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MLA ’20 Session Overview by Topic

MLA is retooling the MLA '20 website to update it with new information for a fully virtual conference (we expect to complete by June 1, 2020).

We appreciate your understanding. Please contact Kate Corcoran if you have an urgent information need.

Picking what session to attend, meeting to participate in, or poster to study can be overwhelming. To make it easy to identify learning opportunities that serve your professional development goals, more than eighty MLA ’20 educational opportunities are organized into seven areas of health information professional practice.

MLA ’20 sessions include:

  • 5 keynotes: 60 to 90 minute plenary sessions featuring outstanding speakers on leading-edge topics
  • 2 MLA leadership updates
  • 1 NLM update
  • 23 Immersion Sessions: 80 minute in-depth perspectives on a specific topic in a smaller, interactive setting
  • 105 Papers in 22 sessions: paper presentations (15 minutes each) on scholarly topics
  • 17 Continuing Education courses: pre-meeting (separate registration fee required)

Clinical Support

Professional practice area covers: evidence-based practice curriculum and habits in health professions, role of librarianship in clinical settings, provision of high-quality health information to consumers.

Professional practice area covers: Librarians are essential to high-quality clinical outcomes. Elevate your practice to support health professionals at the point of care, identify information bias to clinicians and patients, expand outreach, manage hospital merger disruptions, and more.

Context Is Everything: Answering the Clinical Question for Nursing Care, Culture, and Research
This session will present different scenarios from nursing practice and demonstrate how librarians can provide support based on the steps of evidence-based practice (EBP). The session will provide an overview of the steps, illustrating their use in a general hospital setting. Presenters will facilitate the development of a clinical question, using the patient population/disease, intervention or issue of interest, comparison intervention, outcome, time (PICOT) model and then outline an approach to addressing the question, varying by the specific context of the question: point of care, institutional EBP culture, primary research, or systematic reviews.

Michelle R. Lieggi, AHIP, Claire B. Joseph, AHIP, Marilyn G. Teolis, AHIP, and Kristin M. Chapman, AHIP

Envision Yourself in the Electronic Health Record: What You Need to Know to Embed Library Services
For many years, librarians at MLA have discussed their roles with clinical work flows and the electronic health record (EHR). However, many still do not have access to the EHR, and many hospitals and medical centers still do not offer library services from the EHR or in clinical services. This interactive session will offer participants the opportunity to learn about barriers to library integration into clinical work flows, specifically the EHR, and gain tips for achieving stakeholder buy-in and building clinical informatics integrations through advocacy and learning from others’ achievements in this arena.

Nicole Capdarest-Arest, AHIP, Frances Drone-Silvers, Alison Gehred, Judy H. Hansen, Erica Lake, AHIP, and Shawn Steidinger, AHIP

Zebra Questions and Rabbit Holes: Strategies, Tools, and Best Practices for Point-of-Care Searching and Evidence Appraisal
Literature searching and evidence appraisal at the point-of-care are frequent services for many health care information professionals, so while these specific skills can be difficult for librarians who are new to clinical settings to develop on their own, many other librarians have resources and best practices to share. This session will provide an opportunity for discussion and information sharing between librarians around clinical searching and literature appraisal, helping librarians who provide these services to learn from and with each other while sharing recommended, freely available tools, time-tested strategies, and other best practices for finding and evaluating information for various types of clinical questions.

Ellen M. Aaronson, AHIP, Sarah Cantrell, Rebecca Carlson, AHIP, Helen-Ann Brown Epstein, AHIP, FMLA, Ellen M. Justice, AHIP, Elizabeth Laera, AHIP, Jennifer A. Lyon, AHIP, Louise McLaughlin, Lisa Liang Philpotts, Tracy C. Shields, AHIP, Emily Shohfi, AHIP, and Sarah Towner Wright

Research Papers

  • Moral Distress Related to Ethical Dilemmas among Consumer Health Information Librarians

Program Description Papers

  • Aligning Our Vision with Dental Competencies to Improve Evidence-Based Dentistry Education
  • Bringing Vision into Focus: Integrating Information Skills into Nursing Competency Training
  • Empowering Culturally Competent Care: How Hospital Librarians Support Cultural and Linguistic Competency at a Major Health Care Institution
  • Nurturing a Successful Award-Winning Clinical Librarian Program
  • Reducing Patient Care Delays through a Multimodal Patient Literacy Program
  • Supporting Dietetic Interns with Evidence-Based Practice (EBP)
  • Visible, Valuable, and Validated: Reviving a Safety Net Hospital Library
  • What Can We Do about Dr. Google? Utilizing the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) to Prescribe Reliable Online Patient Education

Saturday, May 16

CE103 Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) Bootcamp: Prepare to Teach EBP at Your Institution

This interactive course will give you a solid understanding of evidence-based practice (EBP) and the tools to teach it in a variety of clinical and educational settings.

