Librarians Are in the House! Unconventional Strategies for Outreach to Your Campus Community

In 2016, our private four-year institution launched a new undergraduate housing model with the goal of providing more opportunities for intellectual engagement through social encounters among students, faculty, and staff. During the day, the campus is an intellectually-engaged community with free exchange of ideas among community members. The housing communities aim to extend this dynamic more fully into the student experience, after hours and outside of the classroom. The Library’s mission is to foster intellectual growth by supporting excellence and innovation in education and research. We were enthusiastic about the potential both for improved student experience and for opportunities to further engage with the campus community, especially undergraduate students. When the housing communities were announced, the Library created a house librarian program to partner a librarian with each community’s house professor. The house librarians solidified their roles as house community members in multiple ways, including: hosting the house community campus-wide kickoff event, working with faculty to plan programs, participating in house social and academic events, and promoting the Library’s role in the housing communities throughout campus. Our institution recently launched a new undergraduate housing model in order to provide more opportunities for intellectual engagement through social encounters among students, faculty, and staff. We will describe our experiences implementing a house librarian program. We will discuss how we negotiated intra-institutional barriers that can prevent librarians from pursuing new methods of outreach. We will help participants imagine new non-traditional methods for outreach and engagement that will elicit enthusiastic responses from campus partners

Supporting Students with Open Textbooks

Have you ever considered adopting an open textbook for your course? If you are concerned about your students\u27 access to their assigned textbook or if you are interested in exploring what open textbooks exist in your field, this session is for you. You\u27ll learn how to find and use free, high quality, digital textbooks

Symbiotic unicellular cyanobacteria fix nitrogen in the Arctic Ocean.

Biological dinitrogen (N2) fixation is an important source of nitrogen (N) in low-latitude open oceans. The unusual N2-fixing unicellular cyanobacteria (UCYN-A)/haptophyte symbiosis has been found in an increasing number of unexpected environments, including northern waters of the Danish Straight and Bering and Chukchi Seas. We used nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry (nanoSIMS) to measure 15N2 uptake into UCYN-A/haptophyte symbiosis and found that UCYN-A strains identical to low-latitude strains are fixing N2 in the Bering and Chukchi Seas, at rates comparable to subtropical waters. These results show definitively that cyanobacterial N2 fixation is not constrained to subtropical waters, challenging paradigms and models of global N2 fixation. The Arctic is particularly sensitive to climate change, and N2 fixation may increase in Arctic waters under future climate scenarios

The impact of antiretroviral therapy on symptom burden among HIV outpatients with low CD4 count in rural Uganda: nested longitudinal cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Individuals with HIV have a high prevalence of physical and psychological symptoms throughout their disease course. Despite the clinical and public health implications of unresolved pain and symptoms, little is known about the effect of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) on these outcomes. This study aimed to assess the impact on symptom burden for the year after ART initiation in individuals with a CD4 count <200 cells/uL in Uganda. METHODS: HIV-infected, ART-naıve adults referred from voluntary testing and counseling services in rural Uganda for enrollment into a randomized controlled trial to test fluconazole as primary prophylaxis against cryptococcal disease were invited to complete the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale-Short Form (MSAS-SF) prior to commencing ART and at two subsequent follow up visits. This tool measures self-reported 7-day period prevalence and associated burden of physical and psychological symptoms. Changes in the total number of symptoms and distress indices with time on ART and trial arm were investigated through fitting Linear Mixed Models for repeated measures. RESULTS: During the first year of ART initiation the prevalence of most individual symptoms remained constant. The notable exceptions which improved after commencing ART are as follow; prevalence of pain (prevalence changed from 79% to 60%), weight loss (67% to 31%), lack of appetite (46% to 28%), feeling sad (52% to 25%) and difficulty sleeping (35% to 23%). The total number of symptoms and distress indices reduced after treatment commenced. Of concern was that half or more study participants remained with symptoms of pain (60%), itching (57%), skin changes (53%) and numbness in hands and feet (52%) after starting ART. Sixteen symptoms remained with a burden of 25% or more. CONCLUSION: Despite the beneficial effect of ART on reducing symptoms, some patients continue to experience a high symptom burden. It is essential that HIV services in sub-Saharan Africa integrate management of symptoms into their programmes. TRIAL REGISTRATION: CRYPTOPRO [ISRCTN 76481529 ], November 2004

Improving efficiency through innovation in the ‘real-world’: feasibility of a co-designed telehealth solution for individuals with aphasia

BACKGROUND: Research indicates that speech and language therapy for individuals with aphasia delivered via telehealth is acceptable and facilitates good outcomes. Although adoption of telehealth has increased following COVID-19, it has not been implemented broadly. Telehealth could assist services to meet the recommended intensity of therapy for individuals with aphasia. OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to investigate the barriers and facilitators to adopting telehealth for individuals with aphasia at two local NHS trusts; and to co-design a telehealth solution responding to these challenges. The feasibility of this solution was also investigated. A secondary objective is to highlight the value of real-world data (RWD) collection in evaluating clinical practice. METHODS: An experience-based co-design study was conducted, which developed and piloted a bespoke telehealth solution across service pathways at two NHS sites. Feasibility was evaluated qualitatively through interviews and quantitatively from RWD collected through the telehealth software. RESULTS: The telehealth solution incorporated outsourcing of the service to a specialist company, provision of hardware and software and regular support for individuals with aphasia and their carers. Take up was associated with a positive impact and the RWD revealed a substantial increase in the hours of therapy the individuals with aphasia received. CONCLUSION: Personalised telehealth solutions which respond to local and personal needs are feasible and an acceptable way to increase the intensity of speech and language therapy for some individuals with aphasia, bringing services more in line with evidence-based recommendations and optimising patient outcomes. Embedded RWD collection systems are valuable for evaluation

Job design and employee engagement

Engage for Success White Paper no. 2014-0