WI represents at MCMLA meeting - two posters you don't want to miss

We've showcased the papers, now it's time for the Badger posters. Show your support and stop by the poster session on Monday, October 24. The poster session is a great place to network with fellow librarians and get ideas for initiatives you may want to try in your institution. Additional posters can be found online. 


Defining Osteoporosis As a Chronic Disease [Poster #15]

Eileen Severson, Supervisor, Gundersen Health System, 1900 South Ave H01-011, La Crosse, WI, 54601; Additional Contributors: Ann Falkenberg Olson, Nurse Researcher, 608-775-2758, acfalken@gundersenhealth.org

Objective:  To review medical and nursing literature for instances of osteoporosis described as a chronic disease and to discuss the importance of defining osteoporosis as a distinct chronic disease. Methods: Medical and nursing literature and major public health organization websites were searched and reviewed for definitions and characteristics of chronic disease and osteoporosis. Results:  Osteoporosis is not consistently defined or described as a chronic disease in the literature or among major public health organizations.  However, based on definitions of chronic disease and the epidemiology and outcomes of osteoporosis, osteoporosis should be considered a chronic disease. Conclusions:  Osteoporosis should be consistently defined as a distinct chronic disease to help shape public policy and research funding regarding screening and prevention.  With a greater focus on screening and prevention, increased mortality and decreased quality of life due to osteoporotic fractures will be reduced.  Osteoporosis is not simply part of the aging process; it is a significant chronic disease with serious health-related, economic, and social consequences.

An Institutional Repository in a Multi-Hospital Health Care System [Poster #5]

Brenda Fay, Librarian, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI; Additional Contributors: Vicki Budzisz, Applications Analyst, Aurora Libraries,vicki.budisz@aurora.org; 414-649-7371; Jennifer Deal, Librarian Lead, Aurora Libraries,jennifer.deal@aurora.org, 414-328-7910

Institutional repositories (IR) collect, preserve and disseminate scholarly output of an institution and are common in academic settings. They are not as common in multihospital health care systems where published works are usually connected to an author’s academic affiliations. However, when concurrently, our multihospital health care system expressed an interest in publishing an online peer-reviewed journal and our research department expressed the desire to more easily track the works of Aurora authors, the hospital librarians stepped up for the challenge.  The Aurora librarians chose the Digital Commons platform from Bepress because it allowed institutional branding, unlimited digital storage and vendor technical support, provided peer review tools and required minimal local IT support.  The peer-reviewed journal was a priority and workflow for the peer review process and metadata and was quickly setup within months of purchasing the product. Collaborating departments at Aurora now assume full responsibility for the maintenance and publication of the health care system’s journal.  Tracking works of Aurora authors is, and continues to be a function done exclusively by Aurora librarians, and involves identifying and assigning metadata for Aurora authored articles, posters, presentations, books, and book chapters.  We also recently began collecting historical information and images.  This poster will describe the hurdles we encountered during its initial development as well as the challenges we continue to experience as we work with a platform created primarily for academia.