MLA Distance Education

Cut the Cord: Connecting to Our Mobile Users

MLA's Educational Webcast
Originally held Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 1:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m., central time

Presenters

Max Anderson

Max Anderson is the technology coordinator at the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Greater Midwest Region (NN/LM GMR), located at the University of Illinois–Chicago. Fresh out of library school in 1999, Anderson worked as a public access computer trainer for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, installing granted computer technology and training librarians in rural libraries across the country.

From 2003 to 2008, he worked at SOLINET (now known as Lyrasis) as an educational services instructor. He wrote and taught classes on OCLC products and services, web design, application of social software to libraries, and general technology to librarians around the Southeast United States. Anderson has presented at various conferences including: "Computers in Libraries," state library meetings, Midwest Chapter of MLA, and Southern Chapter and Mid-Atlantic Chapter of MLA joint conference. In 2007, he was invited to Australia and New Zealand by CAVAL to teach classes about social software in libraries. In 2008, he participated in the MLA's "Web 2.0 Principles and Best Practices: Discovering the Participatory Web" webcast. An article he wrote on the topic of podcasting and consumer health was published in Spring 2009 in the Journal of Consumer Health on the Internet. As part of his duties at the NN/LM GMR, he consults member institutions on emerging technologies, speaks at regional meetings, creates classes on the use of various technologies for health sciences libraries, and is the state contact for Wisconsin and Indiana.

Some of his interests include emerging technologies, web design, digital photography, planning for library futures and technology change, cataloging, and advocacy and support for libraries.

Emily Hurst

Emily Hurst is the instructional services librarian as the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Hurst is a 2008 graduate of the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, where she worked for two years as a graduate assistant at the health sciences library. Hurst has worked with a variety of mobile and emerging technologies and supports enhancements that enable researches, librarians, physicians, and students to connect with one another as well as their research away from their desktop. Working in public services and instruction, Hurst provides educational support and troubleshooting for a variety of mobile technology users from students to staff. Hurst is active on campus technology interest groups, for which she provides research support for the latest products and mobile resources. She is active with a San Antonio–based social media group for local health professionals and promotes the use of emerging technologies on campus.

Bart Ragon

Bart Ragon is the associate director for library technology services and development at the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library at the University of Virginia–Charlottesville (UVA). In this role, he is responsible for providing leadership in identifying, evaluating, selecting, and implementing new information technologies, including mobile devices and applications. During the spring 2009 semester, the school of medicine at UVA adopted the iPhone/iPod Touch as its required PDA for third year offsite clerkships. The Health Sciences Library quickly responded by developing an iPhone-enabled site (m.hsl.virginia.edu). He received his master's degree in library and information science from the University of South Carolina. As an avid hiker in the Blue Ridge Mountains, he is quite mobile and is familiar with the latest mobile technology (walking sticks).

David Rothman

David Rothman is a triple threat: a nerd, a dork and a geek. Named a "Mover and Shaker" by Library Journal in 2008, Rothman is the cocreator of LibWorm.com, a free current awareness service for library and information science professionals, the coauthor (with Melissa Rethlefsen) of Internet Cool Tools for Physicians, and the author of several web technologies articles in LIS journals. Before his son was born, he more frequently blogged at www.davidrothman.net on topics relating to medical libraries and web geekery. When he is not writing, consulting, playing with a computer, or blaming his toddler for his decline in productivity, Rothman manages the medical library at Community General Hospital of Greater Syracuse, performs data analysis tasks for the hospital's quality department, and troubleshoots users' computer problems around the hospital. Rothman also really enjoys futzing around with his iPod Touch.

Video-taped Presenters

Renée Bougard

Renée Bougard is the outreach librarian in the National Network of Libraries of Medicine National Network Office at the National Library of Medicine (NLM), Bethesda, MD. She provides support to NLM's Outreach Program, serves as liaison between the Regional Medical Libraries (RMLs) and NLM concerning outreach to health professionals, evaluates ongoing outreach projects to determine whether they are making satisfactory progress, is responsible for outreach activities coordinated by the NN/LM Network Office, and coordinates arrangements for exhibits/demonstrations of NLM's products and services at health professional meetings.

