The Health Sciences and Human Services Library (HS/HSL) building reopened on Monday, September 14 after a 26-week closure. Throughout that time, as we continued to provide services while working from home, we knew that the Library space was also important to those who need a place to work and study. We have now opened floors 1 and 2 to UMB faculty, staff, and students with UMB One Cards, and to hospital staff with UMMC IDs. Hours are limited to Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Please see our reopening FAQ for information on how to safely visit the Library.

Historically, our annual Fall Return to UMB HS/HSL Connective Issues focuses on reminders about services and resources, and a look at our activities for the upcoming academic year. Well, this year, as we keep hearing over and over, we are in unprecedented times. Quite frankly, I would be happy to return to some “precedented times.” This issue is chock-full of all sorts of information primarily focused on the reopening of the HS/HSL building, which occurred in a limited fashion on September 14.

But, oh my have we been busy! Busy working in an online environment since March 14. (Check out the statistics dashboard on our website.) Busy readying the building, developing a safe environment on floors 1 and 2 for up to 142 occupants. Busy working on policies and services supporting staff and our user community during this new normal. However, there are plenty of articles in this issue sharing that type of information.

I will use the rest of my space to recognize and acknowledge two individuals who passed away during the time we have been at home. Each, in their own way, had a profound effect on the HS/HSL.

The first is Dr. David J. Ramsay, former president of UMB. Dr. Ramsay was president of UMB when we opened the HS/HSL building in 1998. His vision for the Library was as a physical manifestation of UMB’s aspirations to rise in prominence. It was designed to be a signature building for the university. Throughout his tenure, Dr. Ramsay was cognizant of the HS/HSL’s importance as a symbol of support for education, research, community engagement, and collaboration. And UMB did indeed thrive and grow during his tenure. I always like to think the HS/HSL played a part.

Dr. Milford (Mickey) Foxwell, late dean of admissions for the School of Medicine, was a supporter of the Historical Collections in the HS/HSL. Earlier this year, Dr. Foxwell, a devoted scholar of the history of medicine and avid collector of University of Maryland historical materials, made a generous gift to our Historical Collections, donating 135 volumes from his personal book collection – including one from 1559 – along with 29 volumes of valuable lecture notes, including ones by School of Medicine founders Nathaniel Potter and Elisha Debutts. In March 2020, Mickey became the most recent recipient of the Theodore E. Woodward Award, the HS/HSL’s highest honor.

Both of these men advanced the HS/HSL with their diverse contributions, and we are grateful.

The HS/HSL fully supports UMB’s commitment to racial justice and systemic change as we strive to become a more anti-racist university.

We were honored and excited to see a large Black Lives Matter banner displayed prominently from the Library’s signature tower. Many thanks to Jennifer Litchman, senior vice president for External Relations, who conceived of the project and decided to place UMB’s banner at the Library. We recognize that our obligation does not end with raising a banner, but must be reflected in the difficult and rewarding work of meaningful structural change.

Flu shots will be available (by appointment only) to UMB faculty, staff, and students* on Tuesday, Oct. 13, from noon to 4 p.m. and Wednesday, Oct. 14, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Weise Gallery on the first floor of the Health Sciences and Human Services Library (HS/HSL).

To schedule an appointment and find more detailed information on our COVID-19 guidelines and requirements, please click here.

All safety protocols associated with campus COVID-19 policies will be followed at this clinic. Anyone attending the flu clinic must have received a negative COVID-19 diagnostic test within 14 days prior to returning to campus and should fill out the SAFE on Campus form. A mask, insurance card, and photo ID are required at the time of service.

*Note: Walgreens is unable to accept Amerigroup and UnitedHealthcare insurance and will not accept cash payments. Students with these insurance plans and those who are unable to attend this flu clinic should make an appointment with Campus Health Services.

This annual flu clinic is provided by Walgreens in collaboration with the School of Pharmacy and HS/HSL.

