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On May 16, before the 2009 Medical Library Association Annual Meeting, three Associate Fellows from the National Library of Medicine spent the morning working with high school students. In conjunction with Careers in Health Information, Librarianship and Informatics (CHILI) and Charlie Greenberg of Yale University, Amy Donahue, Kathleen Amos, and Paula Maez hosted a variety of health information sessions for students in the Leeward Community College Upward Bound Program.
About 18 high school students participated in the half day event beginning with a group introduction session of Medical Terminology Jeopardy followed by four learning sessions. The sessions exposed the students to health information resources and pathways into information and health careers. Health information resources covered included MedlinePlus, Household Products Database, and Toxtown. The students were also introduced to public health through an online interactive exercise as well as provided an introduction to the field of medical librarianship. The day ended with a lunch and allowed for informal discussions between the Fellows and students.
CHILI, funded by a grant from the US Department of Education Institute for Museum and Library Services, is a program aimed at introducing biomedical careers to high school minority students. Seven institutions are cooperative partners of this program and include Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, Howard University, Georgetown University, Houston Academy of Medicine, University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center. The Leeward Community College Upward Bound Program is one of the nation wide college preparatory programs aimed towards underserved and low income high school students. Upward Bound programming is offered at no charge.
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Memphis is famously known for two things—barbeque and kings. The king of the blues—B.B. King and the King of Rock and Roll—Elvis Presley, are both linked to Memphis. This summer four CHILI interns heated thing up in Memphis. Their programs, activities, and contacts were HOT (Hurried, Original, and Timely).
One especially Hurried day found Jahleel Nelson attending a ribbon cutting ceremony in East Memphis at a local community college library. Jahleel writes, “When I walked inside the library, it was like walking into a mall. As I walked around, I noticed how the library functions and how it was built to fit students, faculty, and the staff’s needs and requirements. The 69,300 sq. ft. facility is equipped with a cyber café/poets corner, an art gallery, a multimedia computer lab/classroom, a conference room, an auditorium, and an eye catching view of the lake. After 15 minutes of touring, sadly, it was time to leave and continue my busy day.” From there Jahleel grabbed lunch on the run and headed downtown to attend graduation ceremonies for the University of Tennessee Health Science Center’s Colleges of Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Pharmacy, Allied Health Sciences, and Graduate Health Sciences. These two experiences were designed to give Jahleel an idea of the roles of some academic health sciences librarians—space design and planning, and marching with campus faculty during graduation ceremonies.
This year’s interns participated in conference calls from their homes. This was an Original concept for everyone except Minnie Pruitt—she has previously participated in conference calls in connection with a school organization. Since earning a bachelor’s degree is required before gaining acceptance into a graduate library school program, an emphasis on education is central to the Memphis CHILI internship. During one telecommute day, interns were asked to share their thoughts and reactions to one commencement speech that was recently given to graduating seniors at any college or university in the US. Commencement speeches were not assigned, the interns choose which speech resonated most with them. Minnie writes, “I chose to speak on President Obama’s speech at Notre Dame University. He spoke about America needing to come together and become one instead of separating ourselves. I was really touched by his words and so were the other interns.”
This summer’s internship was very Timely because interns had an opportunity, thanks to TaJuana Redmond, to tour a pharmacy lab, use the facility, and even make a product! In Terence’s journal he writes, “Dr. May taught us how to make lip chap and liquid medicine from scratch.” Also through planning efforts by Ms. Redmond, another timely encounter allowed the interns to meet a representative from LeBonheur Children’s Medical Center. According to Terence, “Ms. Dalene Wilson, Director of Volunteer Services, talked to us about volunteering at Le Bonheur. I have a friend who volunteers at LeBonheur as a baby hugger. I belong to two organizations that could provide a great service to LeBonheur—the Harding Academy Football Team and Youth United Way. I am considering a proposal to give to my football coach and to the Youth United Way Executive Board asking that our organization volunteer at LeBonheur. Even if those organizations do not volunteer, I will consider volunteering on my own because I love working with children and I love volunteering to help others who are in need.” Terence helpful attitude and cooperative nature was evident through the internship as he took on increasing responsibilities.
Each week one intern functioned as a team leader. Team leaders coordinated all activities for the week, served as the liaison between the interns and the project managers, and provided oversight for all intern projects that were due that week. Yolanda was team for the last week and, by far the busiest, week of the internship. As team leader Yolanda sent and responded to e-mail messages past 8:00 p.m. discussing many program topics. In her narrative highlights of the day before the finale, Yolanda writes, “After the rehearsals, we ended our second conference call at 4P.M. For the remainder of the day, I wrote my interview report for Ms. Jackson, created two presentation power-points for tomorrow, revised my script and coordinated it with slides in the first power-point, familiarized myself with the CHILI project grant overview script and coordinated it too with slides in the second powerpoint, and added some final touches to the Finale’s program that Ms. Green sent me. Although finally retiring for the day rather late, I could not sleep, in anticipating the last events of CHILI that tomorrow held.”
The 2009 CHILI internship in Memphis was HOT. The interns Hurried from one event to the next, explored podcasting and telecommuting, created Original covers for their program brochures, and participated in Timely events that could only happen in Memphis at the health science center through coordinated efforts between Brenda Green and TaJuana Redmond, project leaders for the Memphis CHILI program.
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Application deadline reminder – ARL’s Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce
The application deadline for the Association of Research Libraries’ (ARL) Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce (the Initiative) is on Monday, August 31, 2009. The Initiative is a program designed to recruit LIS graduate students from traditionally underrepresented ethnic and racial backgrounds into careers in research libraries. The Initiative offers a stipend of up to $10,000 in support of LIS graduate education, leadership and career development training, and a formal mentorship program.
More information about the program, qualifications, and application process can be found at
http://www.arl.org/diversity/init/index.shtml
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
The ARL Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and ARL member libraries, offers a stipend up to $10,000 (over two years) to attract LIS graduate students from underrepresented groups to careers in research libraries. These stipends can be combined with other financial aid to provide an extra incentive for completing library and information science degrees. This initiative reflects the commitment of ARL members to create a diverse research library community that will better meet the challenges of changing demographics in higher education and the emphasis of global perspectives in the academy.
For questions about the program or the application process please contact Mark A. Puente, Director of Diversity Programs, by e-mail at mpuente@arl.org
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Yezmin Crespo and Jemima Mbaka each spent two weeks (30 hours) in Yale's Medical Library learning about what health information professions and institutions do. They blogged their experience at the Yale CHILI blog .
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