Richard Barry M. Div., MSLS, AHIP
Librarian, Archivist and Records Manager
Institution – American Nurses Association
Silver Spring, MD

What is your position and what was the path that led you to it?

Fundamentally I am a spiritual person and so I believe that I was led to my current position. After completing Library Science studies, I began working in a seminary library. It took about six months for me to realize that if I was to advance in this particular library, someone ahead of me needed to pass away since the staff had all been there for many years. After a nine-month search the ANA took a chance and hired me. Basically I fell into healthcare librarianship. I love it. BTW, that seminary and its library closed within two years of my leaving.

Is there something in your own personal story that led you to do the work you do? (If you care to share a personal story)

I am not the first person to have a midlife crisis so I found myself a different person at forty than I was at 18. After working with people in crisis and listening to problems all day, I wanted work that provided service but without the intensity of life issues. I am happy to say that early on I discovered that books do not talk back; of course, recent technology has changed that.

What do you love most about your customer service work?

I receive personal pleasure when a patron tells me; “I can’t believe you found this article.” My work view is that I am one dimension of the intellectual process. When searches or articles are requested I know the patron is working on a specific topic and timeliness and accuracy are important. They cannot continue on with developing policy until I do my part by providing high quality accurate information for them to use. This is satisfying for me even though there is no public acknowledgement of my contributions. I’ve always been a curious person wanting to understand people, things and situations. When I can use my curiosity to uncover information I delight in being an information sleuth.

What is the biggest challenge in what you do?

The biggest challenge is working within a limited budget. Financially a membership-driven association is very conscientious about where, for what, and how much is spent in doing the work of the association. Usually the frustration is most evident when attending MLA and the exhibit area.  I see all kinds of neat things and useful databases, but know it is outside the realm of possibility. Grants often require in-kind support, and we just don’t have it. I am not revealing my secrets just yet about how to run a library on a shoestring. Maybe I should write a book about it?

What has been the most fulfilling part of your work in terms of working with nursing archives, collections, nursing students, nurse educators or nurse clinicians?   

Do I need to tell you that nurses are a unique breed of professional and thus require some unique information skills? I do not work in a clinical setting but do work with nurses on a daily basis since they comprise a significant percentage of staff. I find nurses to be very respectful of librarians. Those nurses who have formed friendships with librarians during their studies are my biggest fans and most frequent patrons. I have a very loose theory that there are parallels between nurses and librarians. Both are predominately female, both developed around the same time. Nursing as a profession pushed to have schools and hospitals to have libraries for the nurses to use for personal and professional development. This intertwining is most evident in an organization of organizations: The Interagency Council on Information Resources in Nursing.  It is comprised of nurses and librarians who collaborate in developing resources to support nursing practice. (see Essential Nursing Resources at www.icirn.org)  It is personally and professionally fulfilling to work on the ICIRN council knowing that I am remotely helping a student nurse to learn, support a practicing nurse to be aware of the latest tools, and to be enriched by the skills, knowledge and abilities of my fellow librarians who participate on the ICIRN council.

Are there any commonalities between your divinity degree education/experience, library science degree, hobbies and your current work?

I believe that each of us at this point in time is the summation of all that we are, including education, hobbies, work, and experiences. I would like to believe that my divinity preparation for pastoral work provided necessary people skills. Thinking on your feet and having an analytical perspective are important in both situations. As librarians we often have to intuit what information someone is seeking. We do this in pastoral care as well. My hobbies are photography, travel and being a foodie, which covers a lot of territory and provides that entry into understanding people and their situations.

How did you first come to know NN/LM SE/A?

Being appointed the ANA organizational representative to ICIRN introduced me to NLM. NLM is represented on the ICIRN council.  It was also through the ICIRN council that I was asked to join the Editorial Advisory Committee of the International Nursing Index (INI) that was published in cooperation with the NLM and the American Journal of Nursing. INI is no longer published but is available electronically as the nursing subset within PubMed. Living and working near the National Library of Medicine has been a blessing. I am able to take advantage of the excellent collection, programs offered at the NLM, and I have become friends with a number of staff.