“Medical Illustration: Clarifying the Biological & Health Sciences Through Visual Narrative”

Oct. 6, 2020
Noon – 1 p.m. EST
Online Zoom event – RSVP for Zoom link

RSVP here

We are proud to host Lydia Gregg, MA, CMI, FAMI, for our next Meet the Makers guest speaker event.

Gregg is an associate professor jointly appointed in the Departments of Art as Applied to Medicine (AAM) and Radiology in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She also serves as director of operations in AAM. Her areas of interest in illustration, animation and research include cerebrovascular anatomy and the efficacy of visual communication materials.

Changes await you at the HS/HSL with an exciting new look for the Library’s second and fifth floors. The second floor now has all new tables with power, comfortable rolling chairs, study banquettes, and new carpeting. You can find the new furniture throughout the second floor, including the tower, some study rooms, and in the area above the Information Services desk.

The fifth floor has long been a destination for quiet study. Now, the area overlooking Ravens Stadium and Oriole Park at Camden Yards has new tables, all with power and enhanced lighting. A new study area on the east side of the building features individual study pods and informal, round tables. Fifth floor study room tables have been upgraded, and comfortable rolling chairs have been added throughout the floor.

Plans for the building furniture refresh have been in the works for nearly two years – starting with a survey that gauged students’ preferences for functional furniture and optimal study spaces.

We hope you enjoy the new furniture and upgrades!

The HS/HSL’s Open Access Publishing Fund is designed to improve access to research produced at UMB. The fund also aims to advance UMB research by the following means:

• Promoting publishing by early-career researchers
• Enabling authors to retain their copyrights
• Accelerating the online availability of peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles generated by UMB researchers
• Raising campus awareness about the benefits of open access

The fund will reimburse 50 percent of the cost of article processing charges for Open Access (OA) journals up to a maximum of $3,000 for early-career researchers. There is a limited budget for this pilot project. Reimbursements will be made on a first-come, first-served basis until funds are exhausted.

Who is eligible?
This fund is designed to promote open-access publication by early-career researchers. It is open to the following individuals at UMB:

• PhD students
• Postdoctoral researchers or fellows
• Faculty at the rank of assistant professor or equivalent

What articles are covered?
Reimbursement is available for article processing fees in open access journals, which are journals that do not charge a fee for access to their content. There are various types of OA models. This fund covers fees only for journals that are fully OA. Eligible journals include the following:

• All journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals that allow authors to retain distribution rights
• Journals that are members of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) or demonstrate adherence to its Code of Conduct
• Journals that have a publicly available standard article fee schedule
• Journals that have a policy to substantially waive fees in case of economic hardship

For more information and to apply, please visit the HS/HSL’s Open Access Publishing Fund page.

The HS/HSL’s Center for Data and Bioinformation Services supports UMB researchers interested in using the All of Us Researcher Workbench.

The All of Us Research Program, part of the National Institutes of Health, is a historic effort to collect and study data from a diverse cohort of more than one million participants living in the United States. The All of Us Research Hub stores the health data from the All of Us Research Program and is now accepting applications from researchers to access the Researcher Workbench tools and protected dataset.

Through a Data Use and Registration Agreement with the All of Us Research Program, UMB researchers with an eRA Commons* account are now eligible for access to the Researcher Workbench and Registered Tier Data. The Workbench provides a comprehensive suite of tools for viewing and analyzing this data, including Workspaces for project organization, user-friendly Cohort Builder and Dataset Builder tools, and Jupyter Notebooks for data analysis in R and Python, along with an electronic phenotype library of pre-built cohorts for certain common conditions, example projects, and code snippets to help get you started.

For guidance on completing the application and registration process, visit the HS/HSL guide or contact J-P Courneya and Amy Yarnell (data@hshsl.umaryland.edu) at the Center for Data and Bioinformation Services at the HS/HSL. For more information on the available data, please visit the All of Us Data Snapshots page, explore the publicly available Data Browser, or read about the data curation process.

