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.