NER Hospital Libraries Advisory Group Annual Meeting

Posted by Margot M on June 12th, 2020 Posted in: Communities of Interest
Tags: hospital librarians, hospital library advisory group, professional development

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NER hosted our annual meeting for the Hospital Libraries Advisory Group on Tue, June 9. We began the meeting by acknowledging the recent closure of Vermont and New Hampshire hospital libraries. This sad development signals a bigger issue. Economic hardship is commonplace for those providing healthcare in our rural communities. Our hearts go out to the librarians who worked hard to support patient care in Vermont and New Hampshire.

The agenda for the meeting included an overview of the actions we take to address the needs of hospital librarians in New England and an introduction to our plans for 2020-2021. We offer training and funding opportunities through webinars and in-person events. We highlight the work of hospital librarians in our blog posts and tweets. We provide platforms for peer sharing, primarily through in-person events.

In the coming year, we know that conference travel is unlikely. We are hoping to develop satisfactory ways of connecting hospital librarians with each other. There is no substitute for peer-to-peer sharing with regards to hospital library management and research services.

We announced the brand-new Health Sciences Libraries Webinar Series. This series will explore National Library of Medicine resources through real world examples provided by experienced librarians. We will launch the series on Tue, June 23 at 1:00 pm ET with Searching LactMed and LiverTox for Drug Effects.  We hope you will join us.

We wrapped up the meeting by encouraging everyone to take a look at the Request for Applications for the Regional Medical Libraries for the Network of the National Library of Medicine (note: name change). The RFA  2021-2026 Cooperative Agreement was released on June 2, 2020 and applications are due to the National Library of Medicine on September 11, 2020. The RFA states that New York will join New England in the upcoming agreement, more than doubling the population that the northeastern Regional Medical Library will serve.

If you weren’t able to attend, here’s the recording. Let us know if you have comments or questions about anything we discussed!