Member Spotlight: Ellen Lutz at UMASS Amherst

Posted by benniefinch on January 16th, 2024 Posted in: Blog
Tags: Member Spotlight, nursing education

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Ellen Lutz is the health sciences librarian at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Science and Engineering Library. The following article is paraphrased from an interview with Ellen.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Beginning in 2^nd grade to Junior year of high school, Ellen wanted to be a 4^th  grade teacher. This shifted in high school to wanting to be a marine biologist and Ellen pursued a biology major in college. Ellen feels like her interests in science and teaching have come together as a health science librarian.

Tell us about your position/institution?

The University of Massachusetts Amherst has two libraries on campus, the W.E.B. Du Bois Library and the Science and Engineering Library (SEL). SEL supports the College of Natural Sciences including the School of Agriculture, the College of Engineering, the College of Information and Computer Sciences, the School of Public Health and Health Sciences and the College of Nursing. About half of the graduate and undergraduate students at UMASS Amherst major in these programs and SEL is in proximity to these academic buildings.

Ellen supports the following departments and programs: College of Nursing, Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Environmental Health Sciences, Health Promotion and Policy, Kinesiology, Nutrition, Public Health Sciences, School of Public Health and Health Sciences, and the Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences.

Ellen has been in her library for almost 10 years and has developed an understanding of the academic programs she serves and when the students might particularly benefit from library instruction. She scaffolds learning across the academic journey. The beginning of each semester is quite busy with instruction sessions, 25-30 over a six-week period, she tries to customize each one for the specific course content.

Ellen loves working with students and helping them to be successful. Ellen reports that this is the “joy” in in her work.

What about your work do you most want to share with the NNLM community?

Supporting undergraduate through PhD students, Ellen enjoys building relationships with students and helping them to be successful. Ellen enjoys having opportunities to try things. Ellen utilizes outreach to support students through various activities throughout the semester and also finds it helpful to be out and about on campus and has the support to do that.

Wayfinding with the welcome table. At the beginning of fall semester, many students are unsure how to navigate buildings and locate classes. Ellen coordinates staffing a table set up outside the library to help students find their classrooms.

SEL Science Fun Nights have been a fun outreach opportunity with students. These are hands on projects led by library staff related to science concepts. Check out Ellen’s poster presentation from NAHSL 2022 to learn about the early phases of the program. Over time they have found that interactive activities work best such as crafts. This semester they have created sun print art and container micro gardens. Button making is also super popular.

As they gear up for finals, the Libraries have planned fun events and passive programming to support students – scheduled button making at both SEL and the Main W.E.B. Du Bois Library, and opportunities for students to take a break with activities such as coloring pages, art supplies, Lego type building blocks, word searches, and origami paper in the library. The Auxiliary Enterprises group provides coffee, hot chocolate, and cookies for students for 3 days during finals.

What special projects are you working on?

Ellen has been working to develop their graphic medicine (GM) collection. She wanted to create a physical, browsable collection that is visible, while also offering some privacy for students to view. Ellen is also building a libguide to support the collection as there are lots of titles in the main library as well, and some may be cataloged by subject instead of in the GM collection.

What is your favorite NLM resource?

The training opportunities, including the breadth of classes especially designed for librarians. Ellen says she found these particularly helpful in her early librarianship and that she also appreciates the recordings!

How does the NNLM help you do your work?

PubMed

Working with public health and nursing students she uses PubMed daily. She uses PubMed for instruction and is especially interested in students learning to use PubMed in preparation for when they are out of school as this is a freely available resource that they will continue to be able to access.

What is one word that you would use to describe the NNLM?

 Information

 

You hosted an NLM Traveling Exhibit recently. Could you share a bit about what you learned through that process?

UMASS Amherst Libraries hosted Making a World of Difference: Stories about Global Health. Ellen was excited to bring the exhibit to SEL to highlight some of the research being done on campus related to global health. There were successes and challenges related to hosting an exhibit. SEL was able to partner with a microbiology class to display student posters as part of the events, as well as faculty posters and a welcome reception shared in the University News UMass Amherst Libraries Announce Science and Engineering Library Fall 2023 Exhibit, ‘Making a World of Difference: Stories about Global Health’ : UMass Amherst They also partnered with a student organization called World Librarians, a group that supports information needs in areas of the world that have limited internet and resource access. In terms of challenges, the available timing for the NLM Exhibit did not fit the semester system well. Hosting an exhibit at the beginning of the semester impacted the programming attendance and the workload for library staff.

Many thanks to Ellen for sharing about her work! Learn more about the NLM Traveling Exhibits.