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Feb
15
Posted by Carolyn Martin on February 15th, 2023
Posted in: News from Network Members, News from NNLM Region 5
Tags: community outreach, library programming, National Health Observances, NLM Traveling Exhibits
We are delighted to share with you a guest post by Karin Saric, Information Services Librarian at Norris Medical Library, University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Karin is also responsible for the planning an organizing of hosting this National Library of Medicine (NLM) traveling exhibit at her library.
In this post, she shares the experience of hosting an exhibit. Let us know if you’d like to share your experience in hosting a NLM traveling exhibit with your regional colleagues.
In honor of Black History Month (BHM), USC Libraries, Norris Medical Library is hosting the National Library of Medicine (NLM) traveling exhibit: Opening Doors: Contemporary African American Academic Surgeons. From January 17 – February 25, 2023 the banners will be on display at Norris Medical Library, University of Southern California, Health Sciences Campus.
Opening Doors tells the stories of pioneering African American surgeons and educators who exemplify excellence in their fields and work to educate and mentor younger physicians and surgeons. The content aligns with the goal of Black History Month that exists to celebrate the achievements of African Americans and recognize their central role in U.S. history.
The BHM 2023 theme, Black Resistance, explores how African Americans have addressed ongoing disadvantage and oppression. This exploration provides powerful examples of the resiliency of African Americans to successfully forge forward, despite having to overcome and find ways to work around chronic and constant barriers. Hosting Opening Doors has provided a platform for our community to share how they build resilience, allowing us not only to learn from the exhibit history, but also from each other.
To broadly engage our community we organized the exhibit and related content into three components; physical, virtual, and a community connection.
The main physical component consists of the banner display in the Lower Level of the Norris Medical Library, USC HSC. However, we were also able to integrate curated titles from our Medical Graphics collection that demonstrate diverse stories of resilience. The Medical Graphics collection and exhibit were funded by an NNLM Region 5 grant.
NLM traveling exhibit, “Opening Doors: Contemporary African American Academic Surgeons” on display at Norris Medical Library
Our university consists of two physical campuses, and many online programs with remote participants. The companion website for Opening Doors was recently updated, allowing for virtual access to the exhibit content, thus making it accessible to all members of our community.
The NLM creates the traveling exhibitions to inspire communities to explore current themes in public health and connect people to trusted health information. By creating a Black History Month guide we were able to highlight relevant resources from a variety of sources. A few examples are highlighted below.
In order to make the exhibit interactive, inclusive, and inspirational we invited everyone to share a Resilience Building Inspiration. A Google form was created where community members could share a short paragraph and photo describing who or what inspires them, or anything they do to push past barriers or difficult times. This could include family members, friends, colleagues, mentors, icons, pets, songs, places, or techniques that they employ. We only received a small amount of submissions, but they were absolutely what we had envisioned. Submissions were made by both staff and students, reflected diverse voices, and were deeply touching and insightful. Inspirations consisted of book recommendations, family members, iconic figures, spaces & places, techniques to overcome barriers, song lyrics, art, religion, and belief systems. Submissions were posted next to the exhibit, and participants have been entered into a raffle to win a library swag bag.
An unexpected connection that occurred was that the Head of Social Media, Keck School of Medicine (KSOM) reached out to see if we were interested in collaborating to create a social media post related to the exhibit. They ended up conducting interviews with two African American academic surgeons in front of the banners. Interview questions were inspired by the exhibit content and resilience building inspirations. A surprising coincidence was that one of the KSOM surgeons was able to identify former colleagues, and personal connections to several of the individuals featured in the exhibit. This collaboration provided an excellent channel to extend the exhibit content, allow for insights to broad interconnections, and reflect the direct relevance to our community.
It has been an honor to host this exhibit. Much appreciation is extended to the National Library of Medicine and to all who worked to create it.
ABOUT Carolyn Martin