Education

Professional practice area covers: pedagogy/andragogy, instruction to health professionals, educational technology, librarian as instructor, instructional design, information literacy.

Librarian educators never stop learning. Develop your skills and knowledge in teaching evidence-based (EBP) practice, and supporting active learning at your institution, innovative pedagogies, interprofessional education, and more. 

The Future Is Now: Physician Assistant Programs, Practice, and the Library
There are 238 physician assistant (PA) programs in the United States and over 130,000 practicing PAs. How are medical libraries supporting this rapidly expanding segment of the health care workforce? This session will bring together PAs and librarians to evaluate the current landscape of PA education and clinical support, share best practices, and network. The panelists will cover different aspects of supporting PA programs and practicing PAs.

Caitlin Meyer, Brandi Tuttle, AHIP, Jolene M. Miller, AHIP, Justine Strand de Oliveira, and Laura Zeigen, AHIP

My Favorite Tools
Join the Technology in Education Caucus for a fast-paced, informative, and most of all, unconventional and fun session. We guarantee it will be unlike any other MLA event you have ever attended. You will discover new tools for teaching, managing time, analyzing data, searching, and handling other tasks you or your patrons may want to accomplish with ease and style. You will also see how you can explain the benefits of specific tools to patrons who may be reluctant to try something new. We encourage you to arrive early or on time, claim a spot with your friends or colleagues, get your device ready, and be an active participant by voting for each contestant.

New for 2020, after giving a three-minute presentation and voting occurs, contestants will participate in moderated discussions by tool league (education and so on). Audience members can listen to the discussions for more information about a specific tool and, if time allows, ask additional questions. Three prizes will be awarded at the end of the session.

Research Papers

  • Bad Reputation: Using Three‐Dimensional Printed Heart Models to Supplement Cardiac Ultrasound Training for Undergraduate Medical Students
  • Best Practices in Teaching Evidence-Based Medicine: An Observational Study of Entrustable Professional Activities (EPA) 7 in Clinical Clerkships
  • Conducting a Long-Term Evaluation of Data Workshops: Evaluating the Impact of Three Years of Classes
  • Demonstrating Progress in Question Formulation Skills Training among First-Year Medical Students
  • EBVM Learning II: Updating an Open-Access Evidence-Based Veterinary Medicine Online Tutorial
  • Focusing on Faculty Facilitator Needs for Small Group Case-Based Learning: Where Might Librarians Fit in?
  • Impact of a Consumer Health Information Specialization (CHIS) Sponsorship Program on the Capacity of Public Library Staff to Provide Health Information to Their Community
  • Integrating Evidence-Based Medicine Skills into a Medical School Curriculum: A Quantitative Outcomes Assessment
  • Library Instruction for Graduate Nursing Students: A Scoping Review
  • Promoting Health Literacy and Improved Self-Care Management of Incarcerated Populations Using Secure Tablet Technology
  • Using Program-Level Curricular Documents to Focus a Medical Science Library’s Instructional Vision

Program Description Papers

  • Bringing the Medical Library to the Forefront of Data Analysis and Precision Medicine: Strategies and Statistics
  • Building on Foundations: A Collaborative Approach to Teaching Evidence-Based Medicine to Veterinary Students
  • Building Users’ Search Skills for Conducting Systematic Reviews: Development of Self-Directed Learning through the Qualitative Synthesis of Systematic Review Guidelines
  • Collaborating with a Health Promotion Class to Assess Library Employee Wellness Needs
  • Creating Bright Futures: Preparing Students for Research with a Longitudinal Evidence-Based Dentistry Project
  • Developing In-Person Teaching Excellence Workshops through Four Pedagogical Lenses: Cultural Humility, Active Learning, Dealing with Challenges, and Technology
  • Focusing on Support: Using an Existing Shared Customer Service Platform to Provide Technical Instruction to Health Sciences Librarians
  • From Kitchen Sink to Rigor and Reproducibility: Refocusing a Library Skills Class
  • Helping Our Newest Users Focus: Orientation Videos and Materials for Incoming Students
  • Increasing Student Engagement Using an Amazing Race–Style Competition
  • Integrated Library Instruction for a Doctoral (PhD) Program in Health-Related Sciences
  • Promoting the Work of Librarians through the Academic Pediatric Association Educational Scholars Program
  • Reimagining Long-Standing Physician Associate Research Curriculum Support
  • Streamlining Library Classes: Scheduling, Marketing, and Data Gathering in order to Increase the Value of a Library Service
  • The Accidental Academic Library: Meeting the Needs of a Health System–Affiliated University
  • The Library in Focus: Active Orientations for Future Physicians
  • The Methodological Maze: Creating a Workshop on the Process of Conducting a Scoping or Systematic Review
  • What Makes a Monster? Innovative Teaching and Outreach to Start a Campus Conversation
  • Wicked Workshops: Pulling Back the Curtain on Systematic Review Search Strategy Creation

Friday, May 15

CE101 Supporting Medical Education through Emerging Technologies and Innovation Services

Learn about the latest, amazing medical technologies, how academic medical libraries are using these technologies, and how you can justify requests for them at your institution.

