Dispatches from Medical Libraryland

I served as an official blogger again this year for the Medical Library Association annual conference, held in Washington, DC. In addition to blogging, I got to do two presentations myself!

Here’s a round-up of the posts I wrote, which generally include some good online resources related to the topics at hand. Various posts may be of interest to other med librarians, individuals with NIH-funded or other federally funded research grants, anatomy instructors, those interested in HIV/AIDS or vaccines or community outreach on health, PubMed searchers, and others:

• Section Program: Vaccine Information – speakers from the CDC, a university, and a public health librarian on vaccine safety and information on communication, myths and misperceptions, outreach efforts related to the HPV vaccine, and other topics
• NLM Theater: MyBibliography for Managing NIH Public Access Compliance – easy visual cues to NIH public access compliance with new features for ease of use
• Vendor Profile: Quertle – a PubMed search alternative that includes relationship searching for focusing results
• Vendor Profile: anatomyEXPERT – a brand new anatomy learning tool with great visuals
• AIDS 2010: Evolution of Information – HIV/AIDS info from clinical, librarian, and USAID/global outreach perspectives
• Notes from the Government Relations Committee – on NIH/NLM funding, and FRPAA (the federal research public access act) – I’m brand new to this committee this year
• Online Content: Videos Now Available from Plenary Sessions I & II [these are available to conference attendees and folks who register/pay for the online content]
• Quick Links: More on That Redesigned Pill Bottle – an example of using good design to improve health, a topic from Daniel Pink’s plenary session
• E-Science: Exploring the Librarian’s Role – librarians on data curation and sharing and helping researchers manage and organize their data and connect it to others

I also have a post at my place on my conversation with an ACOG rep about how they disappear old guidelines when new ones become available.

My fellow medical librarians posted on various other topics throughout the event at http://npc.mlanet.org/mla10/.

My own presentations were an invited panel on informal publication methods, where I spoke about applying some benefits of informal methods such as blogs to our formal journals, and a paper presentation about approaches my library has taken over the past year to improve management of metadata for our electronic resources, including accountability features and distributing the workload beyond our tech services folks. A’Llyn has a post on the open forum on publication methods.

[cross-posted/adapted from Women’s Health News]