Post by Kari Zelinka! MLA 2026 –Top Takeaway

Hello, this is Kari Zelinka from UnityPoint Health – Meriter in Madison, WI. I was fortunate to be a recipient of the WHSLA professional development award. With MLA closer to home than ever this year, I was happy to be able to attend with the help of WHSLA. I enjoyed networking, learning from colleagues at other institutions through talks and poster sessions and the blanket making party! It was exciting to see all the research being conducted and shared.

The session that was most helpful to me at MLA 2026 was a very practical lightening session, Keeping the Line Moving: Making Transitions Work for Retiring and New-hire Solo Librarians. Loren Hackett and Theresa Kline from Cleveland Clinic showcased a library handoff checklist that will make transitions from outgoing librarian to incoming librarian as smooth as can be.

Libraries have many ways of trying to preserve institutional knowledge AND varied methods of orienting new employees. Think binders, learning modules, tours, meetings and much more. Occasionally, you’re lucky enough to overlap with your predecessor or be part of a larger team to learn the ropes from, but more often than not, in a hospital library, you may be a solo librarian who has to puzzle it out as you go.

Documenting procedures is not my forte and updating them as they change? Well, that never seems important until it’s time to pass the baton to someone new. I’ve worked places where they had a wiki to try to capture institutional knowledge and I thought that worked much better than individual Microsoft Word files that are organized according to one person’s thought process, never to be duplicated. The wiki was searchable; however, it was only helpful if it was current. In a smaller shop, without multiple librarians, the Library Handoff Checklist, developed by Hackett and Kline seems to fit the bill for passing on knowledge and making sure you cover your bases for library specific new employee orientation.

When thinking about what I do as a hospital librarian, two things come to mind – literature searches and articles requests. Yes, those might be the two most common daily tasks for a solo librarian, but there is so much more that goes on behind the scenes. When you only negotiate contracts once a year, it takes a while to develop a rapport with the vendors. What about the library budget? How are invoices processed? Maybe you have no problem changing the toner in the copier, but can’t figure out how it gets recycled or disposed of (speaking from experience here). Don’t panic! Consult the checklist and if there isn’t one, consider creating one for the future. Any information you can pass onto the next librarian is helpful, especially if it’s easy to locate. In the past, I have kept notes for myself, both digital and the post-it’s on my monitor type. Moving forward, I’m switching over to an annotated checklist after seeing this presentation at MLA. Maybe it will be helpful to you too!

MLA will no longer be offering hybrid conferences

The Medical Library Association (MLA) recently announced in MLA Connect that it would no longer be offering hybrid options for its annual conference, and will move to an in-person-only format for their May 2027 meeting.

MLA identifies three reasons for discontinuing their hybrid meetings, which I've summarized below. If you would like to see MLA's statement, verbatim, please refer to the MLA Connect post.

• Member feedback and participation trends: MLA states that participation has steadily declined for their online conference option since 2023, noting declines in both registration counts and the number of online presenters. MLA also mentions they have received negative feedback relating to the online conference option, citing technical difficulties and access issues for attendees.

• Financial burden: MLA mentions the significant financial investment required to produce a high-quality, hybrid conference, and, what with the aforementioned decline in participation for the virtual conference option, investing in future hybrid conferences would be unsustainable.

• Purpose and benefits of in-person conferences: MLA states they already "provide a robust portfolio of virtual engagement options for members who cannot travel" via their "webinars, vConnections, virtual meetings, online learning opportunities, and recordings." MLA emphasizes the annual meeting serves a different purpose than these virtual offerings, in that it provides members the opportunity to "come together face-to-face to learn, collaborate, celebrate achievements, welcome new colleagues, strengthen professional relationships, and shape the future of the association. It is where hallway conversations spark new ideas, caucuses and chapters build momentum, exhibitors connect directly with attendees, and members experience the energy of being part of a vibrant professional community." MLA says that "by concentrating on one delivery model, MLA can ensure a more consistent and higher-quality conference experience for all attendees."

Despite the discontinuation of the online conference option, MLA states that "For MLA ’27 and beyond, recorded sessions and on-demand content will continue to provide opportunities for members to engage with educational content beyond the conference itself. This content will be available to purchase for a nominal fee."