CE300 Journey to the Outer Limits of Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) Instruction

Learn how to develop and implement engaging and effective learner-centered approaches to teaching evidence-based practice (EBP) from a group of veteran instructors who have tried all the common approaches and developed new ones.

Saturday, May 16

CE301 Real World Teaching: Using Teams, Cases, and Critical Pedagogy to Create One-Shot Classes

Update your teaching approaches to incorporate techniques that are increasingly used by health sciences faculty.

CE302 Move Your Teaching Forward by Designing Your Instruction in Reverse

Learn how to create presentations that engage your audience and help them remember and use what is important.

Global Health & Health Equity

Professional practice area covers: development of health information professionals globally, equity in access to health information, international collaborations for MLA and medical librarianship.

Librarians believe that access to health information and health literacy are fundamental to achieving health equity in a global setting. Increase your knowledge and develop your awareness by participating in inspiring MLA ’20 sessions on those topics.

Keynote: Esther Choo, MD
#PHP_59#

Improving Ourselves and Improving Care: A Hands-On Workshop to Address Unconscious Bias in Health Sciences Literature and Health Sciences Library Systems
This session will define implicit bias and identify bias with a focus on racial disparities in scholarly health sciences research and help attendees identify implicit bias in health sciences libraries systems and services. The active learning activities will help attendees identify resources to craft research questions and search queries that address implicit bias in health sciences literature and research. The workshop will provide a foundation for information professionals to better serve and address the needs of the diverse communities that their institutions serve.

Rachel Keiko Stark, AHIP, and Mary-Kate Finnegan, AHIP

Research Papers

  • How One Library’s Location Change Impacted Health Information Requests: Comparing Zip Codes and Health Disparities to Shape Library Services
  • LGBTQ+ Health Research Guides: A Content Analysis

Program Description Papers

  • Accessing Evidence-Based Resources and Conducting Systematic Reviews in Resource-Limited Settings
  • Partnering with Community-Based Organizations to Provide Health Information Outreach in Public Libraries
  • Partnering with the National Library of Medicine to Offer Community Mapping Training

Saturday, May 16

CE401 Explore Your Identity to Improve Your Practice: An Introduction to Critical Health Sciences Librarianship

Health sciences librarians are increasingly called upon to address the intersection of identities and cultures in their institutions. Learn about critical librarianship through an examination of identities.

CE402 Using Cultural Humility to Improve Your Health Sciences Librarianship

Learn how to use the tool of cultural humility to develop and implement diverse, inclusive, and equitable strategies that improve your instruction and your workplace.

Leaders' Recognition and International Attendee Reception
Sponsored by NEJM Group

Incoming and outgoing chairs or presidents of caucuses, chapters, committees, domain hubs, juries, and task forces as well as appointed officials, allied representatives, international visitors, and those with an interest in international relations are invited to connect with colleagues at this appreciation reception prior to the opening of the Hall of Exhibits.

Information Management

Professional practice area covers: meta data, representation of information, collection of information, research data management.

MLA ’20 offers powerful and fun opportunities to develop your information management skills and knowledge. Heighten your performance in open access, data sharing, data repositories, data management, and more.

Collection Management in the Age of Hospital Mergers
This session builds on a previous successful session on hospital mergers by focusing on the pressing issue of collection management in hospitals and academic settings that are involved in institutional mergers. Presenters will address collection management policies, finances, licensing, work with vendors, and navigation of tricky access issues and site-specific collections, as well as experiences from the academic side. Participants are encouraged to bring their own experiences and share advice, pitfalls, and pearls with the room.

Elizabeth Laera, AHIP, Aidy Weeks, AHIP, Heather J. Martin, AHIP, Jean Gudenas, AHIP, and Angela Spencer, AHIP

Concentric Conversations: A Data Curation and Reuse Unconference
As more libraries provide services covering more of the research data life cycle, an increasing number of checklists, toolkits, and resources abound for the process of assessing data quality for curation and for reuse. Therefore, the aim of this session is to bring people of various experiences together to find new or common ground around best practices for assessing data quality and engaging in data curation. This unconference will allow ideas and practices to be shared where librarians are providing these services, are working as data researchers, or are engaged in related areas and can provide input on how they are incorporating these tools, while the informal nature of the unconference will allow varied levels of participation, from listening and asking questions to sharing practices and presenting briefly.

