(FREE!) CE Webinar for Medical Librarians Month: Generative AI in Action on 10/14/2026

Image by Martine Auvray from Pixabay

A shoutout to Dora Davis, who alerted us to this opportunity!

Ovid and MLA have partnered for Medical Librarians Month to offer a free webinar: Generative AI in Action: Practical Strategies for Medical and Health Sciences Libraries.

Details relating to the webinar (including the registration link) are included below.

Generative AI in Action: Practical Strategies for Medical and Health Sciences Libraries

Sponsored by Ovid

Host: Laura Hall, MFA, MBA, Division Head, Resources, Archives & Discovery at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Library

Date: October 14

Time: 1:00 PM CT

Register Now →

Description: As generative AI continues to reshape how clinicians, researchers, and students engage with the evidence, medical librarians are increasingly called on to guide their institutions thoughtfully and responsibly. Join Laura Hall, MFA, MBA, Division Head, Resources, Archives & Discovery at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Library, who will share practical strategies for evaluating AI tools, integrating them responsibly, and guiding students, faculty, and clinicians in their use.

This session focuses on durable, transferable skills including understanding what these tools can do, where they fall short, and how they can be meaningfully applied across teaching, research support, scholarly communication, and internal library workflows.

Thanks to Ovid's sponsorship, this webinar is being offered to MLA members at no cost.

Happy fall, everyone! ☕🍂

New UX blog post: Is Scopus a narcissist?

Image by Andre Mouton from Pixabay

Is Scopus a narcissist?

The answer is yes. Yes, it is, as discussed in a new UX Database Tips Blog post written by yours truly. Below is a snippet from the post:

Picture this. You've just finished translating a complex search strategy into Scopus for an evidence synthesis (and just in the nick of time! Your eyes are going googly from staring at your screen all day, your coffee is dangerously low, and your researchers are practically knocking down your office door to get their hands on your search documentation). As a final test, you run the search in Scopus and do a quick skim of the results. Scopus has helpfully highlighted your keywords in yellow within the abstract of each result. As you look through the results, however, your heart sinks, and the world seems to spin. In a number of the abstracts, the term "Scopus" is in blazing yellow.

You may be thinking to yourself, "What on earth? The term 'Scopus' isn't in any of my search hedges! Is one of my terms mapping to the term 'Scopus'???" At least, this was my thinking when I found myself in this nightmarish situation.

The answer is no. Let your heart rest easy, dear colleague. The reason "Scopus" is being highlighted in the abstracts of your search results is simple and ultimately harmless: Scopus is a narcissist.

Check out the full post in the UX Database Tips Blog. 

Thanks for tolerating the shameless self-promotion (it looks like Scopus isn't the only narcissist here 😉).

Happy reading! ☕

Healing Broken Hearts: Sacred Threads Quilt

 

I attended the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show in Madison this week.  It included a special exhibit called Sacred Threads where I saw this fascinating quilt with a health science angle.

Enjoy! 

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! ☕