In what ways has NN/LM SE/A been of help to you? (if applicable)

Remembering back to my beginning years in health sciences librarianship I was eager to learn all that I could about searching, research, resources, professional development, trends, issues and future developments. I believe I was able to obtain the answers by participating in programs offered. Networking with colleagues and friends about how we do the things we do has been a tremendous support (I am a solo librarian) and an inspiration in creatively working on challenges.

Can you share a library success story about the impact of a particular work effort that was involved in the planning or operation of the nurse association’s move from the mid-west to the Washington, DC area, or in the move to your current quarters?

How many folks can say they started a library? When ANA was in Kansas City, MO the offices were very close to the state university. The library that ANA had in 1972 when they moved was integrated into the university library. Then in 1992, when ANA moved to the DC area, only some of the historical books were brought along. I was hired for the new location as the first librarian ANA had on staff in 20 years and was immediately tasked with creating a library, archive, and overseeing the corporate business records. Talk about hitting the ground running! Over these last 20 years as the organizational focus moved, the library changed to keep apace of those developments. We like many others are inching our way to become more and more virtual.

What advice would you give other librarians who uniquely find themselves in a specialized, niche, health sciences library?  

We are a rare class and not a dying breed! While we are specialists (nursing) within a specialized area (health sciences), we are also experienced in all the other broad areas of knowledge and skills librarians share. Networking is key at this level. Serving the largest healthcare workforce in the nation (nurses) requires your radar to be attuned to multiple layers of interests and activity. Evidenced-based practice demands the data and finding it can be challenging. I am frequently required to research emerging topics and issues that are yet to be made into index terms or subject headings. I am grateful for my love of reading, which helps me figure out concepts and approaches to the literature where a pre-cursor to the new topic can be found. We all speak the same library language. How we apply that language is reflective of our situations.

For more information, please contact PJ Grier, Outreach and Access Coordinator, NN/LM, SE/A Region  (pgrier@hshsl.umaryland.edu).

Date:  October 17th, 2012

Time:  Noon to 1:00 pm (EDT)

Presenter: Kimberley Barker

Kimberley Barker is the Manager for Technology Education & Computing at the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library at the University of Virginia, and also serves as Chair of the Technology Regional Advisory Committee. She believes that technology empowers people, allowing them to make better decisions and enrich their personal and professional lives. Kimberley also believes that anyone can learn anything, and that everybody deserves the chance to do so.  To that end, she enjoys matching users with the most appropriate technology for their needs, teaching them how to use it, and providing moral support and practical guidance as they incorporate it into their work. A confirmed Starbucks chai addict with a Steampunk sensibility, she plays World of Warcraft as time permits, and enjoys teaching her pre-schooler the finer points of “Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock”.

Presentation: Healthy & Wise: Healthcare and the Internet of Things

Contact lenses that monitor blood sugar and alert the wearer? A wristband that measures hours of sleep and send the results to healthcare providers? They’re not science fiction; they’re not even years away from reality! Smart devices like these are part of the Internet of Things, and they’re in use right now across the world. Join Kimberley Barker as she provides an overview of the Internet of Things, as well as highlights some specific examples and details their impact on healthcare.

What do you need to join these conferences?

• A computer (with Flash installed)
• A telephone

How do I connect?

 Go to this URL: http://webmeeting.nih.gov/beyondthesea

• Enter as a Guest
• Sign in with your first and last name

Follow the instructions in the meeting room to have Adobe Connect call your phone or call 1-800-605-5167 and enter the participant code 816440 when prompted.

October is National Medical Librarian Month, and NN/LM SE/A wants to celebrate your success. Last year’s “Share Your Success” event was terrific, featuring a series of awe-inspiring stories about library advocacy. Geetha Sridaran and Kaye Robertson won the drawing for two $1000 travel scholarships for the 2012 MLA meeting in Seattle.

We are repeating the program this year, but with a difference: for 2012, we are looking for two kinds of stories to share on SEA Currents:

a)      Have you proven your worth to an administrator or told someone how important libraries are, changing his or her behavior?

b)      Have you explored new or non-traditional roles, expanding the realm of what a librarian does?

To enter the contest, tell us about your experience. Or share someone else’s story. Medical libraries around the region face ever-larger challenges, and we all need to work together by sharing our successful strategies to ensure a future for our profession and our institutions. Articles will be published on the NN/LM SE/A SEA Currents blog throughout the month of October.

