A good blog summary of what appeared to happen today can be found at What’s happening at Harvard? by Feral Librarian.

I completely empathize. We’ve been through very ugly times at the University of Washington Libraries and town hall meetings are part of how information about repeated State budget cuts has been shared with staff since 2009. I can’t say I’ve enjoyed or will enjoy future sessions but I always appreciate them. These are not pleasant financial times we are living in yet at each session we always had as clear of an idea of what cuts were going to be from staff positions and what reorganizations and library closures were going to happen as our Dean had at the time.

We never had what appears to be a truly phenomenal amount of staff uncertainty about their jobs or what will happen next as a result of one day of town hall meetings about a reorganization process that, according to Harvard Libraries’ own documentation, has been going on since 2009 and is supposed to be 90% complete right now. Friday morning edit – a reflective entry by a Harvard librarian who was there acknowledges both the gut tweet reaction (very normal) and still reflects the uncertainty about jobs and what’s happening next.

At one point today this reorganization information was easily accessible and linked off the Harvard Libraries Transition Website. Since the proverbial stuff has hit the fan, the easily accessible links off the website have disappeared but (as of 8pm Pacific time Thursday) some links for more context have not and there are screenshots and links below.

Edit: As of 3am Pacific time Friday (don’t ask), the link to Change Management and Career Development is back to being public information and appears to have additional workshop sessions for February, but the FAQ is not back to public information.

http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic991404.files/HL%20Timeline_09_28_11.pdf

and

http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic991404.files/HL%20Organizational%20Design_09_28_11.pdf

As After Furor, Harvard Library Spokesperson Says ‘Inaccurate’ That All Staff Have To Apply notes, other information that was previously public on the Harvard transition website today is now staff-only including FAQ and Change Management and Career Development, the latter showed mostly already full sessions for staff about CV development and identifying strengths.

If people are supposed to be the most valuable asset in an organization, the communication process to ‘share information that will assist Library staff with the change‘ did not reflect that at all today. It is always the responsibility of an organization’s leadership to clearly communicate exactly what change is happening in the first place. If that didn’t happen, how are the staff possibly being assisted?

So has Google (sort of)

I, too, stand against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) (quick infographic of why) although I’m not certain I’ve installed the plugin correctly here to indicate that.

By the way, do not even get me started on the Research Works Act (RWA) or I won’t stop. 2012 is turning out to be the Era of Evil Congressional Acronyms as far as I’m concerned.

I’ll admit it – 2011 has been a very challenging year for me both personally and professionally, and no one except the members of my household knows the full scope although it is a miracle we’ve all survived with our sanity somewhat intact. When life demands increase time is reallocated to priorities, and while my family & work are the top ones my blog has not been very often. I’m exhausted. I thought two weeks off from work at the end of the year would be enough to recharge (well ok, maybe not with Christmas & painting!), but mentally I’m still quietly staring at the marble along with Dean in Quiet Contemplation.

Am I stopping blogging in 2012? Of course not. If anything I see the increased value of writing only when I’ve developed something purposeful to say vs. increasing the noise for the sake of frequency in order to keep to a schedule or repeating information that’s announced elsewhere.

I try to have an eye out on the Twitter #medlibs/@medlibs communities to help but with work demands sharply increasing (I have not one but two major surveys to develop simultaneously when I return) my time for social media seems to be decreasing as well.  I’m encouraged by seeing more medical librarians getting involved with Twitter hashtag chats, and was frustrated in November that the Medical Library Association still doesn’t seem to get the value of them.  I agree with Carol Perryman’s reflections in What is the role of the Medical Library Association in a time of crisis? I have echoed this several times too – for example, why isn’t MLA tapping Woods Hole alumni for a task force or related activity, especially with the recent curriculum change there heavily involving electronic health records (EHRs)? So many are being highly effective change agents on their own and/or at their institutions. Surely more can be done on a national level to bring their collective energy together for the benefit of all especially now with the rapid implementation of EHRs to meet meaningful use incentives.

I’m hopeful we’ll see more progress in these directions and am looking forward to 2012 for many reasons, not the least of which is welcoming everyone to Seattle to attend MLA 2012 either in person or virtually. There is a lot of work going on behind the scenes by many great people and I can’t wait to share more once the website is further developed for the Local Assistance Committee to show what we’ve got!

For the 2011 holiday season we have an eagle (University of North Texas) with a former Cougar leading the way for doing The Denton Polka all across campus. Look carefully for the eagle statue the portrait on the wall of my blog’s webpage is modeled after at 1:54.

We also have the dawg (University of Washington) reflecting on 150 years, beginning with one classroom that was smaller than our 9 year old’s class in Seattle today, and envisioning our future. It also almost never snows here like the ending where it looks all peaceful and fluffy. It’s more like everyone freaking out when there’s any trace of accumulation on the ground…

The eagle wins, hands down, but I’m highly disappointed – where are  UNT Libraries and College of Information in here?!