Peace Ossom Williamson, AHIP, and Virginia (Ginny) Pannabecker, AHIP

The FAIRest of Them All: Using the FAIR Data Principles to Evaluate Open Data Repositories
Come to this interactive workshop to learn how to apply FAIR data principles: findability (F), accessibility (A), interoperability (I), and reusability (R). Participants will share their approaches and work together using guiding questions to find and assess a data repository and reflect on using FAIR principles to support open data sharing in their work settings. As funders and publishers are increasingly encouraging and requiring researchers to publish their data, librarians have stepped in to provide expertise in choosing where and how to best prepare, deposit, and publish data sets. This session will provide a pathway for librarians to identify and critically appraise existing data repositories in accordance with the FAIR principles in order to provide guidance on where to deposit data and how to make data meet quality standards upon publication.

Peace Ossom Williamson, AHIP, and Virginia (Ginny) Pannabecker, AHIP

Part II: Revisioning Data Visualization Services and Training: Data Storytelling and Data Visualization Lessons from the Field
This session is a continuation of MLA ’19’s immersion session, “Part I: Establishing a Successful Data Visualization Service: Data Visualization Lessons from the Field.” Learn best practices for data visualization and data storytelling with the health librarian in mind. The panel will reflect on their experiences developing data visualization services in the library, training different user groups, and revisioning the role of librarians in data visualization. Data visualization is an emerging service in health sciences libraries, and this session will appeal to librarians who are interested in gaining data visualization skills and the tools to set up a basic data visualization service or data visualization training at their respective institutions.

Nancy Shin, Fred Willie Zametkin LaPolla, Catherine Tess Grynoch, and Sally Gore

Scholarly Communications in Focus: Supporting Your Authors
This session will present the current issues in scholarly communications that include supporting authors with open access publishing models, identifying and addressing issues related to predatory publishers and conferences, and creating and maintaining an online research identity. During the unconference section, participants will decide the topics and presenters will facilitate discussions via roundtables.

Shirley Zhao, Mary Shultz, Sandy De Groote, AHIP, and Karen Gutzman

Research Paper

  • Identifying Barriers to Citing Retracted Literature

Program Description Papers

  • Assessing Human Subjects Data Sets for Ingestion into an Institutional Repository
  • Biomedical Reproducibility Workshop Series
  • Kick Starting Use of Electronic Lab Notebooks at an Academic Medical School
  • Managing Researcher Expectations and Promoting Buy-In in a Health System Institutional Repository
  • Open Educational Resource Produces Licensed Resources to Sustain Project

Friday, May 15

CE200 Archiving for Non-Archivists

Learn the essentials of archiving, in an afternoon. You will get grounded in basic archival history and theory and learn the essentials of archiving.

CE500 Charting a New Course: Practical Data Visualization for Librarians

Learn how to chart (and graph!) information that engages with and communicates to your audiences.

CE501 An Introduction to Using Computer Software for Qualitative Data Analysis

Learn how to analyze interview, focus group, and other qualitative data using low-cost and free software. If you are ready to add a new tool to your research repertoire, join us on this adventure!

Information Services

Professional practice area covers: research assistance, outreach to specific communities, subject knowledge development, expert searching

Librarians have an inexhaustible interest in improving their information services skills and knowledge! Boost your performance with the latest in systematic reviews, searching, data visualization, artificial intelligence, and more.

Collaborating with Nonlibrarians: Enriching Your Teaching, Research, and Engagement
It is widely held that solving complex problems is done best by diverse teams that include experts from different social and disciplinary backgrounds. Bringing together an interdisciplinary team can expose the collaborators to new ideas, perspectives, or approaches they may not have considered before. Librarians can bring to the table a range of skills and expertise (e.g., access to information, sophisticated search strategies, organization of information, information literacy, the user experience, bibliometrics, research data management, instructional design). Come learn how the interdisciplinary playing field is a space where librarians can collaborate with nonlibrarians in many ways.

Jane Kinkus Yatcilla, Katherine Goold Akers, Lindsay E. Blake, AHIP, Jonathan Eldredge, AHIP, Kelly Johnson, Hanna Schilperoort, Lorraine Toews, Jennifer A. Lyon, AHIP, and Natalie Tagge

Focusing on Health Sciences and Public Library Collaborations for All of Us
Recognizing the important role that public libraries play in the health and wellness of their communities, National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM) funding has enabled academic health sciences and public librarians across the country to make precision medicine and health literacy primary components of their institutional programming. Four librarians will share stories of collaboration with multiple community stakeholders to lead their communities to quality health information, while raising awareness of the All of Us program. Using their successes and challenges, presenters will share tips, techniques, and resources to develop similar community engagement strategies for health outreach endeavors.