Authors and subjects of articles will be entered into a competition for a$1000 travel scholarship to MLA 2013 in Boston, MA. One scholarship will be awarded and will cover travel: flight, hotel, and per diems up to $1000.

We will accept entries until October 15, 2012. The winner will be announced on October 31, 2012. Please submit articles to David Midyette at dmidyette@hshsl.umaryland.edu

Good luck!

In addition to our blog series on library advocacy, NN/LM SE/A is celebrating National Medical Librarians Month (NMLM) by giving away 100 of MLA’s “Medical Librarians: Your Ultimate Search Engine” posters. These great posters (sold on the MLA site for $15) are suitable for framing and will be shipped in a tube to avoid creases. We will honor orders at one per library until all are gone. Please submit your request, using our online request form at: http://www.nnlm.gov/sea/feedback/poster/

By David Midyette, Outreach and Communications Coordinator, NN/LM, SE/A Region

Why are the stories people tell so powerful?  How is it that we can remember details of the life of Harry Potter or the lessons of Aesop’s Fables or the antics of the kids on Jersey Shore?  The reason is that we have a deeply ingrained ability to hear and remember the details of a good or moving story.  Long before we wrote things down, we relied on oral histories, homilies, metaphors, fables, and many other story forms to teach us about the value of life and provide reasons for what happened all around us.

The challenges facing libraries today are in many ways as difficult as those faced by our ancestors in the fight for food, shelter, and survival.   It has long been the tradition in our industry to quantify what we do in an effort to measure the value of our libraries. We do this to address the economic realities that constantly bombard our institutions and to provide a sense of scientific objectivity.  Yet how many of our institutions put forth personal stories and testimonials to “sell” the services of the institution?  The truth is that while the numbers quantify output, they lack the personal touch of the narrative.  It is the color of the human story that we remember (unless you are a savant at baseball statistics), and it is THAT color which shows the value in what we do as librarians.  In short HOW we touch peoples lives is as important as HOW MANY times we touch peoples lives.

The challenge, then, is to make the qualitative information quantifiable without losing the flavor of the data.  Doing this requires creating general categories and then squeezing all of those “you really helped me find that article quickly” and “you made it happen like magic” statements into numbers.  What we need to do as librarians is accept these new categories and populate them with precious numbers to show that people really do see what we do as valuable.  At the same time, maintaining and presenting narratives on our value balances the quantification of words of praise, and we then have the Technicolor Truth of our profession.

Ethnography, long a mainstay of cultural anthropology, is becoming a key method in many avenues of social research, and social research is one of the main things we do as librarians.  We strive to know and understand those we serve, and simple ethnographic techniques can produce highly valuable data.  As an analogy, consider watching a group of indigenous people perform a dance.  You can stand at the periphery and watch, which allows you to develop a certain perspective of the dance.  But, if you actually participate in the dance and talk with other dancers about what they do, why they do it, and the history of the dance, then you have a completely different and greatly improved picture of the dance AND the experience.

To that end, it is important to do more than just solicit comments from our patrons.  We need to get out there and talk to them about their experiences. We need their stories about how we help them, how we made their jobs easier, how we helped them help patients, and how they feel about us. We need to ask why they chose to seek our help and how they felt about our assistance.  Their stories will help us paint a fuller picture of not only the cultures of our institutions, but also of our roles, importance, and history within those institutions.   We need to keep our numbers, but we also need to expand those numbers to include data which are subjective.  Science strives to be objective, but in doing so it is easy to miss the forest for the trees.  Perspective is everything and if we can give a highly personal side to our institutional value then we will be far more successful in sustaining our futures.

If you want to learn more about qualitative research in libraries, we have some excellent titles (a sample is below) in our SE/A Professional Development Collection. You can request these titles through DOCLINE and get started on your journey to collect even more valuable data to show your value!

Angrosino, M. (2007). The sage qualitative research kit 3 doing ethnographic and observational research. London: SAGE.

Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research design : Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Los Angeles: Sage.

Flick, U. (2007). The sage qualitative research kit 1 designing qualitative research. London: SAGE.

Gibbs, G. (2007). The sage qualitative research kit 6 analyzing qualitative data. London: SAGE.

Kvale, S., & Brinkmann, S. (2009). Interviews : Learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Rossman, G. B., & Rallis, S. F. (2012). Learning in the field : An introduction to qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE.

