ICML 2009: Meeting Room 4 Session 28

Theme: Professional Development

Time: 10.30-12.00
Date: Thursday 3rd September 2009
Chair: Gale Hannigan

Moving outside the comfort zone and empowering your own professional development
Anne Stevenson, CSIRO, Australia

Anne has held a range of library positions in a 30 year career with CSIRO, and is currently providing information services to CSIRO Energy Technology researchers at the CSIRO Energy Centre in Newcastle, NSW. In addition, Anne is involved in a number of enterprise initiatives, including a repository project. Anne likes walking and cycling, especially with her husband and their dog, and likes travelling (and would love to do more), and learning new languages.

Abstract:
CSIRO has undergone a major organisational restructure, aligning staff in functional groups; this has included some significant role redefinition. One such group is CSIRO Information Specialists; this group consists of the Organisation’s information specialists who have been called upon to develop enterprise wide services in a range of areas previously managed on a local or divisional level. These services include, but are not limited to, current awareness provision, subject portals, and publications management. Currently, there are ~20 divisional publications databases being managed, generally by library staff, across the organisation. These dispersed databases underpin a wide range of reporting requirements, both internal and external. For historical reasons, there is some duplication and, therefore, some redundancy. The organisation has been lacking a single point of truth for its publications for some years, and a number of models exist for publication approval. The Enterprise Publications Repository Project has been initiated to address some of these concerns, and also to develop a repository to more widely disseminate the research output of the CSIRO. This paper describes my own personal journey from a librarian with responsibility for staff, technical services, collection management, records management and publications to my role as an information specialist involved in this cross-functional team which has representation from all stakeholders; this role has drawn heavily on my cataloguing and publications background, extending current skills and knowledge and providing new challenges, meanwhile renewing the opportunities for learning and development.

ILB, an e-learning course for Hospital Medical Doctors in the Regione Emilia Romagna: regenerating the medical librarian profession
Ms Valentina E Comba, E-Learning Centre University of Bologna Italy, Italy
Dr Salvatore Defranco, Education and Training. S.Maria Nuova Hospital. Reggio Emilia Italy, Italy
Mrs Rita Iori, Central Medical Library. S.Maria Nuova Hospital. Reggio Emilia Italy, Italy
Mr Andrea Reggiani, E-Learning Centre University of Bologna Italy, Italy

Valentina Comba was medical librarian at the University of Torino, and Head of the Digital Library Project at the University of Bologna. Since 2006 she is the Operational Manager of the E-Learning Centre of the University of Bologna.

Dr Salvatore De Franco is Cardiologist and head of the Education and Training Unit of the S.Maria Nuova Hospital, Reggio Emilia.

Rita Iori is Responsible of the S.Maria Nuova Hospital Library; she has had an important role in training medical doctors and nurses about database searching and evidence based medicine.

Andrea Reggiani is a pedagogist working at the E-Learning Centre of the University of Bologna; he has a long experience in e-learning in the private sector and in the public administration.

Abstract:
Objectives: The Project ILB (Information Literacy in Biomedicine) financed a survey about the main information skills needs in the Regione Emilia Romagna Hospitals; as follow-up, an e-learning course was produced in order to fulfil these needs. The purpose of this paper is twofold: 1) explain the blended learning choice and its implications on the course production 2) show how the medical librarians enhanced their professional role in teaching through the use of the e-learning platform.

Methods: The Project ILB team decided to use the e-learning methodology to change the way in which Medical Doctors are trained; this choice was done to improve the compliance with the course, as the delivery is much more flexible in term of time and space. Moreover, the medical librarians were extensively trained to interact with the course participants through the e-learning platform (Moodle), prepared to answer questions and deliver further teaching and guidance in presence and online. Therefore the Project, in all the developing phases, was strongly focussed on the use of new communication technology for training in a collaborative modality.

Results: The Project has reached the two main objectives: develop a new learning methodology for strategic information skills and improve the visibility of the medical librarian professional knowledge, as a support for the Medical Doctors searching skills.

Conclusions: New learning technologies may induce relevant changes in the collaborative approach required for teaching and support. ILB has proved to produce this important and successful improvement.

Spreading your professional wings
Lisa Kruesi, The University of Queensland Library, Australia

Lisa Kruesi is the Senior Manager of the Health Sciences Libraries at the University of Queensland (UQ) Library.  Her role is to coordinate the services of the three teaching hospital branch libraries in Brisbane, the UQ Dentistry Library and the Rural Clinical School Library Service located in rural Queensland regions.   Lisa has worked in health libraries for over twenty years.  She holds a Bachelor of Social Science in Librarianship and a Master of Business in Information Technology, both obtained from the RMIT University in Victoria, Australia.  Prior to her appointment at UQ, Lisa spent ten years working as a biomedical librarian for CSIRO.  In addition, she has worked as a trainer in the software industry and as a searcher for a Patent and Trademark Attorney.  Lisa has published a number of papers related to health library services and has been actively involved in professional development activities throughout her career.  Lisa is one of the ICML Convenors. 

Abstract:
Fostering and encouraging professional involvement amongst our colleagues and those entering librarianship is of great importance to position the library profession in the future.  Since 2005 great effort has been underway to champion the International Congress on Medical Librarianship (ICML) by the Convenors. Spreading the word about the Congress, hosted in Australia for the first time, has required participation at major library events held throughout the world and promulgation of ICML news as widely as possible. During this period Lisa Kruesi through the encouragement of her manager, Heather Todd, applied and received a MLA Cunningham Fellowship.  The presentation is a case study, outlining the importance of seizing professional opportunities and the benefits of awards for librarians, organisations and clients.