Darlene Kaskie, Rachel Tims, Debra Werner, Lynda J. Hartel, Dana Wilkosz, and Katherine Spotswood

Seeing Things Differently: Evolution, Assessment, and Future Roles of Liaison Librarians
This session aims to further the conversation about the evolving nature of liaison roles and duties. Through activities, attendees will explore differences in liaison roles and examine the evolution of the liaison librarian in health sciences libraries. Facilitated activities provide an opportunity to brainstorm and discuss what is next for the role of the liaison librarian. Attendees will share information about ways to assess liaison duties and gain insights that further develop their familiarity with functional support models and other methods to support library users.

Emily J. Hurst, AHIP, Natalie Clairoux, Hannah Friggle Norton, John W. Cyrus, and Michelle Cawley

Transforming Open Access (OA): How We Did It and Are Doing It
Join a panel discussion with stakeholders providing a multicampus system’s, a dean’s, and a line librarian’s perspective on what it takes to do consortia agreements for transformative open access change. The panel will lay the foundation for librarians at a variety of institutions to share how their individual and collective work can help plant the seeds for change in publishing. The focus of the discussion of practical approaches will be around building collections in the health sciences, advocating for open access (OA) policies at an institutional level, and creating a cultural awareness of scholarly communication issues at your institution.

Rice Majors, Chris Shaffer, AHIP, Sarah McClung, and Rikke Sarah Ogawa, AHIP

Research Papers

  • An Analysis of Local Systematic Reviews: A Mixed Methods Study
  • Worse than You Think: Significant Search Function Unreliability in the Major Medical Databases
  • Seeing Our Open Access (OA) options: A Comparison of Full Text Finders
  • The Veterinary Information Infrastructure Revisited: Facilitating the Openness, Reproducibility, and Synthesis of Veterinary Research
  • Understanding the Health Information Practices of LGBTQ+ Communities to Improve Medical Librarian Services
  • Virtual Focus Groups: Bringing Public Library Workers Together for Consumer Health

Program Description Papers

  • BioData Club: A Partnership Model for Advancing Data Literacy
  • Designing and Delivering a Program for Staff Professional Development in an Academic Biomedical Library
  • Empowering Community Health Workers to Provide Health Information to Hispanic Community Members
  • EndNote Comes to Campus: Lessons Learned from Supporting an EndNote Site License on an Academic Medical Campus
  • Focus on Outreach: A Pop-Up Library Commemorating Florence Nightingale’s 200th Anniversary in 2020
  • Focusing on Improvement: Development and Roll Out of Reference Interactions, Research Consultations, Searching Services, and Library Classes Assessments
  • National Health Observances: Content to Promote Health Information Resources and the All of Us Research Program
  • One Website to Rule Them All: Lessons Learned from a Series of Reorganizations, Integrations, and Creation of One University Libraries’ Website from Three
  • ORCID for Researchers: Librarians’ Role in Implementing and Supporting ORCID
  • Technology-Assisted Systematic Reviewing: Collaboration and Experiences of Health Sciences Librarians from Multi-Institutions

Friday, May 15

CE 100 Advanced Search Strategy Design: Search Filters, Text Mining, and Peer Review

Learn how to use methodological search filters to identify specific study designs, use text mining tools for strategy design, employ peer review of your search strategies, and more.

Saturday, May 16

CE 102 Effectiveness and Efficiency in Exhaustive Searches

Learn a new, efficient, and effective method for conducting exhaustive searches!

CE 104 Advanced Search Techniques: Identifying Terms, Conceptual Breakdowns (Beyond PICO), Tips, Pitfalls, and Resources

Learn how to identify resources that are appropriate for a review question, search beyond MEDLINE/PubMed with a focus on Embase, search for citations, and avoid common and not so common pitfalls.

CE 105 Teaching Users about Grey Literature and How to Search for It

Learn how to help end users find the grey literature that is most essential and relevant to their questions.

Innovation & Research Practice

Professional practice area covers: evidence-based librarianship, informatics, research training, diversity in scientific research, assessment and evaluation.

Librarians are at the cutting edge of innovation and research. Elevate your knowledge and practice with the latest developments in a broad range of high-impact research studies and techniques, or learn and play by voting for your favorite tool.

