Monday, May 26, 2008

Books needed for Uganda

In partnership with DHL, the Mater Hospital endeavours to send unwanted items of medical equipment to needy hospitals around the world. The most recent container, which went to a Ugandan hospital last year, contained over 80 cartons of health related books donated from various medical libraries around Australia. This particular hospital has just opened a "Health University" to train their own Ugandan nurses, doctors and allied health professionals (see HLA News March 2008, pg6).

We are again sending a container load of equipment to this Ugandan hospital in August and they have requested more books. In their own words: "We are still in need of lots of text books - these can be medical and nursing, medical management, health policy, paramedical, - really anything to do with health. We have a fairly urgent need for these this year."

Anyone wishing to donate books or journals should contact:

Graham Carter
Manager, Biomedical Engineering Services
Mater Health Services
Raymond Terrace
Brisbane. 4101
Ph: 07 3163 1219

ICML 2009 - Call for papers and posters

10th International Congress on Medical Librarianship (ICML) 2009 incorporating the 6th International Conference of Animal Health Information Specialists (ICAHIS) and the 4th International Clinical Librarian Conference (ICLC)

Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre
Monday 31 August - Friday 4 September 2009

You are invited to participate in the 10th International Congress on Medical Librarianship (ICML), to be held from Monday 31 August - Friday 4 September 2009 at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, Queensland, Australia.

ICML, under the auspices of IFLA, is a global forum held every 4-5 years. The ICML 2009 theme Positioning the Profession will offer delegates an array of research papers, user studies and innovative solutions. Local and international presenters, including those working in health libraries, publishing industries and the information and communication technologies, as well as clinicians and academics will participate at the Congress. A number of continuing education activities will be offered as well as tours of the region. Interest has already been expressed from librarians and information professionals from Malaysia, China, Australia, India, Korea, Japan, Fiji, Egypt, Middle East, Europe, UK, Canada, Central America, Latin America and the United States. It is anticipated that more than 1000 delegates will attend the Congress.

By attending the ICML 2009, we have no doubt that delegates will enjoy an experience of a lifetime in a place like nowhere else on earth. For more information on themes, important dates, and abstract submission, please visit the ICML 2009 website.

Heather Todd & Lisa Kruesi
Co-Convenors, ICML 2009
Australian Committee

Job opportunity - Librarian, AstraZeneca (NSW)

AstraZeneca is seeking a Pharmaceutical Librarian.

Reporting to the Head of Medical Information and Patient Safety, this position is primarily responsible for developing and maintaining the Library systems and services to ensure the provision of a quality and value adding service to internal and external customers.

The closing date for applications is 29 May 2008.

The full job description can be viewed here.

Connections: Bridging the Gaps May 16-21 2008, Medical Library Association, Annual Meeting, Chicago, USA

Some thirty hours and two flights later I arrived at the Hyatt Hotel in Chicago on Thursday 15 May. I cannot remember how many very long queues I’d been in transit so when I arrived at Chicago airport and was standing at the end of another mile long queue I agreed to share a cab. This is worth doing and results in being removed from a queue. Aussie’s must have the sharing spirit, as a chap from WA travelled with me downtown. He was attending the National Restaurant Association conference also on in Chicago. Beautiful tulips lined the streets of this wonderful city.

As the Cunningham Fellow recipient my attendance at the Meeting was funded by the MLA. The MLA over the past three years has provided the booth space to promote the ICML 2009. As hosts of ICML in Brisbane we are enormously grateful for the outstanding support we have received from the MLA.

Friday 16 May I attended a one day workshop Rapid Web-Based Course Development: A Short Course for Librarians presented by Jan Buhmann. What did I learn? By the end of the day I was aware of a few processes and tools that can be used for course development. I also discovered that Camtasia and Survey Monkey are so intuitive that even with jet lag I was able to use them. Why did I do this course? Curriculums are increasingly adopting online formats and I wanted to gain an understanding of what is involved. The course provided a one page listing of instructional design resources and rapid development tools. Let me know if you’d like a copy and I’ll seek Jan’s permission to share the list.

Saturday 17 May the morning was spent setting up the ICML booth. This involves hanging up Australian flags, pinning a large table cloth with a map of Australia to a backdrop curtain, putting out miniature koalas, laying out brochures and getting the larger Koala and Kangaroo raffle prepared. Fortunately the lovely staff at the Majors booth didn’t need their table (already dressed with an attractive skirt) as I’d ordered a table that wasn’t big enough. Last but not least I blew up our inflatable Skippy then the booth was complete. The Exhibition Opening is always on the Saturday evening. Once again I had flown 14,000 km to experience koala frenzy. The MLA delegates just love our wee koalas that can be worn upon a lapel or attached to just about anything. All Australian hands were on deck, including Mary Peterson, Rolf Schafer and Saroj Bhatia from Australia to help promote ICML 2009.