*If you are a researcher who does not have an eRA Commons account, please work with CITS . Once your account is established, you may apply for access to the Researcher Workbench.

Read all about it! The Network of the National Library of Medicine, Southeastern/Atlantic (NNLM SEA) has published a new visual annual report to highlight the many accomplishments of 2019-2020. Below are just a few of the achievements of NNLM SEA staff from the past year:

• Awarded $765,112 to 62 project awards to help expand access to quality information and address local health information problems across the SEA Region.
• Collaborated with the American Library Association to fund technology improvements in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands following hurricane devastations in 2019.
• Taught 135 in-person and online class sessions to 5,986 participants.
• Collaborated with Library Carpentry to offer workshops to build software and data skills within library and information-related communities.
• Launched a successful engagement project with the Healthy Book Spine Poetry Contest in the SEA Region.
• Welcomed the New Freedom Farm as the 2000th member to the SEA Region.

To read more about the 2019-2020 accomplishments, programs, and partnerships of NNLM SEA, we invite you visit the full annual report.

We have been living through an unprecedented historical event for the past seven months; during that time, we have transitioned to a new normal – online learning, teleworking, virtual meetings, and social distancing. Our personal and professional lives have changed profoundly, and we all have stories to tell and experiences to share. Like the flu pandemic of 1918, the COVID-19 pandemic will be studied, and our collective experiences will tell UMB’s story. The HS/HSL is collecting these COVID-19 stories and uploading them into the UMB Digital Archive so that future researchers can study the pandemic. Be part of UMB’s collective story through our project UnMasking a Pandemic: Stories from UMB during COVID-19.

Since we launched the project this summer, it has received five submissions showcasing the emotions and experiences the UMB community has faced during this difficult time. Three of the submissions are artworks created by faculty and staff, while two are written reflections about faculty and student experiences during the pandemic. All submissions are freely available in the UMB Response to Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Collection of the UMB Digital Archive, under the title Stories from UMB during COVID-19.

The project is still collecting stories, photographs, blogs, videos, and more, from across the UMB community about the COVID-19 pandemic. Members of the campus community at all levels of affiliation are encouraged to participate. The HS/HSL is interested in receiving items of personal reflection, creative work, or anything that documents your thoughts, emotions, and experiences during this incredible time.

To participate, please visit the project’s website and fill out the survey to submit materials. If you have any questions or would like to submit physical items to our collections please contact, Tara Wink, Historical Collections librarian and archivist.

Each school has a dedicated librarian who provides high quality research services for faculty, staff, and students.

What your librarian can do for you

• Consult with you to assist with literature searching and research
• Collaborate on comprehensive literature searches for systematic reviews
• Gather data to measure your individual, group, or departmental research impact
• Teach citation management using EndNote, Zotero, and other systems
• …and much more! Visit Help With Your Research on our website to see all the ways librarians can support your research, teaching, and class projects.

To contact the librarian for your school, visit our Professional Expertise page.

The navigation and organization of the HS/HSL website have been refreshed to improve the user experience. This is not a major change but small improvements based on feedback obtained through a usability study and HS/HSL staff review. Check out the new menu bar and dropdowns. Scroll down the page to see a few more enhancements.

Thanks to the students, faculty and staff who participated in the studies to improve the website!

See what we have done during COVID-19! Whether working from home or in the library building, we are focused on providing services that support research, clinical care, access to critical resources, and advancing education. Check out our statistics dashboard to see how the HS/HSL is working for you.

The Library Genie is coming back! Last year he asked for your 3 library wishes, and you responded. We can happily say that 3 library wishes were granted.