Focusing on the Future of Health Policy: Exploring Policy Creation and Analysis through the Lens of Best Evidence
Through a focus on climate policy, one of the American Public Health Association’s (APHA’s) 2019 advocacy priorities, this session will provide insights into the information needed for evaluating and creating policies. A researcher and a policy maker from the state capital will provide insights into how evidence is used to create and change policy, and the roles information professionals can play in this process. This interactive session will allow participants to work through a series of case studies such as being asked by researchers for information to evaluate a climate change policy or finding research that meets HONEST Act requirements. These scenarios will help participants work through both researcher and policy maker perspectives.

Chris Koski, Michael Dembrow, and Meredith Connolly

Mobilizing Librarian Engagement with Computable Biomedical Knowledge: Our Roles in Curation, Stewardship, Dissemination, and Advocacy for Equity
Recognizing the expertise of librarians in information organization, description, and dissemination, session organizers seek to increase library and librarian engagement in a new community (Mobilizing Computable Biomedical Knowledge [MCBK]), through presenting an overview of the community, sharing work to date at their institutions, and engaging attendees in the efforts of MCBK community work groups.

Marisa Conte, AHIP, Gerald J. Perry, AHIP, FMLA, Rachel Richesson, Chris Shaffer, AHIP, Philip Walker, and Terrie R. Wheeler

Roles for Librarians in Research Impact Services
Demand for research impact services at medical libraries is growing, but guidelines and best practices for providing these services are scarce. In this session, presenters reflect on the ways that research impact services have been implemented at their and other organizations and, based on those experiences, offer a preliminary set of roles that medical librarians can fill in providing these services. Through a series of guided discussions with the audience, they will introduce and refine both the roles themselves and the knowledge and skills necessary to perform each role. By the end of the session, participants will have a better understanding of the different forms that research impact services can take in medical libraries and how those services can be implemented at their own institutions.

Christopher William Belter, Karen Gutzman, Tyler Nix, and Amy Suiter

You Can Do It: Developing Your Research Identity within Health Sciences Librarianship
The organizers’ goal is to convene an immersion session that will facilitate a conversation among members of MLA who are interested in increasing their involvement in research activities. To accomplish this, they have recruited a small panel of three health sciences librarians who are actively engaged in research. These librarians represent different stages in terms of career and research accomplishments (early career, mid-career, senior), reflect the diversity of MLA’s membership, and have experience working in a variety of health sciences library settings. Topics discussed by the panel will include “Developing a Research Agenda,” “Research Methods and Study Designs,” and “Creating Space for Research as a Practicing Librarian.”

Ayaba Logan, Laura Menard, Lisa A. Marks, AHIP, and Alexander J. Carroll, AHIP

Research Papers

  • Addressing Disparities in Physician Access to Information in Support of Evidence-Based Practice
  • Artificial Intelligence in Systematic Reviews: How Does DistillerSR Compare to Traditional Screening Methods?
  • Assessing the Impact of Consultations with Librarians on Faculty Research
  • Assessing the Impact of Programming Workshops on Biomedical Research Reproducibility
  • Best. Library. Ever.?: Identifying Library-Climate Enhancement Opportunities through a Multiphase Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Needs Assessment Project
  • Examining Open Access Article Performance: Taking a Nearsighted Approach to a Farsighted Problem
  • Flawed Research in Focus: Retracted Publications in Pharmacy Systematic Reviews
  • Grey Literature Inclusion in Nursing Systematic Reviews: A Bibliometric Analysis
  • Is the Open Access Citation Advantage Real? A Systematic Review
  • Making Space: A Quantitative Vision for the Future of Library Space Planning
  • Testing a Random Item Screening Approach to Constructing Search Validation Sets
  • Text-Mining for Diverse Review Topics: A Prospective Study Comparing Search Strategies Developed with and without Text-Mining Tools
  • Understanding Participant Motivation and Rates of Attrition in Biomedical Datathons and Hackathons
  • Using Free Text Mining Software to Analyze Chat Reference Transcripts: A Pilot Study

Program Description Papers

  • Assessing and Prioritizing the Future of Health Sciences Library Services in Times of Change
  • Evaluation of the Impact of National Library of Medicine (NLM) Associate Fellows’ Projects: 1992–2012
  • Finding (the Right) Data: Helping Students Think Critically about Data Reuse
  • For the Health of the New Nation: Creating an Online Portal for the History of Medical Education
  • Research Training Institute (RTI) Assessment Results Two Years After: Building a Research Support System for Health Sciences Librarian-Researchers
  • Setting Your Sights on an Interprofessional Library Team? Make Way for a Health Library Informaticist!
  • Teaching Data Science Skills with JupyterHub

Saturday, May 16

CE 502 Beyond Pyramids of Evidence: Evaluating Research in the Health Sciences Literature

Learn the skills you need to evaluate research and assess quantitative and qualitative studies on their own merits.

