Building Community Through Programming with NLM Traveling Exhibits

Objective: To demonstrate how programming around NLM’s traveling exhibit program can be used to connect and engage with communities outside the medical library. Methods: The Quillen College of Medicine library hosted NLM’s “From DNA to Beer” and “Graphic Medicine: Ill-Conceived and Well-Drawn” exhibits and developed programming engaging with the university’s arts community, numerous locally owned businesses, and the local agricultural extension office. Results: Exhibit planning was conducted with community engagement as a chief goal. Events included tours and talks at local craft breweries, trivia night at a downtown brewery, a bread-making workshop from extension agents, a presentation from a visiting national printmaking artist known for work about HIV/AIDS, and movie nights. Events were promoted via the web/social media, local news, and flyers placed at event sites and local comics shops. The planning and hosting of events at local businesses fostered town-gown connections, while arts talks engaged members of the university’s arts community who had not normally intersected with the medical library. Cooperation around complementary arts events also helped strengthen a connection with the university’s main visual arts museum. Overall, more than a thousand people engaged with the exhibits and surrounding programs and events. Conclusions: Creative planning around NLM traveling exhibits can help forge new relationships with non-traditional partners throughout the community. Concrete examples of engaging events will be provided along with advice for focusing the exhibit planning process on community engagement

Making a Difference through Fundraising

Objectives: The US healthcare system will have to exist on reduced funding in the future, creating a need for new funding sources for health science libraries to survive. The purpose of this study is to investigate funraising in academic allopathic medical libraries. Methods: A cross-sectional methodology was implemented. An electronic survey was utilized to ask fifteen fundraising questions to participants. The questions consisted of: current status of library fundraising, perceptions of the central development office, utilizing fundraising positions inside the library, types of fundraising activities used, most successul fundraising positions inside the library, five year fundraising income, fundraising advertising, utilization of funds, challenges and motivations to fundraising, and donor recognition. These questions were loaded onto checkbox survey software for distribution. The survey was distributed to five members of a blinded focus group for testing. Potential academic medical library groups were identifitied that have academic medical libraries with diverse sizes and budgets. The decision to use CONBLS consortium was decided based on these factors. Results: An email letter containing a survey link and cover letter was sent to all 21 CONBLS members. Usable responses wree received from 15 institutions, or 71.4% of the libraries. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the responses to specific questions. Conclusions: Academic medical libraries in the Southeast region are highly interested in fundraising, but less than half of the libraries consider themselves active fundraisers. Many challenges associated with establishing an active fundraising program exist. Similar fundraising challenges exist in general academic libraries and medical library professionals should reference this literature. In order to improve these statistics, educating directors on fundraising at group levels as CONBLS, SCMLA, and ALADN would help encourage discussion and promote larger fundraising efforts. Establishing key relationships on campus is important for academic medical libraries to establish a continuous cycle of fundraising

Is Attendance Really Declining at Games?: An Analysis of Walk-ins Versus Web Counts

Objectives: The purpose is to see if there is a relationship between declining walk-in visitor counts and increased library web access. The overall objective is to evaluate library services and find better and more efficient ways to meet the needs of walk-in and virtual patrons. Methods: Compile past five years of walk-in visitor statistics from the library. Retrieve past five years of website statistics from Google Analytics. These two sets of data will be compared and analyzed for any correlation. We hypothesize the data will show a steady decrease in walk-in visitors along with a continued increase in website visitors. We hope to find a period during the past five years where the two values intersect. If a clear relation exists, we will identify possible factors that can be attributed to these changes. Results: The combination of online “visits” combined with walkin visits gives an entirely different picture of the use of libraries by patrons. Conclusion: Librarians should not be wedded to success markers of past eras. By updating measures of recording “attendance,” a more truthful picture emerges about the true popularity of libraries. This type of data is essential, since libraries are under more pressure to justify their existence

A Mixed-Methods Analysis of a Library-Based Hand-Held Intervention with Rural Clinicians

Background: The East Tennessee State University Quillen College of Medicine Library has participated for several years in projects to provide rural clinicians with health information resources. Objectives: To determine whether a strategy of hand‐held devices with a best‐evidence point‐of‐care disease tool and a drug database paired with access to a medical library for full‐text articles and training to use the tools would be an affordable way to meet the information needs of rural underserved clinicians. Methods: This study is a mixed‐methods methodology. The first project was evaluated using a randomised controlled trial (RCT) methodology. The second was evaluated qualitatively using interviews and focus groups. Results: The quantitative findings discovered that clinicians equipped with a hand‐held device with evidence‐based software more frequently found answers to clinical questions, found answers more quickly, were more satisfied with information they found and use expensive resources such as continuing medical education, online databases and textbooks less than the group that did not have access to online technology. Qualitative results supported the quantitative findings. Conclusion: Librarians can implement a three‐pronged strategy of the secondary literature via a hand‐held, the primary literature via Loansome Doc and quality training to meet basic information needs of rural clinicians

A Longitudinal Examination of Mobile App Usage in Medical Students

Objective: The objective of this study is to determine both the usefulness of librarian instruction on mobile apps and student preference for mobile apps during 3rd and 4th year clinical rotations. Methods: An electronic RedCap survey was administered to students for the purpose of gathering baseline information on library-provided mobile apps and instruction. This brief survey was given to 3rd year medical students at the beginning of this school year (2021-2022) with a second follow-up survey scheduled for later in the academic year. (spring 22) The students were asked questions about their mobile app usage and preferences as well as how often they reach out to librarians for assistance. The follow-up survey will assess any changes in preferences for or comfort with apps and will monitor any changes to the number of self-reported interactions with library staff. Results: Results of the initial survey confirmed that students are largely comfortable with the technical aspects of mobile app use both in and outside of the medical sphere; however, they may require more guidance on app content to determine which apps are most useful for researching different topics or different styles of questions. DynaMed was chosen by students as their favorite medical mobile app so far likely due to its wide coverage of topics and content. While the library instruction session increased student confidence with using medical mobile apps, students showed a lack of history of contacting librarians for assistance. Conclusions: This survey confirms librarian suspicions that students may require guidance not on how to use apps, but on which apps are recommended for use in which scenarios. Although students report that library instruction is beneficial for their understanding of app use, they also report that they do not frequently ask librarians for assistance. This may be due to various reasons such as student insecurity, lack of perceived time, or lack of understanding about which questions may be asked or what apps to ask questions about. The follow-up survey will gather information on these topics and will seek to address student knowledge of which apps to use in different clinical scenarios as well as whether contact with librarians has increased or whether faculty recommendations in clinical settings change student app preferences