I am not exactly sure how many times I have written the “Welcome and Welcome Back” column for Connective Issues, and I am not going to check. I do know this one will be the last, as I will be retiring at the end of the year.

I have been at UMB for over 36 years and have had the privilege of leading the Health Sciences and Human Service Library since 2004. Every September, I look forward to the energy and enthusiasm that comes with the start of the academic year. This year is especially sweet as not only is it the start of my last academic year but also I feel as though we are coming out of the shadow of COVID. Seeing users return to the building and hearing the sounds of collaboration and laughter has warmed my heart.

A preview of the upcoming year shows modifications to the building renovated third floor, expansion of the Grid, a remodeled administrative suite, the new Center for Faculty Teaching and Learning); new and improved programs and services (new courses, online and onsite training, support for new government mandates around data and open access, new library faculty and staff); renewed attention – both internally and externally – to diversity, equity, and inclusion; and ongoing commitment to innovation in our work at UMB and in the community – locally and regionally. Our new strategic plan sets us on a course for all of this.

As we enter the 2022-2023 academic year, I hope you will all consider the faculty and staff of the HSHSL – and the services and resources they provide – as collaborators and partners in your academic, discovery, and outreach success. We are here with you and for you.

Welcome and welcome back!

August 29 – November 30, 2022

Monday – Thursday	6:00 a.m. – 11:00 p.m.
Friday	6:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Saturday & Sunday	8:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Exception to Regular Hours

• Thanksgiving Holiday, November 24 – 25, the HSHSL will be closed.

The HSHSL is here for you!  Don’t hesitate to ask for help at the Information Services desk; we’re happy to assist.  You can also reach us by email at hshsl@umaryland.edu, telephone at 410-706-7995, or chat at https://answers.hshsl.umaryland.edu/.

Here is a top ten list of common questions with links to guide you to the answer or service.

1. How do I print?
   Follow these instructions.
2. How do I order a book or article the Library does not own?
   Use our interlibrary loan service. It is free for students.
3. How do I meet with a librarian about my assignment or research?
   Request a consultation.
4. How do I reserve a study room?
   Follow the instructions on the reservations page.
5. How do I get help with citation managers?
   You can request a consultation, attend a workshop or read the citation manager subject guide.
6. How do I request a poster to be printed?
   Fill out this form.
7. How do I correctly size my poster?
   Instructions are here.
8. How do I search the Library’s books and journals?
   You can use the OneSearch box located on our front page, or check the library’s catalog.
9. How do I log in to the Library from off campus?
   Click the blue “Off-Campus Access” button in the upper-right corner of our homepage then use your UMID and password to log in.
10. How do I enter the Library before 8:00 a.m.?
    Enter the Library from the Campus Center from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m., Monday – Friday.
    

Do you have a question that has not been addressed here? Contact us directly or check the Ask Us! database of questions – your answer may already be there!

The HSHSL is celebrating National Medical Librarian’s Month during the month of October.

On Tuesday, October 18 take a break and join us for hot coffee and tasty snacks between 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. in the Library’s 1st floor Weise Gallery.

The Library Genie will be accepting wishes throughout the month of October.

• How can the HSHSL best help you with your career or studies?
• 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?

Submit your 3 wishes starting October 1.

We are looking forward to your ideas!

The HSHSL’s purchase of digital journal collection “backfiles” is creating an opportunity to design additional study space.  Journals now available digitally are being removed from the stacks. Once that process is complete, some of the third-floor shelving units will be removed to free up additional space for new uses. Part of this space will be used to design a light-filled study area, and the remaining portion will allow for an expansion of The Grid.  The redesign may results in some noise and disruptions on the third and fourth floors of the Library.

Look for more information as this project continues.

The project to replace the HSHSL’s plaza entrance is slated to begin in fall 2022. HSHSL administration is anxiously awaiting a project kick-off meeting to learn more about specific timeline and project details from the contractor who won the bid in August 2022. We do know that the project will take approximately 26 weeks to complete.  We also know that removing and replacing plaza pavers will affect the flow of foot traffic for those entering and exiting the building.

Look for updates and signage about foot traffic detours or other possible interruptions as the project progresses.