CE 503 Survey Insights: Advanced Survey Techniques

Deepen your knowledge of effective survey design and gain skills in advanced survey techniques.

Professionalism & Leadership

Professional practice area covers: ethics; equity, diversity, and inclusion; development of leaders; management (human resources, fiscal, project, etc.); influence in health care organizations; education of and advocacy for health information professionals.

Broaden your leadership in project planning, grant funding, diversity, ethics, communication, new librarian roles, advocacy, and more. 

Esther Choo, MD
How Healthcare Inequities Have Been Exacerbated By COVID-19

Monday, August 10, 2020, 5:00 p.m.–6:00 p.m.
John P. McGovern Award Lecture
Sponsored byNEJM_Logo.png

Choo headshot ekc_revised web.jpgEsther Choo is a professor in the Center for Policy and Research in Emergency Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. She is a practicing physician and National Institutes of Health (NIH)–funded investigator with expertise in drug policy, injury, and gender disparities in health care. She is a cofounder of Equity Quotient, a company that provides metrics of health care culture; a founding member for TIME’S UP Healthcare; and chief medical advisor for Jupe Health, which creates mobile health and rest units for disasters. She has a regular column in The Lancet focused on health disparities and has had regular appearances on MSNBC and CNN discussing frontline health care issues during the COVID-19 crisis.

Envisioning Diverse and Inclusive Library Programming and Outreach
The objective of this session will be to provide practical examples of programming, outreach, instruction, and education that librarians are actively doing to educate both librarians and the larger community on issues related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. Attendees will also gain a better understanding of these concepts.

Shannon D. Jones, AHIP, Kelsa Bartley, JJ Pionke, and Hector R. Perez-Gilbe, AHIP

Inclusive Imagining: Encouraging and Capturing Diverse Perspectives to Create an Inspiring, Actionable Strategic Plan
Join in an interactive discussion where a panel will share how they wrestled with and ultimately answered important questions about strategic planning that you may also face.

What makes a strategic plan useful, rather than a forgotten artifact of a mind-numbing wordsmithing exercise?

Do we really need to include everyone in the library in creating the strategic plan?

What if we cannot include all the ideas of the participants?

Could we actually enjoy ourselves in the process of creating a strategic plan?

John C. Bramble, Elizabeth Frakes, AHIP, Heidi Greenberg, Joan Marcotte Gregory, AHIP, Melanie Hawks, Christy Jarvis, AHIP, Nancy Lombardo, Brandon Patterson, Nena Schvaneveldt, AHIP, Shawn Steidinger, AHIP, George G. Strawley, and Catherine Soehner

Legislative Update: Advocate for Medical Libraries with MLA! Getting Ready for Capitol Hill Day at MLA ’21
Did you know that the MLA annual meeting next year will give you the chance to meet with your congressional representatives on Capitol Hill to talk about the value of medical libraries and trustworthy, accessible health information? Join this session to learn about legislation that impacts MLA members, and participate in a conversation about how to engage with your local, state, and national representatives about issues related to medical librarianship and health information.

Margaret Emily Ansell, AHIP, Sandra L. Bandy, AHIP, Mary M. Langman, Dina Nicole Paltoo, and Chris Shaffer, AHIP

Safe Zone Training: LGBTQIA+ Cultural Competency for Now and the Future
Explore LGBTQIA+ inclusive language and practices, which, in turn, will help you to identify how MLA and our home institutions can continue to be more safe and inclusive spaces for our LGBTQIA+ colleagues, coworkers, patrons, and users. This session will cover LGBTQIA+ inclusive and affirming terminology, differences between gender and sexuality, and privileges and barriers specifically around gender and sexuality but also in connection to race, class, ability, religion, and other marginalized identities. We will tackle commonly asked and misunderstood questions, work through real-life scenarios, and identify resources for further learning. The facilitators will walk attendees through a carefully planned exploration of LGBTQIA+ identities, terminology, and more via active learning activities, discussion, and reflection.

Hannah Schilperoort, Meredith I. Solomon, AHIP, Mary Catherine Lockmiller, AHIP, Jane Morgan-Daniel, AHIP, Jacqueline Leskovec (she/her), Brenda M. Linares, AHIP (she/her), and Brandi Tuttle, AHIP (she/her)

Research Papers

  • An Analysis of the Training Needs of the Profession Regarding Accessibility and Disability
  • Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences in Developing in Undergraduate Medical Education: A Scoping Review
  • Attitudinal Attributes of Professionalism in Health Sciences Librarians
  • A Comparison of Health Sciences Librarianship Job Qualifications and MLA’s Competencies for Lifelong Learning and Professional Success
  • Leaders’ Ways of Knowing about Leadership
  • Understanding Library Student Perspectives on Gaining Impactful, Career-Building Professional Experiences

