Graduation!

I’m happy to announce that I have officially walked with my class at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill! I’ll be completing my thesis this summer (and as such, will be officially graduating and receiving my diploma in August), but it’s a really exciting event nonetheless. My family came in from Florida to visit, and my Nana and Grandad came into town the day of graduation so that we could celebrate both Mother’s Day and my graduation! It was an exciting day overall! My parents even brought up my little dog, Fluffy, for the celebrations!

I’m so happy to be receiving my Masters in Library Science soon, and I have just had an incredible time in this program. I have learned so much and have been taught invaluable lessons from my professors, peers, and experiences with librarians out in the field. Internships like the Health Science Library one I am currently completing really have helped round out my experience and have taught me things that I know I wouldn’t have learned in the classroom setting. I’ve been able to put the theory to practice, have met incredible and dedicated librarians, and have just enjoyed every minute of my internships and my time at UNC-Chapel Hill. I’ve been interviewing for jobs, and am excited to see where my next adventure will lead!

Health Science Library Internship–Week 14

As I wrap up my internship with the Health Science Library at UNC-Chapel Hill, I can only be thankful for the time I have been given here. Everyone has just been so kind, helpful and patient as I’ve learned my way around the library building, processes, databases, and vocabulary. I’ve enjoyed every single minute of it.  Every project has been different and unique, and I definitely would say that I’ve met–indeed surpassed–my expectations for my learning goals for this field experience. Fran and all the librarians were wonderful and threw all they could at me….I’m grateful for this because I think I learned more because of it! I’m so glad that I chose this site for my field experience, and I’m so glad that the librarians accepted me as their intern, despite a crazy initial Skype interview from Copenhagen. Thank you for everything!

Health Science Library Internship–Week 11

This week, I met with Mellanye, the Liason Librarian for the School of Public Health. Mellanye often conducts consults to help patrons and researchers better understand their research. She teaches them how to search, how to narrow their searches, which databases work best for their topics, and other helpful research tips.

I had never sat in on a health information consult before…I am a huge people person, and I have always loved the reference and research side of librarianship, so needless to say, I was very excited about this opportunity!

Our client was a student interested in emergency medicine in developing countries (particularly in their hospitals). He was planning a research trip to Kenya, where he would assist in planning a new triage program to help improve patient outcomes.

Now, when I was sitting in the consult, I had never heard of triage, so I quickly researched it while Mellanye began to help the client. Triage is a medical term for assigning degrees of urgency to medical cases in order to decide the order of treatment.

Mellanye first narrowed down his research goals and location. We discovered the client wished to see whether or not triage improved the efficiency of a hospital, and if it in fact reduced a patient’s outcome and/or time in the hospital. The ultimate goal is a reduction in mortality. Since this is a large goal, we broke the research process down into pieces. Mellanye recommended using MESH terms to help the researcher narrow down his search results for “global health”. MESH terms are specific medical library controlled terms or vocabulary (otherwise known as subject headings) that, combined, can help narrow and define a search so that search results can be pointed and accurate. It should be noted the MESH terms work primarily with the database PubMed. Here is an example of how it works: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/intro_retrieval.html

An example of narrowing MeSH terms

 

All in all, I think the client was quite happy with the results, as the more we searched and the more Mellanye recommended, the more specific and targeted results he uncovered. He scheduled another meeting with her to discuss what he finds in these results. Hopefully this will help his narrow and define his search even more. I really enjoyed this consult, and I learned SO much by observing how she interacted with the client and and how the search was conducted. I had never even heard of MESH terms before this, so this was an eye opener!

I love putting the theory and hypothetical situations of class into practice in real life scenarios.

Alternative Careers for LIS Grads

This is a fantastic article from Hack Library School on alternative careers for students graduating with a Masters in Library Science:

Alternative Careers for LIS Grads

The author notes several skills that most LIS grads have upon graduation, including: “taxonomical management, metadata management, the ability to handle different kinds of customers, technical skills, project management, content management, content strategy, and rich media management”. I would also add the following skills to the list: instruction, research and information retrieval skills, indexing (which probably could go under taxonomies), teamwork and other various people skills, and marketing skills.

I will definitely be referring to this often as I begin to apply for jobs this spring.

Health Sciences Library Field Experience—-Week 3

This week, Fran asked if I might be able to help her with some medical literature research! I was so excited! I love all kinds of research, but being able to try to search medical terms…it’s a completely different territory! I was tasked with researching phlebotomy (blood draw) training and whether or not successful training programs have been put into place in other hospital/research institutions. Since I had to learn the medical terminology, this search was a bit harder than I thought it would be. Not only that, but the full text was not available on many of the databases, so I had to track those down as well. I found some good sources, and sent them off to Fran for feedback!

 

Health Sciences Library Field Experience—-Week 2

While my first week was a lot of introductions and orientations, during my second week at the UNC Health Sciences Library, I hit the ground running.

