NAHSL/NY-NJ MLA Conference 2011: Continuing Education

Sunday, October 30, 2011
8:00 am to noon
EBM: Introduction to Study Design and Critical Appraisal—Connie Schardt [4 CE credits]

This course is designed to give learners an introduction to critical appraisal skills through an understanding of basic study designs and validity issues related to reducing bias in clinical studies. The course will focus on understanding the basic study designs in medicine (case-control, cohort, randomized controlled clinical trial, systematic review, and meta analysis). Learners will also discuss the criteria for determining internal validity of therapy studies and systematic reviews. After completing this course, learners will be better able to: identify appropriate study designs; identify validity criteria; help support evidence-based medicine within their own institutions. Teaching methods will include discussion, case studies, group exercises, and practice in appraising articles.

Sunday, October 30, 2011
8:00 am to 2:45 pm
Cancer Concepts and Search Techniques—Jeannine Gluck [6 CE credits]

This 6 hour course will present an overview of basic concepts in oncology, and explore resources and effective search techniques for finding cancer-related information.

Upon completion of the course, participants will be better able to:

• Discuss basic concepts in oncology
• Execute cancer-related searches in MEDLINE
• Differentiate the content found in various guidelines\
• Effectively locate staging information
• Find and search conference proceedings
• Identify the professional and consumer-level content found on other cancer-related sites
• Participants will be asked to do a minimal amount of reading before the class.

Sunday, October 30, 2011
1:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Developing an Effective Strategic Plan for your Library—Cindy Sullivan [4 CE credits]

This workshop provides training on the 11 elements to develop a successful plan. Modeled on evidence-based practices, this course provides examples of plans from academic, public, and corporate libraries. Through ten interactive activities, attendees will be well on their way to developing a plan for their organization.

Topics covered in the workshop include:

• Four reasons to develop a strategic plan
• The eleven elements that create an effective strategic plan
• Tools, templates, techniques that can be used in developing a plan
• Examples of strategic plans from academic, corporate, and public libraries
• Students will learn how to create a strategic vision for their library, identify the business value the library provides to their organization, how to couple strategies with vision, and more.

Sunday, October 30, 2011
1:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Behind Closed Doors: Politics in the Library—Barbara Jones & Marty Magee [4 CE credits]

We are all surrounded by politics: the only way to avoid them is to operate in isolation. Typically, politics means being concerned with positioning your ideas in a favorable light and knowing what to say to whom, how to say it and when. This class will focus on learning how to effectively influence and manage others’ perceptions of you and your ideas, how to change enemies into allies, how to stay in the loop and how to manage outcomes short term, and far into the horizon. Skills taught in this class will be useful to all librarians.

Sunday, October 30, 2011
3:00 pm to 5:00 pm
CME Resources and Technical Know-how: The Librarian's Role—Hongjie Wang [2 CE credits]

Medical professionals have pursued their continuing medical education (CME) through pivotal resources provided by medical libraries in the form of publications, audiovisual materials and online information. These days, medical librarians are playing an increasingly important role in CME activities.

This educational program, through a combination of lecture and discussion, aims to help attendees to achieve the following three goals: 1) new understanding (why librarians should care about the CME process and how to actively get involved), 2) new knowledge (what CME resources other libraries provide and what criteria your own library should use to maintain your CME collection and 3) new skills (how to use some of your existing databases to get Point-of-Care CMEs, an emerging popular form of Internet CMEs in high demand among physicians today).  A recent survey result of regional medical librarians who are already involved in the CME process will be shared during the program presentation.