Program Description Papers

  • Breaking the Silence: Hosting Awareness Events on Campus during Crisis
  • Building a Workforce for Data-Driven Research and Health: The National Library of Medicine Data Science Training Program
  • Defining Graduate Medical Education (GME) Librarianship: Creating and Developing a New GME Library Program
  • Developing a Culture of Inclusivity through the Formation of a Library Diversity and Inclusion Team
  • Envisioning Success: Breaking Down Silos to Engage throughout the Library and Grow Institutional Impact
  • Implementing a Requirement for All Library Staff to Complete Professional Development Related to Diversity and Inclusion
  • Increasing Library and Librarian Visibility through a Semi-Custom E-Newsletter
  • One Library’s Focus on Organizational Health Literacy
  • Perfecting Best Practices to Address Future Challenges in a Geographically Dispersed Hospital Library System
  • Using a Critical Librarianship Framework with Medical Library Institutional Repositories: Tactics and Outreach
  • Vision for the Future: A Hospital Library Partnership to Develop Diversity and Inclusion Programming
  • A Vision toward Healing: One Library’s Response to a Mass Shooting

Friday, May 15

CE 400 Do You Want to Be a Library Director? Knowledge, Skills, and Career Paths

Learn what makes a great leader and library director and if library directorship right for you.

Since its founding in 1836, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) has played a pivotal role in translating biomedical research into practice and is a leader in information innovation. As one of the twenty-seven institutes and centers at the National Institutes of Health, NLM advances research in biomedical informatics and data science and is the world’s largest medical library. Millions of scientists, health professionals, and the public use NLM services every day.

NLM will present an update that highlights available resources, consumer health news, and accompanying information from MedlinePlus.

Professional Interactions

To join MLA is to become a member of a community, a place to belong, where like-minded people share knowledge and work together toward goals they could not achieve alone; where thought leaders, health information professionals, excellent education, exhibits, and networking come together for you to learn new information and create new connections.

Julia Esparza, AHIP

Monday, July 27, 2020, 10:30 a.m.–Noon
Opening Session

esparza_julie.jpgJulia Esparza, AHIP, is the associate director for the Health Sciences Library, Louisiana State University (LSU) Health–Shreveport. She is a professor in the Department of Medical Library Science and is the Stafford and Marianne Comegys Endowed Professor in Medical Library Science.

Esparza will serve as copresenter with Lisa Traditi, AHIP officiating the welcome to attendees and providing an overview of MLA '20. They will lead the celebration of MLA awardees during the Awards and Recognitions presentation.

Chris Shaffer, AHIP
The Move to Open: Medical Library Leadership in Scholarly Communication

Wednesday, August 12, 2020, 5:00 p.m.–6:00 p.m.
Janet Doe Lecturer

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Chris Shaffer, AHIP, joined the University of California–San Francisco (UCSF) as university librarian, assistant vice chancellor for academic information management, and adjunct professor, Department of Medicine, in August 2017. Previously, he was at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), University of Iowa, and University of Illinois–Chicago. He has helped plan interprofessional education initiatives and worked with research offices and Clinical and Translational Science Award centers to develop new library services for researchers. Shaffer is an active member of MLA, where he has served on the Board of Directors and is a Distinguished Member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals.

Lisa K. Traditi, AHIP

Monday, July 27, 2020, 10:30 a.m.–Noon
Opening Session

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Lisa K. Traditi, AHIP, associate professor and deputy director, Strauss Health Sciences Library, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus–Aurora, was a hospital librarian in the Denver area before joining the faculty of the library at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in 1996. Traditi has served MLA as a member and secretary of the Board of Directors and on the Annual Meeting Innovation Task Force, the MLA News Editor and Journal of the Medical Library Association Editor-in-Chief Search Committees, the Nominating Committee, and Chapter Council. She has also been active in several sections, now caucuses. Traditi was chair of the Midcontinental Chapter of MLA (MCMLA) and president of the Colorado Council of Medical Librarians (CCML). Traditi received her master’s in library science from the University of Arizona in 1984 and is a Distinguished Member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals.

Traditi will serve as a copresenter with Julia Esparza, AHIP, officiating the welcome to attendees and providing an overview of MLA ’20. They will lead the celebration of MLA awardees during the Awards and Recognitions presentation.

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Experience Timeline

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Schedule (subject to change)

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MLA '20 Posts

Thank You, MLA ’20 Sponsors


MLA ’20 vConference New Member/First-Time Attendees Book Recommendations


Fourth Annual MLA Book Recommendations: MLA ’20 vConference


Attending the MLA ’20 vConference? Watch Paper and Lightning Talks before August 10!