HSLI Newsletter

Carol Jeuell, M.S.L.S., A.H.I.P. is the Reference Librarian at Brennemann Library of Children’s Memorial Hospital, Chicago, Illinois, and one of the three winners of the Syed Maghrabi Scholarship for 2011.
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I’m grateful for the scholarship that I received to attend the annual HSLI meeting at Starved Rock Lodge. With my hospital department facing reduced budgets, I was very appreciative of having this scholarship to support my attendance. I’m also happy that this scholarship continues to honor and remember Syed Maghrabi. He was a wonderful person who was a pleasure to know and who appreciated the opportunities for learning and networking that are the highlight of HSLI meetings.

This statewide conference always manages to be a bargain in terms of fees for registration, continuing education classes and the quality of the meeting content. The location at Starved Rock was perfect for a fall meeting. The facilities, keynote speaker and continuing education courses that were offered were much appreciated and will be helpful in my job.

Keynote Speaker – The keynote address by Michelynn McKnight and her continuing education class “The Agile Librarian’s Guide to Thriving in Any Institution” were timely and inspiring. Michelynn reminded us of the many opportunities that we have on a daily basis to promote our services to support the work of our institutions. The many real life examples that she offered were helpful and gave us some action items that we can easily implement in our jobs. Her book is a resource to consult for both promoting our services and thriving in our institutions.

Continuing Education Class – “Information Anywhere: Mobile Technology, Libraries and Health. I took Max Anderson’s class which was very informative for information on mobile technologies. Max listed the range of mobile devices that are currently available and reviewed applications that are relevant to medicine. We practiced creating our own mobile website with Google Sites and we learned how to generate a QR code. Detailed hand-outs that were included with the class will be useful for future reference.

Our annual meeting is a great opportunity to keep up with the latest developments in print and online resources, software, equipment, web applications and library management. The chance to network is always appreciated and helpful in many ways. I thank the scholarship committee for the support to attend this meeting.

Eric A. Edwards, M.L.I.S. is the Public Services Librarian at the Charles E. Becker Library of Benedictine University in Springfield, Illinois, and one of the three winners of the Syed Maghrabi Scholarship for 2011.

I would like to thank Jerry DeWitt and the scholarship committee for their support.  This was my first time attending a Health Science Librarians of Illinois annual conference.  I do not work in a hospital setting (I am a public services librarian at a liberal arts university), but I still benefitted greatly from the conference sessions.   The presentations applied to the entire library and information science profession, and not just to medical librarianship.

One of the sessions that I found particularly useful was “The Agile Librarian’s Guide to Thriving in Any Institution.”   The focus of this presentation was the necessity for every librarian in the profession to understand the goals and responsibilities of both immediate and more distant colleagues in one’s institution, in order to interact better with those colleagues.  This is especially relevant to my work in that Benedictine University at Springfield is a branch campus of Benedictine University in Lisle, and I have constant interaction with my colleagues there, including the library staff.
Another session that was especially helpful was “Information Anywhere:  Mobile Technology, Libraries & Health.”  Although the emphasis of this session was on primarily applications concerning medicine, the use of mobile technology generally is something with which I have been heavily involved, as the Benedictine University libraries recently acquired iPads for librarian use.

Once again, I would like to thank Mr. DeWitt and the scholarship committee.  I found the HSLI 2011 Conference very worthwhile, and I look forward to participating in future HSLI events.