Seeking out New Blood (and Brains!) for Section Membership through Quick Response (QR) Codes and Zombies

Objectives: Although the Medical Informatics Section (MIS) is one of the largest MLA sections, new ways to enhance section membership breathe life into a section. The creation of a Zombie Hunt game is a novel interactive approach to encourage people to join our section, have fun, and use some technology during MLA \u2712

Addressing Information Management Competency Attainment through Consultations: An Effective and Sustainable Strategy?

Objectives: To study the application of local information management competencies in the context of a research methods class in the university\u27s behavioral sciences program. We sought to measure competencies, address them through targeted individualized consultative instructional sessions, and evaluate improvement of skills as well as the sustainability of this level of concentrated individualized service

MLA Amplified: Content Analysis and Tweeter Tales

Objectives: During the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association, in addition to the conference blog with official bloggers, there was an active Twitter stream using the hashtag #mla2010. Lorcan Dempsey has coined the term “amplified conference” to refer to conferences which employ social media and networking tools (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc.) to communicate conference content. This poster presents an overview of the #mla2010 Tweets as a social and intellectual history of the meeting

MLA Research Section’s Research Agenda Committee Systematic Review Project: a Status Report

This paper provides a status report on the MLA Research Section’s Research Agenda Committee Systematic Review Project. There has not been a comprehensive report on the project since the 2015 Open Forum held at the Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association in Austin, TX, where representatives from all active teams provided reports [20]. To date, teams have continued to vary in their rate of progress. Some teams have moved through the process relatively quickly while others are regrouping. An evaluation of the overall project experience from the point of view of the participants is forthcoming

Learning While Doing: Program Evaluation of the Medical Library Association Systematic Review Project

Objectives: The Medical Library Association (MLA) Systematic Review Project aims to conduct systematic reviews to identify the state of knowledge and research gaps for fifteen top-ranked questions in the profession. In 2013, fifteen volunteer-driven teams were recruited to conduct the systematic reviews. The authors investigated the experiences of participants in this large-scale, volunteer-driven approach to answering priority research questions and fostering professional growth among health sciences librarians. Methods: A program evaluation was conducted by inviting MLA Systematic Review Project team members to complete an eleven-item online survey. Multiple-choice and short-answer questions elicited experiences about outputs, successes and challenges, lessons learned, and future directions. Participants were recruited by email, and responses were collected over a two-week period beginning at the end of January 2016. Results: Eighty (8 team leaders, 72 team members) of 198 potential respondents completed the survey. Eighty-four percent of respondents indicated that the MLA Systematic Review Project should be repeated in the future and were interested in participating in another systematic review. Team outputs included journal articles, conference presentations or posters, and sharing via social media. Thematic analysis of the short-answer questions yielded five broad themes: learning and experience, interpersonal (networking), teamwork, outcomes, and barriers. Discussion: A large-scale, volunteer-driven approach to performing systematic reviews shows promise as a model for answering key questions in the profession and demonstrates the value of experiential learning for acquiring synthesis review skills and knowledge. Our project evaluation provides recommendations to optimize this approach

The MLA Research Agenda: What Do We Know? The Systematic Review Project: A Status Report

Objectives: The Research Agenda Committee of the MLA Research Section published the second MLA Research Agenda in 2012. The Research Agenda is a list of the most important and answerable questions facing the profession. In 2013, the committee proposed teams of librarian researchers be deployed to conduct systematic reviews to determine the evidence relative to these questions

An Academic Library-Biotech Industry Partnership: Defining a Collaboration

New York Medical College opened BioInc@NYMC, a multimillion-dollar government-funded biotechnology incubator, in October 2014. To spur medical innovation and economic development, the public and private sectors collaborated to provide biotech start-ups with state-of-the-art facilities. By April 2015 four start-up companies had joined the incubator. The Health Sciences Library was given a unique opportunity to interface with the private biotechnology industry and define an academic library-biotechnology industry partnership

MLA Research Agenda. Systematic Review Project. Team Updates Presentation. MLA Annual Meeting Supplement. May 17, 2015

Most of the 15 systematic review teams provided one-page summaries of their progress to date in compiling systematic reviews on one of 15 top-ranked important research projects. This builds upon an earlier Delphi study that was reported here: Eldredge JD, Ascher MT, Holmes HN, Harris MR. The new Medical Library Association research agenda: final results from a three-phase Delphi study. J Med Libr Assoc. 2012 Jul;100(3):214-8. doi: 10.3163/1536-5050.100.3.012. PubMed PMID: 22879811; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3411260

The use of extracellular DNA as a proxy for specific microbial activity

The ubiquity and relevance of extracellular DNA (exDNA) are well-known and increasingly gaining importance in many fields of application such as medicine and environmental microbiology. Although sources and types of exDNA are manifold, ratios of specific DNA-molecules inside and outside of living cells can give reliable information about the activity of entire systems and of specific microbial groups or species. Here, we introduce a method to discriminate between internal (iDNA), as well as bound and free exDNA, and evaluate various DNA fractions and related ratios (ex:iDNA) regarding their applicability to be used as a fast, convenient, and reliable alternative to more tedious RNA-based activity measurements. In order to deal with microbial consortia that can be regulated regarding their activity, we tested and evaluated the proposed method in comparison to sophisticated dehydrogenase- and RNA-based activity measurements with two anaerobic microbial consortia (anaerobic fungi and syntrophic archaea and a microbial rumen consortium) and three levels of resolution (overall activity, total bacteria, methanogenic archaea). Furthermore, we introduce a 28S rRNA gene-specific primer set and qPCR protocol, targeting anaerobic fungi (Neocallimastigomycota). Our findings show that the amount of actively released free exDNA (fDNA) strongly correlates with different activity measurements and is thus suggested to serve as a proxy for microbial activity.publishersversionPeer reviewe