Here is my presentation given at the October 2014 meeting of the Southern Chapter meeting of the Medical Library Association

1. RESHAPING THE HEALTH
SCIENCES LIBRARIAN
Elaine Martin, DA
Director of Library Services
Lamar Soutter Library
University of Massachusetts Medical School

2. AGENDA
Catalysts for change
Effect of change on library space & services
New roles
New workforce
Final thoughts

3. CATALYSTS FOR CHANGE

4. LSL OPERATING BUDGET FY09 TO FY15
4

5. LSL OPERATING BUDGET TOTAL
FY09 TO FY15
 2009 to 2014 the overall inflation rate is almost 11%
 In the same time period the library budget has increased 2%
5

6. CHANGING COLLECTIONS:
MOVE TO ELECTRONIC

7. CIRCULATION
Migration from print to electronic
 Journals, books, reserves
Migration from VHS to digital capture of class lectures
Open reserves

8. ILL LENDING
Licensing restrictions
Downward national trend
Loansome Doc/copyright

9. BINDING
Print reduced to core collection
250 titles in FY10
50 tiles in FY14

10. FEWER QUESTIONS AT THE
TRADITIONAL REFERENCE

11. NEW ROLES FOR LIBRARIANS
The professional work is increasing in volume and becoming more complex and technology
focused:
Participation in systematic reviews, chart rounds, IRB
Developing custom portals for departments
Website consultation service
Library as publisher
Participating as primary staff on research grants
In-depth reference requests such as
 Developing complicated search strings for requests for administration
 Getting people started with research
 Helping people decide where to publish
Complex IR work (Institutional Repository is expanding)
Complex cataloging work / metadata
Library professionals are spending more time bringing services off-site
Data management services
Data literacy
Health literacy
Library as cultural hub

12. IMPACT OF CHANGES
ON THE WORKFORCE
As the Library evolves, library work is changing. More of the work requires
specialized, professional information science coupled with subject
expertise.
Much of the support staff’s repetitive work is going away. It is being
replaced by the need to be able to handle in-depth reference questions
from faculty and students.
The skills necessary to do in-depth, complicated reference work are
acquired by obtaining an MLS along with subject knowledge. It is not
feasible for the Library to provide support staff with comparable training.
Currently these questions are referred to librarians. The librarians, whose
roles are changing in response to new initiatives such as data
management, e-science, and bioinformatics, are involved in projects
outside the Library.

13. EFFECT OF CHANGE ON
LIBRARY SPACE
& SERVICES

14. LIBRARIANS FOSTER
NEW METHODS OF LEARNING

15. 24/7 ACCESS

16. LIBRARY SPACE

17. LIBRARY AS PLACE

18. LIBRARIAN IS NO LONGER
TIED TO A DESK

19. LIBRARIANS IN THE FIELD
Chart Rounds
Morning Report
Institutional Review Board
Informationist
Grant work
Systematic Reviews

20. QUESTIONS: EXAMPLE 1
Can Pantoprazole, a proton pump inhibitor used to treat reflux and other
gastric conditions, cause a false positive for marijuana in a urine drug
screen? A patient that was legally required to submit routine drug tests
tested positive for cannabinoids and claimed that it was because of his
medication. The resident did not believe him and discovered information
online, most of which were sites whose purpose was to “help people
‘cheat’ drug tests” and was prepared to report the finding to authorities.
The librarian discovered a 2008 study that did indeed demonstrate a link
between the drug in question and false positive readings on drug tests.

21. QUESTIONS: EXAMPLE 2
Does 3rd hand smoke, that is, smoke particles on the clothes of smokers,
impact respiratory function in children even though they are never directly
exposed to smoke? While a quick search indicated that the answer was
yes, further research conducted by the librarian showed that there was
actually conflicting evidence as to the answer based on studies that
contained many biases.

22. LIBRARIANS AS MEMBERS OF THE
INTERDISCIPLINARY TEAM
Data management
Knowledge management
Systematic review support
Resource development
Demonstrating research impact
Consultation

23. SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS
Providing literature searching
Managing review process
Organizing articles and bibliographic information
Writing methodology for final published reviews
Analyzing library collections
Systematic Review Workshop:
The Nuts and Bolts for Librarians
Rethlefsen ML, Murad M,
Livingston EH. Engaging
Medical Librarians to
Improve the Quality of
Review Articles. JAMA.
2014;312(10):999-
1000.
doi:10.1001/jama.2014.
9263.