Sunday 18 May at 7 am I attended the Thomson (Reuters) Scientific Sunrise Seminar: Showcasing new translational research resources. The following is a summary of the session taken from the MLA Program:
• Investigator Portal: comprehensive research for all stages of disease investigation and therapeutic regimens
• BONDplus: public and proprietary sequence, interaction and related interactions information
• Thomson Collexis Dashboards custom datasets on therapeutic areas or diseases, providing unique data mining, display and predictive potential.
Ok, the truth, I attended this seminar as Thomson's door prize was an Apple i-touch though UQ is setting up a Translational Research Institute. I didn’t win the Apple i-touch…grrrr. All the resources are very specialised and are newly released. Are you familiar with Collexis? Watch this space! The Thomson Collexis Dashboard is only available to Web of Science subscribers.
BONDplus is a bioinformatics tool and it was way too early in the morning to digest the complexities of this resource, for more details go to: http://scientific.thomsonreuters.com/bondplus/
This was followed by the McGovern Lecture on Sunday morning presented by Andrew Zolli. To Be Continued. Lisa Kruesi, Health Sciences Library Service, UQ Library

EAHIL Conference 2008


Is anyone planning to go to the EAHIL conference in Helsinki this year? If so, let me know if you'd be prepared to either blog from Helsinki or write for HLA News.

Don't know anything about Finland. Check out the conference blog!

11th European Conference of Medical and Health Libraries
23rd - 28th of June 2008
Helsinki, Finland

Job opportunity - Librarian, NT Dept Health

Reference Services Librarian - Department of Health &Community Services, Darwin, Northern Territory

The position of Reference Services Librarian is a full-time contract position. Some flexibility with dates can be negotiated, starting at a minimum of 6 months through to a maximum of 8 months. Assistance with relocation expenses can be negotiated.

This position is responsible for the delivery of specialist reference and educational services, including facilitating access, promotion and evaluation of quality evidence-based information and knowledge resources to all staff of the Department of Health and Community Services (DHCS) and other eligible library members.

The job description can be found on the ALIA employment website.

For more informaton contact:
Robyn Tranthem
Health Services Librarian
Department of Health & Community Services
Tel: 08 8922 8037 Fax: 08 8922 7777

Exploring the Evidence Base - a bliki

This site has been around for awhile but it's good to be reminded of these things. Catherine Voutier (Centre for Clinical Effectiveness) and Terence Harrison (Royal Melbourne Hospital) have set up a bliki (part blog, part wiki) which provides links to resources "to help inform clinical librarians, information specialists and clinicians of new tools, search tips and other items of interest."

It's definitely worth a look.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Registrations now open - HLA at Dreaming08 Professional Development Day


Please visit the ALIA Health Libraries Australia website to download the registration form and draft program for the Health Libraries Professional Development Day being held on Tuesday 2 Sept 08 at the Centre for Remote Health in Alice Springs.

The program is looking fantastic - great content, good networking opportunities, excellent value for money.

And don't forget, the following day (Wednesday 3rd Sept 08) will feature the health stream of the ALIA Biennial Conference so don't forget to register for that as well - whether it be just the one day or the whole conference.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Chasing the Sun: virtual reference workshop


CHASING THE SUN is an innovative approach to international co-operationby making use of time zone differences across the world and uses OCLC's Questionpoint virtual reference software. The service currently runs between Australia and the UK and is expanding into Canada with interest from New Zealand. More information can be found on the CTS home page. Libraries participating in CTS can also provide a local virtual reference service to their own staff via the same software licence for a small extra fee.

Chasing the Sun - an after-hours virtual reference service for clinicians will be used to demonstrate the principles and practice of VR. Training will cover 2 areas.

* Virtual reference as a skill
* Using Chasing the Sun (this session will be hands on and all
participants will have a chance to be a client as well as a VR
librarian).

DETAILS

Trainer:
Sue Rockliff, co-administrator of the Australian Chasing the Sun Service and the Senior Librarian at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Adelaide.

Venue:
The Department of Health training room in North Sydney.

Cost:
$30 for ALIA members
$40 for non-members

Date:
Friday 30th May, 2008 9.30am to 12.30pm.

Registration:
To attend, please fill in the registration form.

Please note:
You do not have to be a Chasing the Sun member to participate in the training, so this is the opportunity for anyone in NSW who may be interested in learning about virtual reference, to get in and see what it is all about. Places are limited so don't delay.

More information:
If you have any queries or want to talk more about CTS, please call Sue Rockliff on 08 82226408 Mon-Wed or email or visit the ALIA HLA website.

CAVAL's Space Planning for Libraries - any HLA members going?

If any HLA members are planning to attend CAVALS's 2 day Space Planning for Libraries program (17-18 June) could you please contact me. I have been reviewing 'Appendix Two: Recommended minimum space requirements for health libraries' in the Guidelines for Australian Health Libraries (3rd ed) and am interested in hearing about latest trends in space planning.