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Preston Medical Library Faculty Win Awards at Conference

Preston Medical Library faculty were honored to receive several awards at the annual meeting of the Southern Chapter of the Medical Library Association in October.

First Prize Paper:
The Status of Scholarly Efforts of Librarians in Health Literacy: A Bibliometric Analysis
In order to determine the status of scholarly efforts on health literacy by librarians, the authors examined the characteristics of health literacy publications authored by librarians from 2000 to 2020.
Authors: Alexandria Q. Wilson, Courtney Wombles, R. Eric Heidel, and Kelsey L. Grabeel

Third Prize Paper:
Medical Resident Resource Use Trends: Looking at the Past to Inform Future Decisions
Since 2006, the University of Tennessee's Preston Medical Library (PML) has collected survey feedback from exiting residents. The authors assessed temporal changes in resident utilization of resources to better inform future library decisions on instruction and marketing.
Authors: David Petersen, Martha Earl, and Alexandria Q. Wilson

First Prize Poster:
Examining the Impact of COVID-19 Closure on Consumer Health Requests: The Significance of Physical Space
With the COVID-19 pandemic, many hospital libraries were forced to close their doors to patients and family members. At the Health Information Center in Knoxville, TN, the physical space was closed for over a year, although health information services were provided to patients and family members via phone and email. In order to examine the impact of a physical patient and family library, researchers analyzed the number of consumer health requests pre-COVID-19 pandemic compared to during the pandemic.
Authors: Kelsey L. Grabeel, Cameron Watson, and Alexandria Q. Wilson

Third Prize Poster:
Analyzing Point of Care Tools Through Faculty, Resident, and Stakeholder Buy-in: A Cautionary Tale
Costs for Preston Medical Library's primary point-of-care (POC) clinical tool have increased to half of the acquisitions budget, while user affiliation data have not been provided to facilitate cost sharing. In response, user preferences for POC tools were analyzed to determine the viability of less expensive alternative to the current subscription.
Authors: J. Michael Lindsay, David Petersen, Abagail Pujol, and Martha Earl