What I did on my summer vacation: The Jane Austen Summer Program

Remember when I asked if anyone wanted to share their fun summer adventures with us?  WHSLA member Kathy Koch heeded the call and wrote this for us:*

Ever wonder what it’s like at a gathering of Jane Austen fans? I found out in June when I attended the Jane Austen Summer Program, a small, four-day symposium hosted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  The program brings together scholars, graduate students, and fans from around the country. This year’s theme was “Pride and Prejudice and its Afterlives,” and it celebrated the book and its many film, TV, book, and game adaptations. Presentations touched on topics ranging from entailment to the militia and from zombies to Brazilian telenovelas.

If you are a great reader, you would have been delighted with the wonderful rare book exhibit at the Wilson Library at UNC-CH, which featured a first edition Pride and Prejudice along with books about Austen or the time in which she lived. We had three amazing keynote speakers who discussed their recently published adaptations: Soniah Kamal’s Unmarriageable (set in 2000s Pakistan), Sonali Dev’s Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (San Francisco’s Indian-American community) and Uzma Jalaluddin’s Ayesha at Last (Toronto’s Muslim community).  

Do you long for a ball? The highlight of the conference was the regency ball complete with (mostly) era-appropriate costumes, live musicians, and English country dances that we practiced over the previous three days. Even though there were too many ladies and not enough gentleman, no one was in want of a partner since the ladies also danced the gentlemen’s part. I will confess that on more than one occasion I momentarily forgot which part I was dancing.

I was excessively diverted by the symposium, and I’m planning to attend again next year! But I hope to have my very own Regency-era dress to wear instead of renting one. 

How dare he call her an "obstinate headstrong girl?!"

Costumed guests gather on the patio outside the ball

That's a first edition!!!

*Did she feel like she owed me a favor for all those oddly-shaped historical documents she sent me to scan for our digital repository?  Maybe.  Thanks for sharing your literary adventure, Kathy!

Leeches, spleens on the move, and other medical horrors

As a library assistant, I retrieve a lot of articles for patrons.  Many of them are incredibly interesting and others have fantastic titles.  But every now and then, I come across something downright horrifying.  Something I didn't even know could go wrong with the human body, or some treatment I thought fell out of favor in the middle ages.

Are there any searches you've been asked to do or articles you've seen that made your skin crawl, or that you wish you'd done after lunch instead of before?  Share them in the comments, or email me at annie dot lipski at aurora dot org!

(Thanks to Dora Davis and Jennifer Deal for the inspiration for this post!)

Guillaume Duchenne - Scanned from 1965 version with foreword by Konrad Lorenz published by University of Chicago Press

BadgerLink Advisory Group: Call for Applicants

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

The BadgerLink team seeks applicants to participate in the BadgerLink Advisory Group. This group seeks to improve the ability of all Wisconsin residents to access and effectively use high-quality, licensed resources provided by BadgerLink, expand program visibility, and build stronger relationships between the program and stakeholders. By gathering the diverse opinions and expertise of Wisconsin’s learner communities, the BadgerLink team will develop strategies to adapt and grow the program as needs evolve.

We seek applicants representing diversity in race, gender, ethnicity, language, disability, sexual orientation, and professional background from libraries and schools of all types, sizes, and Wisconsin regions. Applicants from community organizations will also be considered.

Members serve staggered, two-year terms and the group meets twice annually, in the spring and in the fall. For more details, see the Participation Handbook: http://bit.ly/baghandbook.

Applications will close at the end of the day on August 16, 2019, with review and selection finalized on or before September 15, 2019.

Questions? Want to learn more? Please email badgerlink@dpi.wi.gov.

Please feel free to share this call for applicants (bit.ly/bagannouncement) widely.

Call for Posters & Papers for Midwest Chapter/MLA, WHSLA, and SWHSL 2019 - Deadline Extended!

Greetings from Milwaukee!

The 2019 Midwest Chapter/MLA Annual Meeting planning committee has extended the submission deadline for abstracts for poster and paper presentations. The new deadline for submission is July 26, 2019. 

