Honorary naming of Health Sciences Library celebrated

On Monday, February 4, 2019, a celebration was held to recognize Henry L. Strauss and his many contributions to the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.  This past fall the library was named the Strauss Health Sciences Library in honor of Henry and his wife Joan’s longtime commitment to the campus.  In 1995 Henry Strauss established the Indigenous and Integrative Medicine collection at the library.  Almost 25 years later this collection continues to grow.  In addition to the collection, Strauss also established a quarterly lecture series that focuses on topics related to integrative medicine.

Over 100 people attended the luncheon on February 4th to celebrate Strauss and his many contributions.  Speakers at the event included Chancellor Elliman, Regent Sue Sharkey, and Governor Polis who is a long time friend of Strauss.  Strauss is a pharmacy alumnus and has strong connections to the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.  This was an exciting and important day for the Strauss Health Sciences Library.

Health Sciences Library librarians participate in regional librarian meeting

Librarians at the Health Sciences Library regularly participate in professional associations.  In October, a number of the librarians from the Health Sciences Library participated in the Annual Meeting of the Midcontinental Chapter of the Medical Library Association (MCMLA).

The MCMLA Chapter includes the states of Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.  This year the Annual Meeting was held virtually and the Health Sciences Library hosted a viewing that librarians throughout the state were welcome to attend.  Pictured below are some of the attendees from the second day of the meeting.  Many of these librarians are from the Health Sciences Library.

Attendees on the second day of the MCMLA 2018 Annual Meeting. Many of these librarians are from the Health Sciences Library.

The virtual meeting is run just like an in person conference with keynote speakers, paper presentations, lightning talks, and a business meeting.  Research awards are given out during the meeting and two awards went to our librarians:

• Best Lightning Talk: Hannah Craven (former intern), Kristina C. Palmer (intern) and Christi Piper for A Bibliographic Analysis of Librarian Assistance on Systematic Reviews.
• Best Paper:  Dana Abbey for Information Needs of Community Health Center Staff.

The library is proud of the involvement of our librarians in professional associations.

 

Health Sciences Library continues partnership with other libraries in Colorado

The Health Sciences Library is a member of the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries, often referred to as The Alliance.  The Alliance is consortium of sixteen libraries located in Colorado and Wyoming that was founded in 1974 to consider ways of sharing resources. The driving force of the group is cooperation and the sharing of purchasing power, materials, and ideas.  The Alliance library directors gather six times a year for Member Council meetings.  The September Member Council meeting was held at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, CO.  The Tomlinson Library hosted the meeting and showed off their recent building renovation, including this fantastic outdoor fire pit.

Fire pit at Tomlinson Library, Colorado Mesa Univ

The Health Sciences Library receives numerous benefits from participating in the Alliance.  The biggest financial benefit is access to discounted subscription rates for journal packages and other electronic resources.  The Alliance also manages the Prospector Union Catalog which gives CU Anschutz faculty, staff and students free access to print materials from over forty academic, public and special libraries in Colorado and Wyoming

Since Grand Junction is very close to the border with Utah, during the September Alliance Member Council meeting an additional meeting was arranged with a similar organization in Utah – the Utah Academic Library Consortium.  There are many similarities between these two organizations and members are currently discussing options for a joint programming effort around the topic of diversity and inclusion.

If you’d like to know more about the Alliance, contact Melissa De Santis, Director of the Health Sciences Library (melissa.desantis@ucdenver.edu). For additional information about Prospector, ask staff at the Service Desk or contact the library via AskUs.

De Santis selected as Mentor in leadership program

Melissa De Santis has been selected as a mentor in the 2018-2019 NLM/AAHSL Leadership Fellows Program, sponsored by the National Library of Medicine and the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries.  The Program prepares emerging leaders for director positions in academic health sciences libraries through a year-long mentoring relationship with a director of another library and a curriculum focused on developing leadership knowledge critical to enhancing the value of libraries in their institutions. In this highly competitive program, Melissa will be one of ten fellows and mentors from academic health sciences libraries across the U.S. who will begin their work together in November.  Since the program began in 2002, 54% of all fellow graduates have assumed director positions.  Melissa participated as a fellow in the program in 2012-2013 and is looking forward to participating as a mentor later this year.

Bringing Health and Care Back to Healthcare Conference – January 18th

The Health Sciences Library and the Strauss-Wisneski Collection Committee are a few of the collaborators organizing an upcoming conference that will look at healing, wholeness and resiliency.  Join us for the Bringing Health and Care Back to Healthcare conference that will take place on January 18, 2018.

Our panel of health care innovators will share insights, proven holistic concepts and provide a toolkit which participants can immediately use to enhance their practice, the lives of their patients and their personal well-being.

The program is grounded in proven, evidence-based research frameworks. We’ll also discover through experiential exercises, how to incorporate self-care and resiliency practices to awaken a vital new you and reignite passion for whole-person caring.

We’ll explore together how to bring healing and wholeness back to your personal support networks and workplace to:

• improve your health;
• decrease fatigue and burnout;
• reduce staff turnover; and
• improve patient outcomes and satisfaction.

Who should attend?

Everyone working in our health care systems that is interested in improving skills, communications and knowledge within care teams especially Nurses, Social Workers, APPs and Physicians.

For additional information, please visit the conference website.

Safely view the solar eclipse!

Update August 17, 2017:   The solar shades that the Health Sciences Library made available were purchased from Amazon.  Today Amazon notified the Health Sciences Library that “Amazon has not received confirmation from the supplier of your order that they sourced the item from a recommended manufacturer.  We recommend that you DO NOT use this product to view the sun or the eclipse.”

If you have a pair of the solar shades that the library made available, please be aware of this information.  An additional source of information to evaluate the safety of solar shades is available from the American Astronomical Society.

Update August 16, 2017: All of the solar shades have been distributed! The library attempted to order more but was unsuccessful. A few public libraries will be passing out free solar shades:

• Arapahoe Public Libraries – available at opening on Saturday, August 19th.
• Anything Libraries – available at their viewing party event Monday, August 21st from 10 am – 1 pm at the York St location.
• Douglas County Libraries – available at 10:00 am on Monday, August 21st.
• Broomfield Public Library – available at their viewing event on Monday, August 21st.

The Denver Museum of Nature and Sciences will have shades available at their viewing party on Monday, August 21st. Their gift shop had been selling solar shades but has now announced they are sold out and will not be receiving more.

On August 21, 2017 a solar eclipse will be visible in the continental United States.  In Denver, it will not be a total eclipse but it will be close!  Almost 93% of the sun will be eclipsed by the moon.

Shannon Baker – speaking at CU Boulder

The Friends of the Libraries, University of Colorado Boulder, will sponsor their Just Desserts Event on Thursday, August 3, 2017, at The CU Boulder Law School, 2450 Kittredge Loop Drive in Boulder.

Shannon Baker, author of the Kate Fox Mysteries,  will speak about life in the Sandhills and her book Stripped Bare, which will be on sale at the event.

Light refreshments will be served at 5:00 p.m., followed by the presentation.  This event is free and open to the public.  Shannon Baker will sign copies of her books (available for sale at the event) immediately following her presentation.

For more information, please contact Lisa Kippur, lisa.kippur@colorado.edu, (303) 492-7512.