Twenty-five years of Medical Library Association competencies and communities.

Professional associations provide resources to support members' career development and facilitate ways for members to engage with and learn from one another. This article describes Medical Library Association (MLA) activities related to the revision of professional competencies and the restructuring of the organization's communities during the past twenty-five years. Grounded in MLA's Platform for Change, the MLA competency statement underwent two revisions with core themes remaining consistent. Major efforts went into rethinking the structure of MLA communities, and it became a strategic goal of the association. Numerous groups spent considerable time guiding the changes in MLA's community structure. Sections and special interest groups were transformed into caucuses. Domain hubs were established to facilitate project coordination across caucuses and create more leadership opportunities for MLA members, but their implementation did not meet expectations. Member engagement and leadership are ongoing challenges for MLA. The next twenty-five years will undoubtedly see additional revisions to the competencies and continued iterations of the community structure.

Native Voices: Native Peoples' Concepts of Health and Illness in New Mexico: opening a local conversation by hosting a national traveling exhibit.

BACKGROUND: The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center hosted the National Library of Medicine's Native Voices: Native Peoples' Concepts of Health and Illness traveling exhibit. The authors' goal was to promote local interest in the Native Voices exhibit, with an emphasis on making the exhibit content and materials available to American Indian communities throughout rural New Mexico. CASE PRESENTATION: We convened a daylong summit to highlight the exhibit and encourage discussion among 30 American Indian community health educators. The summit prompted the compilation and distribution of descriptions of 23 community projects that promote health and wellness. We also took a scaled-down version of the exhibit to 4 rural college campuses around the state that serve significant Native American student populations. Approximately 140 students and faculty interacted with the exhibit materials, and all 4 sites incorporated the exhibit into curriculum activities. CONCLUSIONS: A hosted national exhibit developed into a multifaceted, funded project that engaged with American Indian communities. We demonstrated successful field deployment of a downsized, portable version of the full traveling exhibit to make meaningful connections with members of our outreach population.

New Mexico practitioners' access to and satisfaction with online clinical information resources: an interview study using qualitative data analysis software.

QUESTIONS: What information resources are available to health care practitioners not affiliated with the University of New Mexico? How satisfied are they with those resources? SETTING: The state is rural and medically underserved. METHODS: The authors interviewed practitioners, using a nine-item guide. Interview transcripts were coded using QSR NVivo 9 software. MAIN RESULTS: Fifty-one practitioners were interviewed. Most use online information resources. Many have access to a point-of-care resource within an electronic health records system. They often expressed dissatisfaction with available patient education resources. CONCLUSION: New Mexico practitioners routinely use electronic information resources but indicate they need better patient information.

How accurately does the VIVO Harvester reflect actual Clinical and Translational Sciences Award-affiliated faculty member publications?

OBJECTIVE: The research tested the accuracy of the VIVO Harvester software in identifying publications authored by faculty members affiliated with a National Institutes of Health Clinical and Translational Sciences Award (CTSA) site. METHODS: Health sciences librarians created "gold standard" lists of references for the years 2001 to 2011 from PubMed for twenty-five randomly selected investigators from one CTSA site. These gold standard lists were compared to the same twenty-five investigators' reference lists produced by VIVO Harvester. The authors subjected the discrepancies between the lists to sensitivity and specificity analyses. RESULTS: The VIVO Harvester correctly identified only about 65% of the total eligible PubMed references for the years 2001-2011 for the CTSA-affiliated investigators. The identified references produced by VIVO Harvester were precise yet incomplete. The sensitivity rate was 0.65, and the specificity rate was 1.00. CONCLUSION: While the references produced by VIVO Harvester could be confirmed in PubMed, the VIVO Harvester retrieved only two-thirds of the required references from PubMed. National Institutes of Health CTSA sites will need to supplement VIVO Harvester-produced references with the expert searching skills of health sciences librarians. IMPLICATIONS: Health sciences librarians with searching skills need to alert their CTSA sites about these deficiencies and offer their skills to advance their sites' missions.