Papers and posters that were submitted to and/or presented at the 2019 Medical Library Association annual meeting in Chicago are welcome. Submit your abstract online.

Be sure to check the conference website to learn about Milwaukee attractions and to get conference updates, or follow us on Facebook.

Your 2019 Midwest Conference Publicity Committee,

Elizabeth Suelzer, Medical College of Wisconsin
Dora Davis, ProHealth Care
Michele Matucheski, Ascension
Rita Sieracki, Medical College of Wisconsin

ProHealth Care Cultural Competence Book Club celebrates 16 years

Thanks to WHSLA member & guest blogger Dora Davis for writing this post about her organization's engaging and thought-provoking book club:

The ProHealth Care Cultural Competence Book Club is getting ready to start its 16^th year!  You can read more about the history of the book club in a previous WHSLA blog post here.  We are starting the year with Jodi Picoult’s book Small Great Things. 

Our other choices were:

The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

In Shock by Dr. Rana Awdish

It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini

Beautiful Affliction by Lene Fogelberg

Everything Happens for a Reason by Kate Bowler

Everything Here is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee

Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh

The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

No One is Coming to Save Us by Stephanie Powell Watts

American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar

She Has Her Mother’s Laugh by Carl Zimmer

Love Thy Neighbor: A Muslim Doctor’s Struggle for Home in Rural America

Gorilla and the Bird by Zack McDermott

Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom by Katherine Eban

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

Medical Apartheid by Harriet A Washington

All We Ever Wanted by Emily Giffin

Educated by Tara Westover

Where the Crawdad’s Sing by Delia Owens

Becoming by Michelle Obama

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Radium Girls by Kate Moore

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

We are curious to see which of the books on our ballot WHSLA members would select.  You can see take the survey here.

Congratulations to the travel stipend winners!

From WHSLA Professional Development Co-Coordinator Dora Davis:

I’m happy to announce the winners of the  WHSLA Travel Stipend for the Midwest Chapter/MLA,WHSLA & SWHSL 2019 Annual Meeting:

Nicholas Lim and Megan Olson

As you might remember, there is a sharing requirement built into the award. Here are the details, taken from our current WHSLA Guidelines.

·         “Award winners will share their learnings in an article for the WHSLA Blog within 3 months after the chosen conference. Other modes may also be accepted such as sharing their learnings during a WHSLA Chat Session, or other means. Winners have three months to make arrangements to present by other means. If winners do not share their learnings within 3 months of the conference, they will be given a reminder, and after a grace period of 9 months they will not be eligible to win the award again.”

We look forward to hearing from Nicholas and Megan’s conference experience in the future!

Congratulations!

Library laughs

Need a laugh this week?  Here are some library puns!

Nancy Pearl action figure

I know we've mentioned The Kitchen Sisters podcast before, but here's another great episode.  This time, they talk with Nancy Pearl, a best-selling author, librarian, literary critic, avid reader, and superhero!

Bibliotherapy

Most of us library folks already know  the joy of reading.  But have you ever heard of books being prescribed as therapeutic adjuvants?  This practice is known as bibliotherapy, and our friends across the pond already have some interesting programs in place.

How is this different than readers' advisory?  Bibliotherapy tends to have a more clinical aspect and is therefore more suited to therapists and other health professionals (and of course, librarians working closely with them).

Per authors Bate and Schuman, "We may never be able to capture the kind of hard data the scientists hunger for—but the testimony of centuries of readers speaks volumes for those who care to listen."

Photo by https://www.pexels.com/@thought-catalog-317580

NLM's digital collection of medical movies

Thanks to WHSLA member Karen Hanus for sharing this Washington Post article on the National Library of Medicine's Medicine on Screen collection.  Per the NLM, "these films cover a broad range of medical and health-related topics, from public health, surgery, and nursing to mental health, cancer, tuberculosis, child development, tropical medicine, genetics, and substance abuse."

Please note that some digitized films made available by NLM may contain material that some viewers may find to be challenging, disturbing, or offensive. Viewer discretion is advised.