Bougard has over twenty-three years of experience in health sciences libraries, with sixteen of those years at the NN/LM South Central Regional Medical Library at the Houston Academy of Medicine, Texas Medical Center Library–Houston. In this role, she was responsible for developing technology goals for the South Central Region and for making funding available to network members to implement technology programs. She has worked in hospital libraries, an academic health sciences center library, and a veterinary medicine library primarily in Louisiana and Texas.

In 2006, she received the MLA's President's Award in recognition of her valuable contributions to the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief efforts.

Bougard has a bachelor's degree in english from the University of Louisiana–Lafayette and earned her master's in library and information science from Louisiana State University–Baton Rouge.

Brian Briggman

Brian Briggman is a system architect at the National Library of Medicine (NLM). He has been with NLM since February 2008, working on a variety of research and operational projects, including Mobile MedlinePlus, the Bethesda Hospitals' Emergency Preparedness Partnership (BHEPP) Patient Data Capture system, and the Mobile Emergency Triage System for iPhone and Blackberry devices. Briggman holds a bachelor's degree from the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY. In his free time, Briggman loves upgrading his personal library from the Dewey Decimal System to the Universal Decimal Classification system.

Paul Fontelo

Paul Fontelo is a staff scientist research physician in the Office of High Performance Computing and Communications, Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communication (LHNCBC), National Library of Medicine. Since his first Palm III personal digital assistant (PDA) in 2001, he has developed resources for handheld and wireless mobile devices. Fontelo's goal has always been to bring MEDLINE via the Internet through handheld devices to the point of care as a resource for clinical decision making. This was underscored in a recent presentation to the LHNCBC Board of Scientific Counselors,"Bringing the Medical Library Where Needed: at the Point of Care." Throughout the continuous evolution of operating systems and mobile devices, he has kept resources relevant by opting for open source software, platform and operating system independence, and Internet standards. Fontelo has tested all types of wireless access (Bluetooth, infrared, Wi-Fi and cell phones) and mobile devices from PDAs to the "One-Laptop per Child" computer, netbooks, and smartphones. He is a board-certified pathologist with an master's from Johns Hopkins University.

Loren Frant

Loren Frant is head of the health information products unit at the National Library of Medicine (NLM). The health information products unit is responsible for the day-to-day operations of MedlinePlus and Go Local. Frant has been with NLM since her 2004/05 Associate Fellowship. Before joining NLM, Frant honed her technical and project management skills through positions as a technical writer at an information technology consulting company, a trainer at a museum software company, and a cataloger at the Shoah Foundation. Frant holds a master’s in library and information science from the University of California–Los Angeles and a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University.

Eric Schnell

Eric Schnell is an associate professor and emerging technology and services specialist at the Prior Health Sciences Library, Ohio State University. He has published extensively and presented internationally in the area of technology and libraries, has been involved with two projects (Prospero and HealthWeb) that have won the MLA Thomson Reuters/Frank Bradway Rogers Information Advancement Award, named a Library Journal “Movers and Shaker,” and was a National Library of Medicine Medical Informatics Fellow (Woods Hole). His blog, The Medium Is the Message (www.ericschnell.blogspot.com) covers a variety of topics relating to library technology and innovation. Outside of work, he puts on his ice hockey gear twice a week and always has a few home projects in progress.

Megan von Isenburg

Megan von Isenburg is associate director of Information Services at Duke University Medical Center Library. As chair of the library's technology advisory committee and student advisory group, she is particularly interested in exploring ways to use technology to improve students' library experience, from access to information to usability of information and library services. Other members of the Kindle Project are Patricia Thibodeau, AHIP, FMLA, associate dean; Karen Grigg, associate director of collection services, and Brandi Tuttle, information and education services librarian.

Watch MLANET for more information! Or contact Debra Cavanaugh, mlapd3@mlahq.org, 312.419.9094 x32.