News from the Libraries

Dr. Phil Valente will speak on the topic, Virchow and Arias-Stella: Pathologist Pioneers and Social Activists, at the next meeting of the History of Medicine Society, Monday, December 3 at 6:30 p.m.  The meeting will be in the Howe Conference Room on the 5th floor of the Briscoe Library.  Refreshments will be served.

Looking ahead, Dr. Sanders Marble, Command Historian at the U.S. Army Office of Medical History, will speak on “Medical History and the Military: Opportunities and Difference,”  Thursday, January 24,  2013.

The History of Medicine Society has been organized by student members of the Friends of the P.I. Nixon Medical Historical Library.  Membership is open to students, faculty and staff of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, and to members of the wider community.

For more information about events of the History of Medicine Society, contact Susan Hunnicutt, Special Projects Librarian, at 567-2406, or by email (Hunnicutt@uthscsa.edu).

In February and March 2013 the UT Health Science Center Libraries and the South Central and Lower Rio Grande Border AHECs will host Communities and Their Assets: Community Asset Mapping for CTSA Community Engagement.  Supported by a CTSA Community Engagement Pilot Project Award from the South Central Region of the National Networks of Libraries of Medicine, the program will bring together librarians from the six CTSA funded institutions in Texas, New Mexico and Arkansas.  It will encompass a 2-day event organized by the Briscoe Library in San Antonio on February 21 and 22,  followed by a 1-day event organized by the Ramirez Library in Harlingen on March 7.

At the San Antonio and Harlingen events librarians and other attendees will attend an Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) Workshop led by Dan Duncan, Adjunct faculty member of the ABCD Institute at Northwestern University. The workshop will be open by invitation to CTSA Librarians along with CTSA researchers, Key Function Group members, and administrators from regional and national CTSA institutions. Participating community groups will include health care providers, primary care physicians, community organization leaders, program administrators, public health workers, community health workers (promotores), public and academic librarians, Area Health Education Center (AHEC) board members, and university faculty.

The workshop will cover the principles of Asset-Based Community Development and how these principles can be used to identify a community’s assets.  The workshop will also open a dialog with community groups and explore opportunities to effect change in the role librarians play in the CTSA process.

On the second day of the event in San Antonio, librarians from CTSA institutions will convene for a strategic planning session led by Mary Flanagan, a nationally-recognized facilitator with Management Solutions Group. The purpose of the session will be to brainstorm about how librarians can be more actively involved in the future with CTSA Key Function Groups, CTSA administration, grant applications, research output and impact tracking, community engagement, and other CTSA initiatives.  The anticipated outcome of the strategic planning process will be a road map for librarian contributions and engagement with the work of the CTSAs.

For more information about Community Asset Mapping for CTSA Community Engagement contact Peg Seger, Head of Outreach Services, at segerp@uthscsa.edu.

This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, under Contract No. HHSN-276—2011-00007-C with the Houston Academy of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library.