My second week started off with a bang. I had a bit of a miscommunication in the morning when I went to see Fran. She said that we were going to a meeting where we would learn more about “phlebotomy training”. Phlebotomy is the act of drawing blood, often used in the context of IVs, foot sticks, finger pricks, etc. However, I misheard her and somehow heard “lobotomy”, which is a horrific type of brain surgery. It was a confusing but ultimately really funny moment. It showed me that I have a LOT to learn in the medical field, especially in terms of medical vocabulary.

Supplies needed for a phlebotomy

At any rate, we went to the meeting and discussed phlebotomy training options for research studies. Apparently, in North Carolina, and in many states, it is not required by law that people/researchers conducting studies with blood draws require training before performing said blood draws on people. Since the university would like to make the research studies as painless as possible (pun not intended), some people thought that it would be a good idea to provide training for anyone intending to perform a phlebotomy on a research volunteer for a study.Those participating in the training would not become licensed phlebotomists, but they would at least know how to properly draw blood while minimizing both pain and errors.

The library and librarians can play a role in this by helping provide research, gathering data on successful phlebotomy training programs, and by helping put together the training materials if necessary. I thought it was a great meeting, and I really enjoyed seeing how the library can help make a positive impact in helping people learn a new skill set.

After this meeting, Fran and I went to a quick user services meeting, where I had the opportunity to observe the operations of the user services branch. The librarians all welcomed me, and I was able to see the management side of things, from scheduling snow day openings to considering the best ways to improve services at the reference desk. We also discussed 3D printers, and I was tasked with researching information on the successful implementation of 3D printers in other Health Science libraries around the US. It was very informative.

As luck would have it, after discussing snow day openings in the user services meeting only two days prior, we had a snow day on January 29th! The roads were slick and Fran recommended that I work from home. So I did! I conducted some research on PubMed and GoogleScholar on 3D printers.

A 3D printer making a pizza?

 

Health Science Library Field Experience—-Week 1

As I stated in a previous post, I recently received the tremendous opportunity to start an internship/field experience for school credit with the Health Sciences Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I once seriously considered going into Occupational Therapy, and while unfortunately it did not work out, I’ve still remained interested in medical and health issues (there’s a reason medical dramas are  one of my favorite television genres). Since I am most interested in reference and research, I found myself wondering what it would be like to work in a health information environment, where I could potentially help all sorts of patrons find the information they need.

“We are all looking for answers. In medicine, in life, in everything. Sometimes the answers we were looking for were hiding just below the surface. Other times, we find answers when we didn’t realize we were asking a question. Sometimes, the answers can catch us completely by surprise. And sometimes, even when we find the answer we’ve been looking for, we’re still left with a whole lot of questions.” –Grey’s Anatomy

So, when the opportunity came up to potentially gain some experience  and use my skill set in the health information world, I jumped on it! After working out the logistics, my UNC Health Sciences Library supervisor sent me a list of potential projects and people to meet, and I was very excited to start. For the course credit portion of the internship, I have to keep a daily log of my experiences, so I will be detailing them on here on a week by week basis.

For the first day of my field experience, I went to meet with Fran, my supervisor. Fran is the head of the User Services Department in the Health Sciences Library (HSL). Fran showed me my desk, gave me some orientation materials, and then we were off and running to our first meeting! The meeting was all about liaison librarianship within the hospital. Each librarian is embedded, which means that each department receives a librarian to talk to and ask for help! As far as I understand it, some are liaisons for schools, such as the school of Public Health, and others are liaisons to departments within the hospital, such as oncology. We also talked about the evolution of searching and how librarians used to have to search sources by hand. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming to me!

Common words relating to health librarianship…can be quite overwhelming to the newly initiated
http://www.wordle.net – All rights reserved – Copyright 2009

For my second day, I went with Fran to a meeting on clinical trials. Clinical trials are incredibly important in the health field, and at a big health research institute like the UNC-Chapel Hill hospital, research needs to be conducted in accordance with all of the rules. This meeting, which was a part of a series, helped teach new research assistants the ins and outs of complying with research studies, how and where to report statistics and interviews, how to file paperwork in order to receive drugs to administer for drug trials, etc. A lot of the jargon went straight over my head, but I understood some of the process of the research methods needed to conduct clinical trials. What I learned might actually be useful when I begin writing my thesis this coming summer! Who knows?

At any rate, it was useful for medical librarians to be in the crowd because health information professionals need to stay up to date and even ahead of the curve when it comes to clinical trials and what patrons might need. As we are in the business of streamlining patron search and information seeking quests, this meeting, Fran explained to me, is important because we can better understand the mindset of the researchers and the processes/hoops they must jump through in order to complete their trials in an accurate, complying, and efficient manner.

Back to the land of the pines

I returned from Denmark in December 2013, and have since resumed my library studies at UNC Chapel Hill this January. Although I do miss Denmark and Europe (and the friends I made there), I am excited to have a “fresh start” so to speak. Now that I know the Chapel Hill area better (and have a good solid group of friends) I felt less apprehensive about coming back to NC.

My classes this semester are also really interesting. I’m taking several required courses about human information interaction, reference and research, and research methods. But I also am lucky to be taking a Special Libraries and Knowledge Management class, which is right up my alley! I have always been interested in special libraries and how their operations and functions may differ from traditional librarianship. Special libraries can include health/hospital libraries, law libraries, federal libraries, corporate libraries….they basically can be any information environment that falls outside of the scope of traditional public or academic libraries. Our professor is a former Special Libraries Association president who has worked in several corporate environments, so I’m excited to see what I can learn from her expertise.