Edit: with congrats to Sonoma State on 50 years too, home of the degree I never quite managed to wrap up but a wonderful time and great people I still miss from there! Maybe I should apply to come back as the Wine Librarian?

Heart Attack Signs for Women

This is my yearly post to increase awareness of the signs of a heart attack which is still the #1 killer for women. Although much progress has been made since I was making funeral arrangements for instead of getting ready to celebrate with my grandma the Tuesday before Thanksgiving 13 years ago (the original post and story), I know more can be done.

Please make sure your family and friends know these important signs of a heart attack and to not disregard them as indigestion, pneumonia, or to make a doctor appointment for later in the day when it’s more convenient. It was too late for my Grandma by the time she saw her doctor – she died within hours despite every effort made to save her. (Source of signs from Go Red for Women)

1. Uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain in the center of your chest. It lasts more than a few minutes, or goes away and comes back.
2. Pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw or stomach.
3. Shortness of breath with or without chest discomfort.
4. Other signs such as breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea or lightheadedness.
5. As with men, women’s most common heart attack symptom is chest pain or discomfort. But women are somewhat more likely than men to experience some of the other common symptoms, particularly shortness of breath, nausea/vomiting and back or jaw pain.

If you have any of these signs, don’t wait longer than five minutes before calling 9-1-1 for help.

Think only older women have heart attacks? Think again.

 Engage With Grace http://engagewithgrace.org/

I was the executrix of my Grandma’s estate at the ripe old age of 25 including making her final arrangements. If anything can accelerate aging roughly one decade in the span of one month, that experience can. I’m a bit put out that I didn’t even receive funeral home swag during the ordeal. Ok, I’m not, but please read Regina Holliday’s account about Engage With Grace. You have no idea how quickly life can turn itself upside down where you have to make decisions about health care on behalf of your family members who are suddenly unable to do so for themselves. Start the conversation now. Please.

I both know the answers to everything & where all the paperwork is for my mom and we review them every Thanksgiving while remembering that one from 13 years ago. I both appreciate and dread the process, and my husband & I have had everything regarding both advance directives and the rest of our stuff in order for years.

Happy Thanksgiving

Now for something completely unexpected, this is the first Thanksgiving our son & I are aware of the fact that we are Mayflower descendants. My Grandma and my second Grandpa (first Grandpa had the Mayflower lineage) made this stained glass panel and our son asked if it was the Mayflower – I replied that it wasn’t but he was welcome to think of it that way if he wanted to.

You can see the typical idyllic Pilgrim children window clings. Our ancestor Richard Moore was a young child then too but probably wasn’t smiling. A lot about him was very hard even for professional researchers to figure out for centuries, but what is known is that his life is “bizarre and interesting”

1. He, his brother and 2 sisters were likely the results of a longstanding affair their mom (of royal descent) was having at the time
2. Mom didn’t particularly want them, so her husband arranged for them to be shipped off with some “honest and religious people” for a new life as he divorced her
3. His brother and 2 sisters died during the first winter at Plymouth
4. All of this happened by the time he was 7 years old
5. Thanks to Elder Brewster and his family for helping him survive to be an adult

As an adult he lived to be old enough to witness the Salem witch trials, is the only Mayflower passenger with an original gravestone, and the only survivor proven to have royal lineage. Add in that he was apparently a lech, probably a bigamist, and excommunicated from the church for a while and it looks like he has very strong reality show potential even all these centuries later.

I’m still processing all this information and know that we can’t choose where we’re from, but believe it’s important to try to have both awareness and understanding of what our past includes. Many thanks to Martha for pointing out American Indian Perspectives on Thanksgiving that I’ll combine with Coming to America (the Mayflower Society’s perspective) in due time along with the ‘bizarre and interesting’ details.

Change

Connecting E-science and Team Science: The Changing Nature of Research was held via GoToWebinar and not a studio set that features most of the presenters there as a live panel (the way they have been run for several years). As an MLA webcast site coordinator I knew about the platform change ahead of time but wasn’t sure if streaming live video would be part of the webcast. It wasn’t, which understandably led to a surprised reaction by many. 90 minutes is a long time to pay rapt attention to PowerPoints and disembodied voices. I know it’s hard for even 60 minutes, which is why I try my best to channel my college DJ/news director self into most of the PowerPoint-and-disembodied-voice webcasts I host to make them more engaging.

I’m having trouble pulling up cost information for previous MLA webcasts, but there was a savings that was passed on to MLA members compared to the last webcast which was held on the studio set. Audio quality on the webcast was variable from each presenter and there are opportunities for improvement with presentation streamlining (i.e. combining all the PowerPoints in one presentation instead of messy transitions and “oops” as presenters understandably fumbled with desktop shares), but the connection didn’t crash outright compared to the studio broadcast which often did.

What concerns me the most though is that the content of the webcast is apparently gone for good after 30 days – no mention of a DVD option for purchase seems to be available.  Here’s what I found, previous MLA webcasts also have DVDs of them available but I wasn’t easily able to find their webcast prices for comparison:

WTH?

