Welcome to the New RTI News Blog!

Submitted by Susan Lessick, AHIP, FMLA, Project Director, MLA Research Training Institute for Health Sciences Librarians

This column will focus on news and information about the new Research Training Institute for Health Sciences Librarians (RTI). We are looking forward to sharing many things about the RTI with you as the RTI progresses. We are also looking forward to hearing from you. As you read the news items, we encourage you to share your thoughts and contact us, the RTI Leadership Team.

Let us introduce ourselves.

Susan Lessick, AHIP, FMLA, RTI project director, loves librarian-led research, emerging technology, cats, quilts, and Hawaiian sunsets—not in that order. She strongly encourages MLA members to attend the RTI because it is a “once-in-a-career opportunity, truly foundational experience, that will equip and inspire them to strengthen skills, self-improve, collaborate with other peers and experts, create much-needed library and information science (LIS) knowledge, and receive the recognition they deserve as fierce librarian-researchers of the future.”

Barry Grant, MLA director of education, who is devoted to his stereo system, thinks MLA members should attend the RTI because “everyone in the health information professions should be able to understand research, evaluate research, and do research.”

Mary Langman, MLA director of information issues and policy, enjoys singing, needlework, and cooking for the homeless. Her passion for the health sciences librarianship profession is “advancing evidence-based practice and research that highlights the value of health sciences librarianship. The RTI has been more than twenty years in the making, ever since MLA adopted its first research imperative for the association.”