24. DATA LITERACY
New England Collaborative Data Management Curriculum
http://library.umassmed.edu/necdmc/index

25. DATA MANAGEMENT
 Open access
 Open data in science and
research
 New ways to measure
research impact
 Role of institutional
repositories

26. TTHHEE GGRROOWWTTHH OOFF OOPPEENN AACCCCEESSSS
Close to 500 open access policies, an area growing at
a rate of 16% annually
Over 3.2 million free full-text articles, up 14%.
Substantial annual growth in journal PMC
participation.
Dramatic Growth of Open Access September 30, 2014

27. NEED FOR DATA SHARING POLICIES
Vines et al. (2014).
The Availability of Research Data Declines Rapidly with Article Age
. Current Biology 2014 Jan 6;24(1):94-7. doi:
10.1016/j.cub.2013.11.014.
Study findings:
 The odds of a data set being extant fell by 17% per year.
 Datasets for older papers were often reported by authors as being
lost or on inaccessible storage media.
Conclusion:
“Our results reinforce the notion that, in the long term,
research data cannot be reliably preserved by individual
researchers, and further demonstrate the urgent need for
policies mandating data sharing via public archives.”

28. LIBRARIANS AASS KKNNOOWWLLEEDDGGEE MMAANNAAGGEERR::
EESSCCHHOOLLAARRSSHHIIPP@UUMMMMSS
 eScholarship@UMMS is UMass
Medical School’s institutional
repository: “a digital archive to
collect, showcase and
preserve scholarly publications
authored by our faculty, researchers,
staff, and students”
 Goal: Showcase and increase
visibility of UMMS research and
scholarly output, in a stable, easily
accessible open access repository
hhttttpp::////eesscchhoollaarrsshhiipp..uummaassssmmeedd..eedduu

29. DDAATTAA DDEEPPOOSSIITT IINN EESSCCHHOOLLAARRSSHHIIPP@UUMMMMSS
Dataset as primary file Supplementary data
“The data files for this study are publicly deposited in the University of
Massachusetts Medical School’s institutional repository, eScholarship@UMMS.
The permanent link to the data is
http://escholarship.umassmed.edu/pediatrics_data/1/.”

30. LIBRARY AS PUBLISHER

31. MEASURING RESEARCH IMPACT
Traditional citation counts
Altmetrics
Scopus

32. HEALTH LITERACY MISSOURI’S
CLEAR CONVERSATIONS
Ask for simple language
Need to know information
Teach back
Brown bag review
Slow down the provider
Ask questions!

33. HEALTH VISIT ROLE PLAY
Healthcare provider actor
Specific cases
Participants observe
Offer feedback

34. FOSTERING THE HEALTH PROFESSIONAL AS A
PERSON

35. DOCUMENTING INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY
 Outreach
 Events
 NLM traveling exhibits
 Window displays
 History of UMMS
 Digital Resource Management
 Reference services
 Staff management
 Collection management

36. GLOBAL HEALTH
DOGLIOTTI MEDICAL COLLEGE LIBRARY: MONROVIA, LIBERIA

37. NEW WORKFORCE

38. FELLOWS PROGRAM
 Provides a two-year work experience emphasizing hands-on learning and
research into topics of information management, medical librarianship, and the
biomedical sciences
 Incorporates training, professional development, and research
 Guides the fellow toward a professional career in academic medical Librarianship
 Underlying principle: "shared value”
 LSL is the learning laboratory for experiencing the real working world and
exploring the ins and outs of assisting clinicians, researchers, educators,
and students with their information needs
 Fellows contribute to the organization by performing meaningful projects
and assignments that are of continuing value to all parties

39. PROGRAM INFORMATION
Library Fellows Job Description
Sample Rotation: Systems
Curriculum At-a-Glance
Rotation Schedule
MLA Competencies from Curriculum Task Force Report
Objectives of Fellows Program from Curriculum Task Force Report
Fellows Program Evaluation Plan
http://library.umassmed.edu/fellows_program

40. FIRST COHORT 2014-2016
Martha Meacham and Molly Higgins

41. FINAL THOUGHTS

42. Urgency
 Budget
FACILITATORS
Team-based approach to organizational structure
Clear vision and strategy
 Buy-in
Multiple modes of communication
Individual and group initiative
Incremental successes
 Led to new partnerships
Adopted a culture of change

43. BARRIERS
Skill sets not meeting changing work requirements
 Seek out new training opportunities
 New types of staff
Changing the library stereotype
 HR policies
Dependent on external funds for new projects
Scalability

44. Acquire new staff and skills
Continue to adapt services to changing needs of users
Focus on outcomes
Highlight the role of information in advancing the institution’s mission and
goals
Demonstrate the impact of research on the institution
Focus on literacy
 Health
 Data
 Information
Don’t fear change
NEXT STEPS

45. Questions?
Elaine Martin, DA
Director of Library Services
Lamar Soutter Library
University of Massachusetts Medical School
Elaine.Martin@umassmed.edu