As someone who has attended multiple virtual MLA conferences, I can understand the decline in participation over the years and poor feedback. From my own experience, the vast majority of online conference content seemed to be asynchronous; the conference site was buggy, frequently resulting in virtual attendees missing significant chunks of livestreamed sessions (not an insignificant loss, what with the dearth of synchronous sessions available to online attendees); and, even with these limitations, the registration fee for online attendance wasn't much cheaper than the in-person registration fee. 

Even so, I'm sad to see MLA do away with the online option. While it certainly had its limitations, the virtual option made the conference (including networking) accessible to a number of people unable to attend the in-person format, whether due to financial or personal hardship, institutional policies, or the simple inconvenience of having to spend a good chunk of time away from work and our families. 

As I already quoted from the MLA Connect post, "[The MLA conference] is the one time each year when members from across the profession come together face-to-face to learn, collaborate, celebrate achievements, welcome new colleagues, strengthen professional relationships, and shape the future of the association."

While I understand MLA's decision, it's upsetting to see members possibly excluded from this once-a-year opportunity. On the plus side, there are still some great virtual conferences out there (the past virtual Midwest Chapter MLA Conferences I've attended have been exceptional; WHSLA has provided great virtual offerings for its members; and, for librarians supporting evidence syntheses, LESSS is always fantastic). 

What are your thoughts on MLA discontinuing its hybrid option? Or will you be attending MLA '27 in Denver? Let us know in the comments!

*Special thanks to Karen Hanus for recommending this topic for the blog!

MLA 27 Call for Papers and Immersion Sessions

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

The Medical Library Association (MLA) has opened its call for contributed papers and immersion sessions for the upcoming MLA '27 conference to be held in Denver, Colorado.

"Make your contribution and help shape the future of health information. Whether you have developed a successful program, conducted innovative research, implemented a new service, or want to facilitate a deep discussion on an emerging issue, submit a proposal on contributed content at MLA '27" -MLA

Below are the criteria for posters and immersion sessions, pasted directly from this MLA Connect post.

Contributed Papers

Contributed papers are 15-minute presentations that showcase innovative work, research, and practical applications in health information settings. Submissions may fall into one of two categories:

• Program Papers describe the creation, improvement, implementation, or evaluation of products, services, technologies, administrative practices, or programs developed by librarians and information professionals.
• Research Papers report on the design, execution, analysis, and findings of research projects.

Presenting a contributed paper is an excellent opportunity to share your work, gain presentation experience, receive valuable feedback, and build connections with colleagues across the profession.

Immersion Sessions

Immersion sessions are interactive, in-depth explorations of a single topic and are 75 minutes in length. These “deep dive” sessions can take many forms, including panel discussions, facilitated conversations, workshops, or other creative formats designed to actively engage participants.

The submission period for contributed papers and immersion sessions will be open until October 29, 2026. Additional information and a link to the submission form can be found in this MLA Connect post. 

Happy submitting! ☕

OpenEvidence quietly makes accounts available to medical librarians

OpenEvidence is a large language model (LLM) grounded in the medical literature, with its website self-identifying as an "AI copilot for doctors that helps them make high-stakes decisions at the point of care." The free tool has become increasingly popular within the health sciences, with its website boasting that "This year, more than 100 million Americans will be treated by a clinician using OpenEvidence."

Up until now, OpenEvidence accounts have been restricted to health care professionals with a National Provider Identifier (NPI) or students that provide proof of enrollment to a health sciences college or university, which has made evaluation of the tool particularly challenging for librarians (but even that hasn't stopped us: Exhibits A and B. Librarians are a tenacious bunch!😉).

However, at long last (and likely in consequence of tenacious librarians spamming their inboxes),  OpenEvidence has quietly opened account access to medical librarians. Now, librarians have the option to register as a "medical librarian" so long as they upload proof of their current position title and employment (I was able to create my account by uploading a screenshot of my public staff page, which includes my photo and my position as a health sciences librarian). Not only does this give you unlimited queries (without an account you were only allotted 2 or 3 queries per week), but it gives you access to additional tools in OpenEvidence, such as their calculators, clinical trials locators, etc.

For those who have seen one of our Wild West presentations or our MLA poster session, or read our article on OpenEvidence, you've likely gotten the impression that my colleagues and I are more than a little skeptical of OpenEvidence; and we've actively encouraged others to closely evaluate its outputs.

