News

Martha Earl Completes Leadership Fellowship for Medical Librarians

Martha Earl, MSLS, AHIP, Associate Professor and Assistant Director, Preston Medical Library, recently graduated from a one-year fellowship program that develops medical library leaders, jointly sponsored by the National Library of Medicine and the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries. She was one of five selected for the tenth fellowship class.

She started the year with attending orientation at the Association of American Medical Colleges annual meeting in Denver, Colorado.  Monthly, fellows, program mentors, and faculty met for virtual journal club sessions. In April and September, Earl spent a week at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine Library with her mentor, Connie Poole, the Associate Dean for Information Resources and Chair of Information and Communication Sciences. She finished the year with a Capstone conference and graduation in early October.

Earl said the fellowship was one of the most valuable experiences of her career.  She plans to use knowledge gained to enhance her leadership role as Assistant Director of Preston Library. She noted that the program has better equipped her to utilize her talents, skills and extensive experience for the benefit of the library and the institution. Through visits to her mentor's library, Earl has gained ideas for encouraging research with liaison faculty and residents and for developing a patient/consumer health rotation for students or residents.  She developed a variety of other ideas on ways in which to partner with colleagues across the board at GSM and The University of Tennessee Medical Center.

Also, Earl hopes to share what she has learned with others aspiring to library leadership positions. Currently, Earl is working with a Tennessee Library Association team to develop a statewide library leadership training program.

Earl said, "I appreciate the time invested by faculty and especially by my mentor. I am honored to be a graduate. The greatest gift that I can give is to mentor another. I plan to take the opportunity to pay it forward."

The 2012 graduating class and mentors include

Martha F. Earl
Assistant Director
Preston Medical Library
University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine, Knoxville
Mentor: Connie Poole
Associate Dean for Information Resources and
Chair, Information and Communication Sciences
School of Medicine Library
Southern Illinois University

Shannon D. Jones
Associate Director, Research and Education
Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences
Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries
Mentor: R. Kenny Marone
Director, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library
Associate University Librarian for School and Department Libraries
Yale University

Jennifer McKinnell
Head of Public Services
Health Sciences Library
McMaster University
Mentor: Cynthia Robinson
Director, George T. Harrell Health Sciences Library
Hershey Medical Center
Penn State College of Medicine

Douglas L. Varner
Senior Associate Director/Chief Biomedical Informationist
Dahlgren Memorial Library
Georgetown University Medical Center
Mentor: Evelyn B. Morgen
Director, Lyman Maynard Stowe Library
University of Connecticut Health Center

Jeffrey D. Williams
Assistant Director, Collections, Access & Clinical Services
Biomedical Library
University of California, San Diego
Mentor: A. James Bothmer
Associate Vice President for Health Sciences and 
Director, Health Sciences Library
Creighton University

February 19, 2013