Librarians are Tired f Being Accused of Hiding Secret Books that were Made Up by AI ...

Read the article on Gizmodo.  

NNLM Region 5 Blogs Highlighting Hospital Librarians

NNLM Region 5 spent National Medical Librarians Month highlighting librarians from throughout the region. Here's two of the posts highlighting hospital librarians in particular for your reading pleasure: 

From Nursing to Librarianship –Region 5 Blog about Frances Chu
From Nancy Drew to Literature Searches: the Case of the Medical Librarian – Region 5 Blog about Sola Whitehead.

More library and librarian profiles can be found at: News from Network Members – Region 5 Blog

The Hospital Library Caucus of MLA is updating its Resources for Hospital Librarians

 

The Hospital Library Caucus (HLC) of the Medical Library Association has released Version 2.0 of its LibGuide; a refreshed and expanded hub designed to support hospital librarians in their day-to-day work. Whether you’re managing a solo library, building clinical partnerships, or advocating for the value of library services, this updated guide offers streamlined access to essential tools, professional development resources, and support for demonstrating impact.

Read more in this recent MLA Connect article by Carlos Fernandez:

LibGuide 2.0: A Wickedly Good Resource for Hospital Librarians 

Hospital Library Caucus LibGuide Version 2.0: A Fresh Look at Resources for Hospital Librarians

It covers:

• What's New
• Why it Matters
• Who Should Use it 

Explore the updated Guide: Access Version 2.0.

The 2.0 site is still under construction, refer to Version 1.0.

Book Review: Malcolm Gladwell's Revenge of the Tipping Point

Over the Thanksgiving break, I listened to Malcolm Gladwell's Revenge of the Tipping Point.  When his original Tipping Point book celebrated its 25th birthday, the author decided to revisit some of those stories and correct some things he got wrong.  Instead, he wrote about some entirely new topics, several of which may be of interest to Health Science Librarians, including:

• How the Opioid Epidemic disproportionately affected certain areas of the US, and why?
• How a certain (very few) Prescribers are more susceptible to the undue influence of drug sales reps?
• Why parents with children in Waldorf schools are more likely NOT to get their kids vaccinated?
• How the local culture of a place affects behavior?
• Is teen suicide contagious?   And what factors can protect against it?

He covered a lot more than this short list -- In fact, it's amazing what he ties together.  This is just what I'm remembering off the top of my head a week later.

I borrowed the audiobook from my local public library and listened to it through the Libby App.  It was free, and they let me check it out for 21 days, rather than the previous default of just 7 days.  

New UX Blog Posts, and at least someone's enjoying the snow (Pets of WHSLA)!

MLA's User Experience (UX) Caucus has two new blog posts that I recommend checking out, especially if you happen to be a user of APA PsycInfo in the EBSCOhost interface:

• Controlled vocabular field codes and their discontents in EBSCOhost APA PsycInfo: This post discusses the frustrating limitations of controlled vocabulary field codes in EBSCOhost's APA PsycInfo (such as the fact that "there are zero field codes that search exclusively in the Subjects field associated with the APA Thesaurus"!). 

• Mismatched MeSH in EBSCOhost APA PsycInfo: This post explains and provides examples of how MeSH terms associated with records in EBSCOhost PsycInfo don't always match those in MEDLINE.

For those that celebrate, I hope everyone had a safe holiday last week! We received quite a bit of snow over in Madison, Wisconsin. While my husband and I weren't thrilled, our Irish wolfy, Hazel, took some enjoyment from the blizzard. Below is her sitting atop her throne.

Thanks for reading, and I hope everyone has a great week!

AI for Libraries: Free Webinars

ai4Libraries

offers free webinars.

I hope you find some of the resources, recordings etc. interesting and useful.

• AI skills and proficiencies are on the list for MLA to add to our professional standards and guidelines.

Here's a snapshot of their 2025 offerings:

Recordings & Slides:

NNLM Reading Club: Winter Self Care

 

On behalf of the NNLM Reading Club team, we are pleased to announce the November 2025 theme, Winter Self Care. 

We are pleased to be featuring three new books related to this topic:

Wintering by Katherine May
How to Winter by Kari Liebowitz
Defeating SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) by Norman E. Rosenthal, M.D.