However, giving credit where credit is due, OpenEvidence opening access to medical librarians is a step in the right direction, and will allow us to get an inside look into the tool. 

Now that we've got the keys to the castle, we can better search for cracks in the foundation. 🔍

Happy sleuthing, everyone! ☕

Open Science Framework (OSF) phasing out projects

Open Science Framework (OSF) recently announced that they would be phasing out projects, with the planned implementation of these changes beginning in November, 2026. 

For those unfamiliar, OSF is an open-sourced project management tool commonly used for sharing and linking research records (including, but not limited to, research projects, datasets, and associated documents). The projects feature in OSF provided a centralized place for collaborating and storing files relating to a  project, with options to make the project private or public. Additional information about OSF projects can be found in OSF's projects documentation. 

Below is a rough timeline of OSF's upcoming changes. For the most up to date information, you can look at OSF's page detailing the changes and in their transition documentation.

• November 16, 2026: OSF will no longer allow users to create new projects or add child components to preexisting projects
• February 19, 2027: All preexisting projects (both private and public) will no longer be editable. You will still be able to access pages as read-only pages, and all links/DOI's should continue to resolve to the pages.
• Unknown time frame: OSF plans to eventually remove all private projects from their site. They state that they intend to give at least 12 months' notice prior to this step.

For those, like me, who use OSF for registering scoping review protocols, OSF will still be allowing for protocol registrations via OSF Registries; however, you will no longer be able to generate a registration from a project (you'll have to register via the OSF Registries option, instead). 

OSF will be hosting a webinar August 27th at 10am (CT) covering these changes. Registration is free but required.

Happy Friday! ☕

Drug Story: Ivermectin

Drug Story: Ivermectin by 98% Invisible 

I've been wondering why MAGA glammed onto Ivermectin as being good for anything that ails you?

Our local Fleet Farm here in Oshkosh had a note on the Ivermectin bin in the horse ailse, stating that it was NOT a recognized remedy for Covid.   I wish I had a photo of that sign o' the time!

Drug Story is an independent documentary podcast from journalist Thomas Goetz that explores the hidden history of medicine one drug at a time. Each episode uses a single medication to examine the science, politics, culture, and human stories surrounding disease and treatment. And they are SO good.

This week, we’re featuring one of their episodes about ivermectin, from Nobel Prize-winning anti-parasitic breakthrough to one of the most polarizing drugs of the COVID era. Along the way, the story travels from hookworm outbreaks in the American South to river blindness campaigns in West Africa, before arriving in the modern world of internet cures, medical distrust, and viral misinformation. It’s a fascinating, deeply reported story about medicine, evidence, and how a genuine wonder drug became tangled up in politics, hope, and conspiracy.

 

Check out two new Database Tips Blog posts: Scopus Brackets for Acronyms and Building a Database Creature!

 

A shameless plug to check out two new tips from MLA's User Experience (UX) Caucus' Database Tips blog (the second of which is by yours truly). 

Tip #69: Scopus Brackets for Acronyms

• “Consider using curly brackets around acronyms when searching Scopus and be careful of three-letter acronyms in filenames lest they unwittingly become file extensions.”

Tip #70: Building a (Database) Creature with the Best Features: An Unscientific Report

• “On June 16th, 2026, the Medical Library Association User Experience Caucus hosted the networking event, ‘Building a (Database) Creature with the Best Features’, at the Library Evidence Synthesis Services Symposium. During this event, more than sixty evidence synthesis librarians across disciplines assembled in an unscientific effort to cobble together their dream database platform based on the ones they search every day.”

Happy searching! ☕

How HIV Started a Century before Anyone Noticed

How HIV Started a Century before Anyone Noticed by Be Smart (PBS)

I came across this video last week and it made me think about the origins of HIV, and how it didn't really just appear in the 1980s, that it had been simmering a long for 100 years prior to that.  It just caught fire in the 80s. 

It amazes me that science is able to trace it back to the beginnings.