This was entirely within MLA’s control and simply… not done. Having a twitter hashtag is not new, as MLA has had established conference hashtags for several years now and webcast hashtags back to November 2009. As a result of not having an established webcast hashtag, time was wasted beforehand in an unnecessary Twitter ritual: What’s the hashtag for the MLA webcast? #mlaescience? #mlawebcast? #mlaesci? Who knows – as a result of us not knowing, I strongly advocated for our (somewhat?) established #medlibs and it appeared to reach most of the medical librarian community that was tweeting the webcast.

For those questioning the value of Twitter and established hashtags, I offer my previous post about Embedded Librarianship Via Twitter and this:

http://twitter.com/TXDigLibrary/statuses/137624585414774784

http://twitter.com/VIVOcollab/statuses/137648334721646592

It was happenstance that the Texas Digital Library and VIVO  itself noticed the discussion during the webcast. Imagine how many more outreach opportunities and connections could have been made between the medical library and research communities on Twitter if an established hashtag was created and marketed beforehand.

Are we as medical information professionals serious about our role as collaborators in medical research, e-science and team science? Then it’s time for our national organization to participate: establish Twitter hashtags well in advance for all MLA events (especially webcasts) so we’re all on the same channel.  We want to connect, we want to share, and we need to make the most of interdisciplinary connections we have both in social media and other networks.

I think caught a glimpse of what Laura was talking about at a Scouting campout weekend as someone played his fiddle while the boys’ jack-o-lanterns were lit around the campfire in the pouring rain and thought I’d share. There is something very alive to a solo fiddle in the dark that my cell phone camcorder just doesn’t capture at all, anyone know what the tune is?

Too many specialists are as dangerous to the quality and quantity of medical care in a community as too few.

That was from 1949!

I had to run to catch a flight home so I could enjoy the rest of a gorgeous Seattle afternoon and evening with my family and missed the NN/LM PNR and MLA updates, and at this point don’t know if the NLM update slides (see above technology issues) will be available later.

My apologies but I’ve never been inspired to blog our morning business meetings. Thanks for a wonderful time in Boise, PNC Annual Meeting Committee!

Listening to different speakers who are not aware of each others’ presentations ahead of time but have common threads woven through them all is fascinating and, to me, one of the best things about our Chapter meetings because I’ve seen it happen in each of the 6 years I’ve been a part of them. Well, maybe I’ll take that back – I was a brand new student deer in the headlights who barely knew a soul in 2006, and 2007 I was an intern exhibiting at a conference for the first time. You can judge for yourself what sort of clue I had for 2009 and 2010. I said I would blog about the electronic health records (EHRs) continuing education session in 2008 then didn’t. I think it was because I was so struck by the vision I had there to get myself to Woods Hole the next year then teach online that I couldn’t handle blogging at the same time.

From our morning keynote speaker Molly Mettler (Senior Vice President of Healthwise) addressing how Baby Boomers and librarians are changing the game for healthcare to the rapt attention we paid author Anthony Doerr as he read to us his Smithsonian Magazine article about Boise (they chose the title, not him) in the evening, the threads this year involve the value of personal stories, advocacy, and being a game changer in the face of shifts in demographics, health care reform, budgets and a myriad of other factors.

The threads may or may not be apparent in my Google Docs notes coverage for today too. There is a lot to scroll through but I particularly want to highlight Rose Relevo’s STAT talk about PubMed Health. I took a crappy picture of an awesome Venn diagram she made about it that makes a lot of sense.

I had to smile when I was asked something along the subject line about blogging – and appreciate the assumption. I’ll always cover from my perspective whatever is going on at professional conferences unless I am explicitly asked not to. This has happened a few times but not recently, and if so I will challenge people to come up with a compromise. Nothing can ever replace the personal connections at conferences but there’s no sense in keeping all the information to ourselves.

A public awareness campaign called the Period of PURPLE Crying (purplecrying.info) has been developed by the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome (NCSBS) that focuses on the normal developmental stage all babies go through between when they are several weeks old to 5 months or so where they simply cry for no apparent reason and nothing you do seems to help.

This is about the most unpredictable, heartwrenching, and frustrating experience possible with a new baby, and add several months of being sleep deprived on top of that and it’s easy for mom and dad to join in the meltdowns too. The term ‘having colic’ can imply to parents living on the edge already that their baby is sick or has a medical condition, making them feel even worse instead of helping them realize this is part of normal child development.

The website includes an online magazine, videos, and supportive plain language resources and has been translated into 10 languages with closed captioning for the hearing impaired. I love their Facebook page showing pictures of all the purple knitted baby hats to raise awareness of the campaign – perfect and much better than the standard pink/blue hats! A DVD and booklets are supposedly available for health care providers to teach about the program and answer parents’ questions, although I’m having trouble finding where they can request them from the website.