and stakeholders will recognize and value the importance of their library’s services and of the librarian to the organization. That is the ultimate goal of this six-hour workshop. The outcome for the class is that librarians will be able to show the value of their library’s services. Participants will become familiar with an evaluation process and will use and take away methods and tools for assessment, evaluation planning, creating logic models, data collection, data analysis and reporting. The workshop will feature group exercises that move participants through the steps of an evaluation process. There will be participant discussion and exercises in addition to lectures.

6 MLA C.E. Credits

Instructors: Sue Hunter, NN/LM MAR, and Cindy Olney, NN/LM OERC

Date/Time: Thursday, October 21, 2010, 8:30am – 4:00 pm

Location: Central New York Library Resources Council (CLRC), 6493 Ridings Road,  Syracuse, New York, 13206

Please register with the Central New York Library Resources Council

In February/March 2010 the NN/LM MAR held a series of focus groups with MAR network members. The purpose of the focus groups was to learn from network members about their experiences with the current programs and services of the MAR and their future needs and interests in order to plan for the next NN/LM five-year contract.

A total of four focus groups were conducted with a total of fourteen network members. The focus groups were made of up network members from hospital, public, academic, health sciences, and resource libraries. The Appreciative Inquiry method was used in the focus group sessions to learn about the past successes of the MAR programs in order to build on those successes to implement future programs and services.

These nine themes emerged from the focus groups, funding, training, customer service, communication, NLM resources, Value of Libraries Study, advocacy, connectivity and networking, and community. These themes are fully outlined in the Focus Group: Final Report which is now available on the MAR website.

The goal of the “Value of Library and Information Services in Patient Care” initiative is to develop and implement a research study to measure the value of the health sciences library, library services, and librarian on clinical decision making and patient care outcomes.  From a discussion at a November 2006 meeting of the Regional Advisory Committee (RAC) of the Middle Atlantic Region, National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM), emerged the issue of establishing the value of health sciences libraries to administrators in hospitals, academic health sciences centers and other organizations where librarians work.

In the RAC discussion the “Rochester study” [The impact of the hospital library on clinical decision making: the Rochester study. Bull Med Libr Assoc. 1992 Apr; 80(2):169-78] was mentioned as an influential, highly-cited (109 times) piece of research that was now seriously out of date.  The Regional Advisory Committee recommended moving forward with planning a new study based on the original Rochester study, but updated for the present day.  [See: Measuring the value and impact of health sciences libraries: planning an update and replication of the Rochester Study. J Med Libr Assoc. 2009 Oct;97(4):308-12.]

The Value Study Planning Committee is comprised of members of NN/LM and researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC).  Julia Sollenberger, (principal investigator), Karen Brewer, Susan Cavanaugh, Kathel Dunn, Sharon Easterby-Gannett, Mary Lou Klem, Lynn Kasner Morgan, and Kate Oliver comprise the NN/LM members.  We have developed a research plan in consultation with Joanne Marshall, now on the faculty of the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Information and Library Science, and one of the original authors of the Rochester study.  The other UNC members are:  Jennifer Craft Morgan, Susan Rathbun-Grubb and Cheryl Thompson.  The plan is to reproduce the original study in the current environment, and to include as many hospitals as possible in the MAR region. The survey is to be administered by a private survey company and analyzed by the research group at UNC.

A Problem

Funding for the entire study (just over $144,000) is coming from the MAR program, which is itself funded through the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM).  However, in the spring of 2009 the National Library of Medicine alerted us to a potential problem — all surveys funded by government agencies (including NLM) must be approved by the US Office of Management and Budget, (OMB), and this process could delay the study by at least 12 months.  The only time-saving solution seemed to be funding the survey itself (the programming and administration of the survey by an independent survey company) with non-NLM funds, which would alleviate the need to get OMB approval. The actual cost of conducting the survey is approximately $18,000.

Library Groups Save the Day

Through the generosity of twelve different regional and national library groups, financial support for conducting the survey was secured.  By October, 2009, the following groups had agreed to contribute to this important initiative:  the Hospital Library Section of the Medical Library Association, the NY/NJ Chapter of MLA, the Philadelphia Regional Chapter of MLA, the Upstate New York and Ontario Chapter of MLA and all eight of the New York State Reference and Research Library Resources Councils.

Where We Are Now

Due to the generous support of these groups, we are now at a point where the study will soon be implemented.  The planning committee has completed survey development and a handbook for the study participants; the research plan is going through the UNC Institutional Review Board; and the survey will soon be pretested.  We expect to implement a pilot in the spring of 2010; libraries in the MAR Region will be contacted soon as we begin to recruit pilot participants.  The actual survey will begin in late summer.  The research team is very busy, but excited to be so close to implementation. We are grateful for your show of support and look forward to sharing more progress updates.  Please stay tuned!

The NN/LM MAR has made available recordings for the following online classes. Recordings include the online class in its entirety with audio and a visual slide presentation. Simply click on the recorded session link to begin the recording for the class. MAR will continue to add recordings for future online classes, look for the link from the class descriptions on the MAR web site,
http://nnlm.gov/mar/training/classes.html .

DOCLINE SERHOLD: Searching, Updating, and Reporting
This course will focus on the SERHOLD feature of DOCLINE.  Attendees will learn how to add new titles and formats to their library’s record, search SERHOLD for other library’s holdings, and utilize the SERHOLD reporting functions to make the most of this unique tool in DOCLINE.  
The class presentation is available in PDF.
A previously recorded session is available for viewing online .

Free Productivity Tools
Library’s budgets are always pinched for one thing or another. Did you know that there are a multitude of free software packages out there that do just about everything that commercial software packages can do? In this one hour class we’ll take a look at some of these software packages, their usefulness, their limitations and things to think about if you decide to go the free software route.
Productivity tools resource page
A previously recorded session is available for viewing at anytime.

Valuing Library Services and Cost Benefit/ROI Calculators
On April 22, 2009, MAR hosted an online class to enable health sciences librarians to determine the return on investment and cost benefit of their libraries and services. The instructors discussed and demonstrated two tools to show the value a library brings to its institution:

1. The Retail Value Calculator, adapted from one originally provided by the Massachusetts Library Association, and then adapted for the web by Chelmsford Public Library, helps to determine the library’s worth to the institution, and how much would it cost to replace library services on the retail market;
2. The CBA and ROI Calculator helps to determine a library’s contribution to the institutional bottom line, and how much benefit the institution receives for every dollar spent by the library.

Guest Speakers/Instructors: Betsy Kelly, Assessment and Evaluation Liaison (NN/LM MCR) & Barb Jones, Advocacy Liaison (NN/LM MCR)
This free, online class for MAR network members was conducted using Adobe Connect. The recording provides the session in its entirety with audio and the PowerPoint presentation. The recording runs for approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes.
View the recorded session.
Class notes are available in PDF.

The intention of the new Evaluation webpage on the MAR web site is two-fold. The page provides information on the evaluation activities conducted by the MAR staff to benefit members (http://nnlm.gov/mar/evaluation/ ). Secondly, the Evaluation page presents tools and resources to help guide network members through the evaluation process (http://nnlm.gov/mar/evaluation/evaluationtools.html ).

If you have comments or suggestions for improvements or new additions to the Evaluation page, please let me know. Are you considering evaluating your library services? If you need assistance in developing an evaluation plan, please contact Sue Hunter: sue.hunter@med.nyu.edu .