We would like to thank our NNLM Reading Club Advisory Group, which is made up of NNLM Members who worked together to choose this topic, select the three books we are featuring this month, and to develop book discussion guides. Books and health information resources are available on the NNLM Reading Club website.

Reprinted from the NNLM Region 6 Newsletter.

Note from Michele Matucheski: As a lover of Winter, I read Katherine May's Wintering last year and loved it. 

Open Evidence-Krafty Librarian

 

Did you catch the Krafty Librarian's post, "OpenEvidence: Smart Medicine or Smart Marketing?"  After meeting our new Internal Medicine Program Director, who had questions about it, I’ve been dabbling with OpenMedicine myself. While Michelle reports accurately that you need an NPI to create an account; I just used my hospital's NPI, and I was in without issue. (If you want a way around that)

The big question, of course, is its utility. I recently leveraged it not as a substitute for a comprehensive search, but to add to one. Specifically, I used it to reinforce my search results on best practices literature, giving me a quick double-check on established evidence to ensure I had a complete picture.

The original blog post raises vital questions about balancing slick presentation with true evidence integrity, and it challenges us to place resources like OpenEvidence in the correct context for our users. Is it a time-saver? Yes. Is it a perfect primary source? Probably not. We need to be the critical thinkers guiding our clinicians and researchers through the noise. 

https://kraftylibrarian.com/openevidence-smart-medicine-or-smart-marketing/ 

MLA Award Nominations Due December 2nd

 

Image by Mimzy from Pixabay

For fellow MLA members, this year's MLA award nominations are due December 2nd, 2025. Nominate a colleague for one of the many MLA awards!

 The award categories include:

•  New to the profession
• Mid-career professionals
• Proven leader
• Organizational focus
• International focus
• Chapter & caucus
•  Lectureships

 Submit your nominations via MLA's Awards and Honors page. Note that you need to be signed into your MLA account in order to make a nomination. 

Thanks for reading, and I hope everyone has a great day!

Liz Suelzer Named MWCMLA’s Distinguished Librarian of the Year!

 Posted on behalf of Karen Hanus

We are thrilled to announce that Liz Suelzer, Applications Support Analyst Sr for the Advocate Health - Midwest Library, has been honored as the Midwest Chapter of the Medical Library Association’s Distinguished Librarian of the Year!

The Midwest Chapter of the Medical Library Association (MWCMLA) unites health sciences librarians across nine Midwestern states. The annual Distinguished Librarian of the Year Award recognizes an MWCMLA member at any career level who has provided outstanding service to the organization and advanced MWCMLA’s achievement and effectiveness.

Liz has held multiple MWCMLA leadership roles, including President-Elect, President, and Past President from 2019 to 2022, and currently serves as Chair of the Professional Practice Committee. In every role, she has brought vision, organization, and energy, transforming committee work and inspiring colleagues to achieve their best. Among her many outstanding contributions to the chapter, Liz launched the chapter’s Member Mixer Series, which created an engaging virtual event that fosters professional connection among our members. She also introduced the “Fan Favorite” award, which has expanded award recognition at the organization’s annual conference to include contributions beyond the traditional research categories. These initiatives reflect her commitment to inclusivity. Liz’s leadership and creativity extend beyond programming. She also guided the development of a strategic plan that set meaningful, achievable goals while positioning the Chapter for future growth.

The most important contribution for which Liz deserves this award is her leadership of the Professional Practice Committee. This committee has a challenging charge with a lot of members; it has been a tough committee to lead due to its size and sprawling purpose. Once Liz took over as chair of the committee, she was able to give its members a clear direction and successfully led the members and reinvigorated the group with a renewed sense of purpose. A member of the committee shared that “Liz made an immediate impression by effectively and efficiently leading her first meeting [of the Professional Practice Committee]. Her leadership, team building, and organizational skills are extraordinary. It only took one meeting for her to engage her committee members, clearly communicate the important work of this committee and convince us to actively participate. In my opinion, her efforts have resulted in the first highly successful execution of the committee’s original intent and purpose.” 

Congratulations, Liz, on this well-deserved recognition! Thank you for all you do to support and advance health sciences librarianship in the Midwest!