Wildemuth, B. M. (2009). Applications of social research methods to questions in information and library science. Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited.

If you have any quesitons about this article, please contact David Midyette @ dmidyette@hshsl.umaryland.edu

Date:  October 17th, 2012

Time:  Noon to 1:00 pm (EDT)

Presenter: Kimberley Barker

Kimberley Barker is the Manager for Technology Education & Computing at the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library at the University of Virginia, and also serves as Chair of the Technology Regional Advisory Committee. She believes that technology empowers people, allowing them to make better decisions and enrich their personal and professional lives. Kimberley also believes that anyone can learn anything, and that everybody deserves the chance to do so.  To that end, she enjoys matching users with the most appropriate technology for their needs, teaching them how to use it, and providing moral support and practical guidance as they incorporate it into their work. A confirmed Starbucks chai addict with a Steampunk sensibility, she plays World of Warcraft as time permits, and enjoys teaching her pre-schooler the finer points of “Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock”.

Presentation: Healthy & Wise: Healthcare and the Internet of Things

Contact lenses that monitor blood sugar and alert the wearer? A wristband that measures hours of sleep and send the results to healthcare providers? They’re not science fiction; they’re not even years away from reality! Smart devices like these are part of the Internet of Things, and they’re in use right now across the world. Join Kimberley Barker as she provides an overview of the Internet of Things, as well as highlights some specific examples and details their impact on healthcare.

What do you need to join these conferences?

• A computer (with Flash installed)
• A telephone

How do I connect?

 Go to this URL: http://webmeeting.nih.gov/beyondthesea

• Enter as a Guest
• Sign in with your first and last name

Follow the instructions in the meeting room to have Adobe Connect call your phone or call 1-800-605-5167 and enter the participant code 816440 when prompted.

Date:  September 19th, 2012

Time:  Noon to 1:00 pm (EDT)

Presenter: Becky Mehling, MLS

Rebecca Mehling, MLS is the Medical Librarian at University Hospital East (UHE), part of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio.  Ms. Mehling’s professional experience spans more than 25 years, most as the sole medical librarian in several hospital libraries.  She has been the sole medical librarian at UHE, where she is responsible for all library operations, since 2002. Before coming to UHE she served as a Consumer Health Librarian and Library Consultant, assisting several hospital libraries with the planning and design of their consumer health libraries, collection development, and training volunteer staff.  Prior to this she was the sole medical librarian at St. Ann’s Hospital in Westerville, Ohio, which is now part of the Columbus (OH) based Mt. Carmel Health System.

Presentation: The Electronic Health Record and My IHIS (Integrated Healthcare Information System) Adventure as a Physician Super User

Implementing a hospital based electronic health record system (EHR-S) is fraught with many challenges.  This presentation will focus on a solo medical librarian’s role as a physician super user at one hospital, during the implementation phase (Go Live) of its EHR-S. IHIS is the hospital’s branded version of EPIC. The presentation will also cover the training she received to prepare her for her physician super user role during the initial month long Go Live EHR-S implementation.

What do you need to join these conferences?

• A computer (with Flash installed)
• A telephone

How do I connect?

 Go to this URL: http://webmeeting.nih.gov/beyondthesea

• Enter as a Guest
• Sign in with your first and last name

Follow the instructions in the meeting room to have Adobe Connect call your phone or call 1-800-605-5167 and enter the participant code 816440 when prompted.

Recording Available at: https://webmeeting.nih.gov/p92121736/

On August 3-4, I attended the Mississippi State University Library eResource & Emerging Technologies Summit (LEETS) held at the Mitchell Memorial Library at MSU in Starkville, MS. The conference, divided into two days with eResources topics and discussion on the first day, followed by emerging technologies topics and presentations on the second day.

The first day’s presentations examined topics from demand-driven acquisition to developing an institutional repository to ensuring access to subscribed e-content. The day began with a keynote address by Tim Collins, president/CEO of EBSCO Publishing, who provided a unique look at upcoming eResources products and price structuring. He discussed that pricing will be more closely targeted to efficiently respond to libraries’ use of electronic resources

Another highlight from the first day of the conference was a presentation given by Regina Reynolds, Director of U.S. ISSN Center, and Head, ISSN Publisher Liaison Section, Library of Congress, as she shared the work of the PIE-J (Presentation & Identification of E-Journals) working group. She talked about efforts being aimed at more efficiently and more effectively indexing and labeling e-journal content, thereby making it both more discoverable and easier to use.