Are you a scientist, medical provider, or researcher who loves to share your findings with others, but feels that your audience is not engaged? The problem may not be what you are saying but how you are saying it. Science communication has the potential not only to educate and inform your audience but also to broaden your audience. If you would like to improve your communication skills, consider participating in the Network of the National Library of Medicine’s (NNLM) Region One webinar series on science communication. Our guest speaker, Dr. Dione (Dee) Rossiter, a science communication, engagement, and outreach expert, has worked with non-profits, universities, government offices, and for-profit businesses to improve their science engagement efforts by creating new and/or improving existing science communication, marketing, education, diversity, and outreach initiatives. Three sessions will be offered this fall, from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. ET:

1. The Art of Science Communication  – September 15, 2022 (Recording Available)
2. Science-Self-Fandom: How to promote your science and your worth – October 20, 2022
3. Systemic Racism in Science Communication – November 17, 2022

Please visit the NNLM Training Schedule to register for these webinars and other training opportunities offered by the NNLM.

This article was originally published on NLM.gov on August 9, 2022.

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is working to accelerate the global monkeypox response through initiatives that expand access to scientific literature, sequence data, clinical trial information, and consumer health information related to monkeypox.

NLM’s efforts follow on declarations by the World Health Organization and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary of the ongoing spread of monkeypox virus as a public health emergency. NLM is responding to the call to action by the White House Office Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and science and technology leaders from more than a dozen other nations to make monkeypox-related research and data immediately available to the public.

NLM will leverage its existing relationships with publishers that submit to PubMed Central (PMC), its digital archive of peer-reviewed biomedical and life sciences literature, to make the wide range of journal articles that can inform the monkeypox response freely available to the public. Depositing appropriate articles into the PMC Open Access collection will ensure that monkeypox-related research is readily available in both human- and machine-readable formats. Readers will be able to discover articles via PubMed and access the full text in PMC without delay. Artificial intelligence researchers can continue to develop and apply novel approaches to text mining to help answer questions about monkeypox.

In addition, NLM is prioritizing the review of monkeypox sequence submissions through its genetic sequence database, GenBank, as well as submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov, the world’s largest publicly accessible database of privately and publicly funded clinical studies.

NLM has also updated content on its MedlinePlus website to provide authoritative consumer-oriented information on monkeypox in both English and Spanish.

NLM will continue to aid monkeypox response efforts by providing support to researchers throughout the process of submitting data to NLM’s databases and electronic resources, and quickly making available research and data that can accelerate scientific discovery and improve health around the world.

No textbook teaching theories and methods can capture the essence, the richness, the truth of lived experience.  No matter how much research confirms that health disparities do exist, it never uncovers the stories, the toll on individual bodies.

The Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) recently presented a webinar on the Phoenix Biomedical Library Living Library Project , which was created as a tool for teaching future medical practitioners.

Catherine Lockmiller, creator of this project, is a health science librarian at Northern Arizona University – Phoenix Biomedical Campus.

She leverages her backgrounds in the humanities, social sciences, and digital librarianship, along with her role as a health information professional, to build sustainable, long-lasting health literacies that reduce the negative impact of health disparities and social determinants arising from power imbalances and inequities in at-risk populations. She particularly focuses on achieving health equity for transgender folx. 

The PBC Living Library is similar to the broader Human Library format. However, this program differs in that it centers individuals who have had experiences of health and healthcare disparities that relate to an aspect of their identity. The project strives to establish a safe space where health science students can enter into discourse with patient storytellers and, in doing so, learn how power is distributed and potentially redistributed in the context of a patient/provider interview. By conducting the PBC Living Library in this manner, the project promotes patient agency in participatory care while preparing future healthcare providers to consider the impacts of social determinants of health and adverse power structures within the medical industrial complex.

You can learn more about the PBC Living Library Project by watching the NNLM Public Health Series webinar recording on the NNLM YouTube Channel.

The Health Sciences and Human Services Library’s first annual Book It Forward book drive, celebrating National Library Week, was a huge success! Thanks to many generous donors across campus and the support of UMB’s Community Engagement Center, the HSHSL’s Book It Forward joint committee collected 1,214 books to help the youth of West Baltimore discover the joys of reading!

At the beginning of April, collection boxes were placed at HSHSL, the School of Dentistry, the School of Pharmacy, the Saratoga Building, the SMC Campus Center, the Thurgood Marshall Law Library, and UM BioPark. In under two months, the committee received over a thousand book donations for children and young adults in a wide range of genres and subjects. The Community Engagement Center was integral in identifying local schools in need of books and distributing the 27-box donation to Harlem Park Elementary/Middle Schools, Excel Academy Day Care at the Francis M. Wood High School, and Vivien T. Thomas Medical Arts Academy. The donation will support the schools’ summer reading programs and beyond!

To add to the project’s success, joint committee member Jessie Bauer gave a presentation at the Towson Conference for Academic Libraries (TCAL) detailing the project’s development and its impact on the community. You can view Jessie’s presentation, Book It Forward: Library Outreach to West Baltimore, on YouTube.