I also am excited to say that I have taken on a field experience/internship in the Health Sciences Library on campus at UNC. Here, I can learn the inner workings of a major hospital library, and what services they offer their patrons. I’ve had a whirlwind of an introduction to it, which I will log here on this blog. It’s been a really interesting orientation so far, and I love being able to see how library services can morphed and utilized in such different ways in the health field. 

A Semester Abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark

Instead of returning to UNC for my second semester in Library School, I decided to take advantage of a formal exchange/study abroad agreement my school has with the Royal School of Library and Information Science in Copenhagen, Denmark! I wanted to see how other libraries in Europe work. As Scandinavian libraries are famous around the world, this was the obvious choice for me. 🙂

So, at the end of August 2013, off I flew to Denmark! It was my first time in a country where I did not speak the language and where I barely knew a soul. I will be quoting and re-posting some of my experiences from my blog that I posted to when I was in Denmark. This was one of my first posts after I finished my first week in the country:

Random Fun Facts I’ve Discovered About Denmark:

Since Tuesday, I’ve started to explore and adjust to my new city. I’ve discovered a few fun things along the way.

1. In Denmark, putting salad dressing on your pizza is normal.

2. As much as some people here, you would THINK that there would be a problem with trash and cans everywhere along the streets. However, Copenhagen is one of the cleanest cities I’ve ever been in. One thing I discovered that helps keep the city clean is the government’s efforts to recycle. If you return a can or recyclable to the grocery store in Denmark, you get money back for it (so if a can of beer cost 3 kroner, you would get 1 kroner back). This is a great incentive for people to recycle!

3. It’s incredibly windy here! I really didn’t expect that. Sometimes entire businesses here run on the energy of the wind, though! This new hotel in Copenhagen is an example…it definitely gets at least some of its energy from that windmill!

4. The Danes love to have jam on their ice cream. And it seems like they love ice cream in general…there are so many ice cream stores everywhere right now…perhaps because it’s summer. I’m not complaining! It’s delicious, especially when you eat it when walking along Nyhavn Harbour in the inner city.

The Orientation to my new school was very different as well, and I had to adapt accordingly:

Orientation at RSLIS

Last Thursday and Friday I had Orientation at the Royal School of Library and Information Science! I met up with the other international students in my program (which is thankfully in English) and we had two full days of information thrown at us! We learned about the history of the school, how it is now a part of the University of Copenhagen (as of April!) and how the school focuses on the intersection between information and culture, which is a concept that I have not seen a lot of during my time in library school. I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes! Here are some pictures of my school!

As part of the Orientation, we got to know our fellow students, our professors, and “of course” (my Danish mentor advised us) our local bartender. Everyone seemed quite happy to have us there, and we even had a little welcome party to mix the new international students with the new Danish students.

This is a Danish game we played at our Orientation. Unlike most American “break the ice” orientation games, this one involved drinking. You have to throw a shoe, knock over the bottle in the middle, and while the other side runs to stand it upright again, your team drinks. The first team to finish their beers wins. And so on and so forth. Our international team wasn’t very good at this, despite having some Germans on our team. 😉

The school had some formal events for us to attend as well, so we all went to the Immatriculation Ceremony down at the University of Copenhagen, where the president of the university and all of the deans welcomed us to the school. It was very fancy, with a choir singing in Danish and everything. You can see the president giving his speech below:

All in all it was a fantastic Orientation, and it really has helped prepare me for my semester. There was a lot of information, but hopefully I can continue to process it as I go.

University College London Seminar: British Library, Digital Humanities, and a Jar of Moles!

We did not have much time to orient ourselves to London before we hit the ground running with daily seminars and lectures at UCL’s Department of Information Studies.

We discussed everything from digital humanities to the future of QR codes to preserving London’s past with digitization efforts. Crowdsourcing was a big theme, and we even heard about ways that the UCL Grant Museum tried to make its exhibits interactive. They have a large jar of preserved moles, and they do everything they can to make the exhibit interactive. It’s absolutely disgusting, but it’s one of their most popular exhibits. The moles even have a twitter account! It’s @glassjarofmoles.  This adds to the user experience at the museum, and brings in more patrons and funding. 🙂

A glass jar of moles at the UCL Grant Museum
See also: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/zoology/about/collections/objects/pickled-moles

UCL’s Information Studies Department is also working hard to preserve parts of its history and make it available to people worldwide. Old Bailey court records are being digitized, and they say they’ve even been able to create an interactive map showing where the bombings of London took place in World War II.

Map of parts of London that were hit during the Blitz in World War II (Copyright owned by London Metropolitan Archives)

FAQ at the London Metropolitan Archives…including “My Ancestor was a Convict”

We also went and toured the British Library, which to a group of librarians, is a mecca of sorts, much like the Library of Congress.

The entryway of the British Library

A conveyor belt that brings all the books around the British Library