Getting to know WHSLA member Kellee Selden

This week we're getting to know Kellee Selden, Ascension Region 1 Program Manager – Library Services. 

Q: How did you get started in Libraries?
I was living in Germany and became friendly with the library staff.  When an opening for a paraprofessional position came up, they encouraged me to apply.  I showed interest in all aspects of the profession, so the Head Librarian started to provide hands-on training.  When I returned to the United States I got a job at a large law firm library in the Sears Tower in Chicago.  I started MLIS classes at Northern Illinois University but part way through the program they told us the school was closing. Not because the MLIS program wasn’t doing well, but because funds were being allocated elsewhere.  I decided to go to UWM and commuted from Chicago up to Milwaukee for classes while still working full time at the law firm.  Near the end of the MLIS program I was hired at the law firm library of Foley and Lardner in Milwaukee and moved to Wisconsin.  After working for almost two decades in law libraries, I went back to school for a second master’s in medical informatics at the Milwaukee School of Engineering.  While at MSOE I was offered a job at Columbia St. Mary’s hospital.  I have been there for over 5 years.

Q: How are you/have you been involved in WHSLA. Why did you join?
Michele Matucheski told me about WHSLA and suggested I join.  It is a good way to meet local librarians that may not be active in MLA.

Q: What are the three personal items currently on your desk?
1. A program from the Wisconsin Breast Cancer Showhouse gala from May 31, 2019.
2. A handmade 2019 calendar from a friend
3. A quote – “We are tied together in the single garment of destiny. . .whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

Q: Do you have a professional goal for 2019/20? What is it?
As the Region One Leader for Ascension, supporting the MI & WI Librarians is my priority. This has been difficult as Ascension has reorganized, but I will do everything I can to get what they need and speak up for them.

Q: If you could hop on a plan right now, where would you go?
This fluctuates as I read and learn more about historical sites.  Right now, I would go to Egypt.  I have been reading about a site that is several hours south of the Valley of the Kings.  It seems to be where much of the carving was done for the Valley of the Kings and other sites/tombs.  A burial tomb was found there a year or so ago and I would like to see it.

Q: What is your advice to people who want to get into librarianship?
If you want to be a hospital librarian, you better take lots of tech-oriented courses AND be ready to be a business person. Today’s hospital librarians are one-woman(man) shows and you do everything from downsizing a collection to budgeting.  To show your value you need to be able to speak up about your resources and educate those with the budgets as to why they need to be maintained.  If you show you know how they work, who uses them and why they should be kept, you will keep your job.  Be ready to be a non-traditional librarian because you need to be proactive and not just wait for your patrons to come to you.

Q: What do you do for fun outside of work?
For the last 6+ months I have been the Chair of the Wisconsin Breast Cancer Showhouse (WBCS) Gala. It has been a full-time job with my full-time job.  The WBCS has been around for over 22 years.  We generally get someone to offer up their large lovely mansion in Milwaukee to tour.  A group of designers donate their time, talents, goods and redecorate this home.  Note: the owners must move out for months!  When the house looks perfect it is open for two weeks, so the public can tour it for a fee.  Before the house opening we have a gala to raise money for Breast and Prostate Cancer research at the Medical College of Wisconsin.  All the money stays local. Thus far we have raised 6.8 Million dollars which has been turned into over $68.9 Million through research grant funding from the NIH and other foundations.
Otherwise, I love working in my garden, traveling to as many countries as possible and supporting animal humane organizations.

Q: What books are you currently reading?
1. The Library Book
2. Churchill: Walking with Destiny
3. Rebel Gold: One Man’s Quest to Crack the Code

4. A Well-Behaved Woman: A Novel of the Vanderbilt’s

Most popular stories from Library Journal

Thanks to WHSLA member Mini Prasad for sharing an email about last week's most popular Library Journal articles!

• Librarians protest CIA presence at ALA
• Mental wellness for patrons in crisis
• Mental health and wellness book reviews
• June history focus: WWII
• New York City Libraries secure $33 million in funding

https://www.libraryjournal.com/