A special thank you to all who made this project possible, and for your continued support of the Book It Forward campaign in the future. Start saving those books for next year!

Scrapbooking in the 21st century has become somewhat of a lost art but remains a very powerful historical tool. With a combination of journal entries and photographs, scrapbooks give a great deal of insight into not only the look and feel of the time period in which they were created, but also into the person who created them. Margaret Bowen Rose, possibly unknowing of this significance, created such a document for her Class of 1936 at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. The most exciting thing about this book’s donation is that our Historical Collections does not currently have yearbooks for the years of 1933-1946 at the University. Margaret’s unique perspective is the closest insight we have to the experiences of our students during that period.

Included in the book are Margaret’s endearing descriptions of her classmates, photographs of them, and even a class prophecy showcasing their future goals after graduation. Though Margaret wanted to enroll in an Alaskan nursing program with classmate Vernice Bowling, both ended up enlisting in military service during the Second World War. Including herself and Vernice, four members of the Class of ‘36 were stationed in Australia for one year, working in a hospital setting and tending to wounded soldiers. As for those who did not enlist, some were married, while others worked at hospitals a bit closer to home. Reporting on her duties in the School of Nursing Alumnae Association Bulletin, Margaret described how after necessary emergency care soldiers received “baths, food, rest, and mothering” from the nurses, who were honored to help.

They would have been well prepared for their work abroad considering the experience they gained while still in university. A booklet found on page 66 of Margaret’s scrapbook details what students would be learning at the School of Nursing, with courses such as Materia Medica, Ethics, and Pathology. The program isn’t too dissimilar to what you could expect from a Bachelor of Nursing today, save for the perceived role of a nurse in hospital care. Classes found in the booklet seem to place a greater emphasis on the hospitality needs of the patient, whereas today’s course content encourages collaboration between doctors and nurses in diagnosis and treatment. The world of nursing has surely changed between Margaret Bowen Rose’s time and our own, and her 1936 scrapbook has proven itself invaluable as a window to the past.

To see the full Scrapbook as well as other School of Nursing and UMB historical pieces check out our Digital Archive!

This summer, the HSHSL was lucky to have the opportunity to employ a YouthWorks student. YouthWorks offers Baltimore teens and young adults the chance to develop new skills, work with expert mentors, and gain real world job experience.

Anisah Allen, a biological sciences student at UMBC, joined the Library for 8 weeks, working in the Information Services and Historical Collections departments. Anisah was able to interact with patrons at our public service desk; work with the Library’s physical collection; digitize select Historical Collections volumes, including the Margaret Bowen Rose Scrapbook; and work with the HSHSL’s exhibits committee on research for the upcoming radiology exhibit. She was a delight to work with and brought excellent ideas and perspective to the HSHSL.

Honors, Appointments & Promotions

Gail Betz, MSLIS, was appointed by President Jarrell to the UMB Workforce Task Force and will serve on the Workplace Flexibility subgroup.

Tony Nguyen, MLIS, was appointed by President Jarrell to the UMB Workforce Task Force and will serve on the Employee Wellbeing subgroup.

Nguyen was promoted to Faculty Librarian IV by the UMB Libraries Appointment, Promotion and Permanent Status committee.

Faith Steele, MLS, MIM, earned her AHIP certification from the Medical Library Association. Steele was also selected to serve as a trustee for the Anne Arundel County Public Library.

April Wright, MLS, was promoted to Faculty Librarian III by the UMB Libraries Appointment, Promotion and Permanent Status committee.

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Posters & Presentations

Jessie Bauer presented “Book It Forward: Library Outreach to West Baltimore” at the Towson Conference for Academic Libraries.

Steve Douglas, MA, MLS, AHIP, presented a poster, “Piloting an Open Access Publishing Fund for Early-Career Researchers,” at the Towson Conference for Academic Libraries.

Emily Gorman, MLIS, facilitated the roundtable discussion “Beyond Citation Counts: Using Altmetrics to Boost Your Impact Factor” at the annual meeting of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.

Patricia Hinegardner, MLS, and Na Lin, MLS, presented a poster, “Building a Unique Collection Through Collaboration: International Employee Assistance Archive,” at the Towson Conference for Academic Libraries.

James Stephens, MED, MLIS, presented “Amazon Web Services for Librarians” at the Towson Conference for Academic Libraries.

Mary Ann Williams, MSLS, presented “Plain Language & Clear Communication in Research” at UMB’s 2022 PATIENTS Academy Roundtable Program.