• You asked for more sanitation options. We added sanitation wipe dispensers on the 1st and 2nd floors, a hand sanitizer station at the elevators, and now have multiple blue UMB point-of-use sanitation carts throughout the Library with gloves, wipes, and hand and spray sanitizer.
• You asked for better lighting and power. New LED lights have been added to tables on the 2nd and 5th floors with extra power outlets for your devices.
• You asked for more comfy furniture options. We heard your call and installed a variety of pods, booths, tables, and rolling padded chairs on the 2nd and 5th floors to optimize your experience in the Library.

The Library Genie will be accepting wishes from Nov. 1 through Nov. 30.

• How can the HS/HSL help you during this time of uncertainty and change?
• How would you like to see the Library’s space designed so that it meets your needs?
• What about resources and services the Library could provide?

Faculty and staff at the HS/HSL won UMB’S Ultimate Mileage Battle Summer Edition with the highest daily average steps and received a virtual trophy! We walked, ran, biked, and even dusted off yoga and Tae Bo videos to log 10,989.30 daily average steps. Team members enjoyed encouraging each other through Microsoft Teams, often giving each other tips for logging steps on rainy days or offering a virtual high five when someone accomplished a personal goal. We noticed ourselves making healthier choices and enjoyed some lively competition with other UMB teams. The HS/HSL hopes to carry on these activities with a continued step challenge within the Library!

Retirement

Robin Klein, MSLS, retired on August 1, 2020, after nearly 20 years at the HS/HSL. Robin came to the Library as our electronic resources librarian (one of the first) before electronic resources became the norm. She transitioned to special projects, research, and assessment librarian and became the go-to person for data, surveys, and reports. She was invaluable at the university level, working with data and strategic reports; the HS/HSL’s strategic report became a model for the campus. She retires to spend time with her wife, Glenna, and many cats and causes. Robin, we will miss you, all the best!

Awards & Recognition

Colette Beaulieu and Emily Gorman, MLIS, both had original photography accepted into UMB’s 1807: An Art and Literary Journal.

Emily Gorman, MLIS, AHIP, received the second place Research Award from the Medical Library Association Research Caucus for her poster “Comparing Three Models for Librarian Office Hours in a School of Pharmacy,” presented at the 2020 Medical Library Association (MLA) annual meeting.

Erin Latta received the Mid Atlantic Chapter of the Medical Library Association (MAC) 2020 MAC Award for Outstanding Health Sciences Library Paraprofessional.

MJ Tooey, MLIS, AHIP, FMLA, and Tony Nguyen, MLIS, received the MLA President’s Award for their work on the Medical Library Association’s reorganization plans.

Tony Nguyen received the MAC 2020 Marguerite Abel Service Recognition Award in recognition of his exemplary service to the Chapter during the past year.

Publications & Presentations

Emily Gorman, MLIS, AHIP, presented her paper “Increasing Student Engagement Using an Amazing Race-Style Competition” and her poster “Comparing Three Models for Librarian Office Hours in a School of Pharmacy” at the MLA 2020 annual meeting.

Emilie Ludeman, MSLIS, Katherine Downton, MSLIS, Yunting Fu, MLS, and Andrea Shipper, MSLIS, presented their paper “An Analysis of Local Systematic Reviews: A Mixed Methods Study” at the MLA 2020 annual meeting.

Alexa Mayo, MLIS, AHIP, and Katherine Downton presented their poster “Gear Up for Citizen Science: Developing a Health-Focused Online Course” at the MLA 2020 annual meeting.

MJ Tooey delivered the keynote address “Pursuing and Growing Leadership: We Can All Be Leaders” at the American Association of Law Libraries Leadership Academy.

MJ Tooey presented the virtual session “A Unified, Intentional, and Evolving Approach to Research Support” at the Coalition for Networked Information’s spring meeting.

Lauren Wheeler, MSLIA, and Mary Ann Williams, MSLS, presented their poster “What Did the Doctor Say? A Health Literacy Workshop Helps Health Care Providers Improve Patient Communication” at the MLA 2020 annual meeting.