 

Blog post by Rita Mitchell! Moderating a table discussion at MLA ’26

Hi, this is Rita Mitchell, librarian at Aurora Sinai Medical Center in Milwaukee, WI and a recipient of a WHSLA professional development award. Back in September of 2025, I decided to reply to a call for volunteers for the MLA Living Book events organized by the MLA Community Building and Belonging Committee (CBB). I was interested in being a “book” for the live event being held at MLA ’26. The CBB committee was facing difficulties with having only 1 or 2 members able to attend the MLA ’26 conference in person, so fellow caucuses joined in to collaborate on a roundtable event. The Living Book event was not going to happen. The CBB committee decided to invite interested “books” who would be in Milwaukee at MLA ’26 to participate in the Storytelling Roundtable. This made the theme of the MLA ’26 Conference – Cultured Collaborations, very relevant. I volunteered, helped plan the details of the event, and participated as a moderator of a table.

Here is the description:

The Community Building and Belonging Committee along with Accessibility and Disability and Social Justice and Health Disparities Caucuses invite you to join us in sharing our stories of resilience, change, and confusion due to recent changes in our country and professional community. The hope is not only to have space for catharsis, but to share strategies for problem solving, working around, working through and resisting. An additional aim is to widen, strengthen or establish a network of support for members facing issues related to identity, community building, belonging, social justice, and/or accessibility.

Roundtables will have moderators to help guide conversation, some with defined topics for those that wish to focus on a particular issue, but others that are open for more mixed conversations. We will have a Padlet as a mechanism for recording discussions/reporting back which allows for both named and anonymous participation.

I was the moderator for one of the tables at the event: Later in Life Disabilities: Adapting to a disability later in life presents unique challenges. Join the conversation on how to manage this transition and provide meaningful support to others.

This allowed me a space to talk about my recently acquired disabilities – I suffered a Subdural Hematoma, a traumatic brain injury, in June of 2020. I spent June and July in the Neuro ICU and then went to a rehabilitation facility specifically for head injury patients. I didn’t return home until December and returned to work part time in January of 2021. I received exceptional support from my director, manager and teammates during my hospitalization/rehab and after my return to home and work. I thought sharing what this entailed might be helpful to others. What do you do when you or someone you work with “get hit by a bus”? Pardon the expression, but this is what we would say at a former job I had – be ready or have your job documented in case someone needs to take over when you “get hit by a bus”. Well, I did get “hit by a bus”, but I had the support of my colleagues and my family to pull me through.

I had a very engaging conversation at my “Later in Life Disabilities” table, and I hope I shared some pearls of wisdom with the participants.

Some pearls of wisdom for the manager/director of someone with a later-in-life disability:

• Be present for their family if it is welcomed – my husband appreciated the calls from my director about insurance and medical leave tasks that needed to be completed while I was in the hospital.

• Manage the person’s work email – I was gone for 7 months and having my important emails addressed and the “not so important” emails put in a folder was extremely helpful. Bonus – we didn’t lose any patrons or service requests because I was absent and couldn’t respond to an email.

• Accommodations/work restrictions – these are very important to have in place. Managers should be able to help direct the employee to the correct forms or HR contacts to have these in place.

Pearls for those living with a later-in-life disability:

• Life is too short to be miserable at work – find your support network, reach out and find those who have similar challenges or experiences.

• Ask for help when you need it and give yourself grace (Giving yourself grace means cutting yourself some slack. It’s about letting go of perfection, dropping the harsh inner critic, and allowing yourself to be human. Treat yourself with the same kindness, patience, and understanding you would offer a good friend – from Jenna Overbaugh).

• Be honest – if you are having a bad day, let it be, and let your manager know. Open communication is key to your success and happiness at work.

Helping with the planning process allowed me to meet some fantastic MLA members from different locations and different types of libraries. I get very nervous about presenting or speaking with peers, but this experience of moderating “difficult conversations” has helped me gain some confidence and provided the conference speaking engagement I needed. My biggest takeaway was that MLA is an organization for the profession, but also for people. The MLA Community Building and Belonging Committee is there to support inclusivity, fairness and belonging within the organization, at all levels. A huge thank you to WHSLA for the financial support provided to attend the conference in Milwaukee, and to the MLA CBB committee for inviting me to be part of the Storytelling Roundtable.

Note: Posted on behalf of Rita Mitchell 🌟

A bit of Cuteness for Your Week: Neil the Seal!

 

Take a minute  from your busy week to check out this adorable Australian news report on Neil the Seal, Tasmania's famous resident elephant seal, "breaking hearts...and everything else." 

Video embedded below.

Happy watching! ☕