The second day provided equally timely and relevant presentations. Emerging technologies topics included: librarian’s roles in social media, cloud computing, making digital video accessible, augmented reality, app development, and of course a review of apps for librarians. Because I always appreciate a thorough, yet manageable, review of various emerging technologies and products, a few of my favorite presentations were presented as such

First, Rachel Renick, Public Services Librarian at Millsaps College, gave an outstanding review of a handful of free, easy-to-use mobile app development tools. She recommended the following tools in her presentation,: Conduit, Appsbar, Appcelerator, & Tiggzi. If you’ve been thinking about creating your own mobile app, give these tools a look

Nicole Hennig, Head of the User Experience Group at MIT Libraries presented ‘Apps4Librarians’, session modeled after applications she and her staff recommend to faculty and students seeking to enhance productivity, and stay more organized. The presentation and discussion were aimed at effective use of mobile technologies and how their placement within the education setting is appropriate and valuable. More than 50 suggested apps were discussed—among them ones for note-taking, presenting, cloud computing, and library research. The presentation concluded with tips on how to keep up with the latest apps.

More information about the 2012 MSU LEETS conference, including recorded presentations can be found at: http://blogs.library.msstate.edu/msuleets/?page_id=1223

For more information, please contact Andrew Youngkin, Emerging Technologies/Evaluation Coordinator @ ayoungki@hshsl.umaryland.edu.

To better serve the information needs associated with public health, the CDC has developed a free, comprehensive, digital repository for all CDC literature and research known as CDC Stacks. Since public health information needs are so varied, digital collections were brought in from across the CDC and can now be searched and discovered via one user interface. The goals of transparency and accountability fueled the push for this repository, as the public has paid for the creation of these publications and should therefore be able to access them for free. Lt. Robert Swain, who received his MLIS degree from the University of Alabama, was the driving force behind this project. As the website notes, “CDC Stacks provides access to current CDC research and literature such as the Open Access Collection. In addition, CDC Stacks offers a historical perspective that was previously not available, such as the first 30 volumes of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.” The public can “search the full text of all documents, browse journals by public health subjects, and explore curated collections of documents on relevant topics” Explore it for yourself at http://stacks.cdc.gov. To hear the NN/LM SE/A’s Beyond the SEA webinar recording of Lt Robert Swain discussing CDC Stacks, go here: https://webmeeting.nih.gov/p83775314/

For more information, please contact Sheila Snow-Croft @ ssnowcro@hshsl.umaryland.edu.

Date:  September 19th, 2012

Time:  Noon to 1:00 pm (EDT)

Presenter: Becky Mehling, MLS

Rebecca Mehling, MLS is the Medical Librarian at University Hospital East (UHE), part of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio.  Ms. Mehling’s professional experience spans more than 25 years, most as the sole medical librarian in several hospital libraries.  She has been the sole medical librarian at UHE, where she is responsible for all library operations, since 2002. Before coming to UHE she served as a Consumer Health Librarian and Library Consultant, assisting several hospital libraries with the planning and design of their consumer health libraries, collection development, and training volunteer staff.  Prior to this she was the sole medical librarian at St. Ann’s Hospital in Westerville, Ohio, which is now part of the Columbus (OH) based Mt. Carmel Health System.

Presentation: The Electronic Health Record and My IHIS (Integrated Healthcare Information System) Adventure as a Physician Super User

Implementing a hospital based electronic health record system (EHR-S) is fraught with many challenges.  This presentation will focus on a solo medical librarian’s role as a physician super user at one hospital, during the implementation phase (Go Live) of its EHR-S. IHIS is the hospital’s branded version of EPIC. The presentation will also cover the training she received to prepare her for her physician super user role during the initial month long Go Live EHR-S implementation.

What do you need to join these conferences?

• A computer (with Flash installed)
• A telephone

How do I connect?

 Go to this URL: http://webmeeting.nih.gov/beyondthesea

• Enter as a Guest
• Sign in with your first and last name

Follow the instructions in the meeting room to have Adobe Connect call your phone or call 1-800-605-5167 and enter the participant code 816440 when prompted.