2010 Conference - THANKS

Another great round of CE courses, presentations, posters and networking came and went last week in (hot and humid) New Orleans at the 2010 SLA Conference. Reports from the various sessions will be published in the next issue of Sci-Tech News. And if you have additional feedback on this year’s programs or suggestions for next year’s conference, please send them to Bill Armstrong (notwaa@lsu.edu), next year’s DCHE Chair.

THANKS to everyone who helped make this year’s Chemistry Division programming at the SLA Conference a success:

• Cory Craig and Jack Bashian, my program co-planners. They arranged our four sessions that involved speakers (Mobile Devices, Vendor Update, Renewable Materials and Polymer Information), and generally helped me keep my sanity.
• Ted Baldwin for organizing the CE courses, and Judith Currano, Dawn French and Bartow Culp for teaching those courses.
• Our session presenters, including Ann Bolek, Marie Fraties-Block, Dr. H.N. Cheng, Antony Williams, Joe Murphy and Robin Dasler. Also to ACS Pubs, RSC, CAS and Nature for participating in our Vendor Update.
• Cory, Jack and Norah Xiao for moderating those sessions.
• Ben Wagner, Luti Salisbury, Theo Jones-Quartey for moderating our breakfast roundtables.
• Ye Li for organizing our No-Host Dinner, and Judith for helping me organize our Newcomers Lunch.
• Loren Mendelsohn, for securing most of our sponsorship this year, as well as Jack and Luray Minkiewicz for their additional assistance in reaching out to potential sponsors.
• Our Poster Committee, who along with liaisons from 5 divisions, organized another great poster session (20+ posters). And Irene Laursen for providing so much assistance with the reception.
• The FAN, Sci-Tech and PAM Divisions, for taking the lead on organizing the Science of Hot Sauce, Collection Intelligence and Data Curation sessions.
• Bob Buchanan for his treasurer reports, Lee Pedersen for taking minutes (and introducing us to a smartpen), and Bill Armstrong for printing and bringing the evaluation forms and the large poster session sign.
• Bullitt Darlington at webuybooks.net for making our ever-popular ‘dance cards.’
• Kristin Foldvik and Akisha Edogun at SLA Headquarters, who provide endless support to all the conference planners.
• All DCHE members who attended our programs at the Conference.

And an additional THANK YOU to our sponsors, whose financial support helped make our programs possible:

• ACS Publications
• CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service)
• Elsevier
• GLTaC, Inc.
• Knovel
• Nature Publishing Group
• ProQuest and Dialog
• RSC Publishing
• Springer
• SRI Consulting
• Wiley

Conference Meeting Documents Posted

The 6/12 Board Meeting Agenda, Nomination Report, and minutes from the 2/4 Board Meeting (held by teleconference) have been posted to the Reports & Minutes section of the DCHE website.

DCHE Survey on SLA's 2009 Proposed Name Change

DCHE Survey Results and Analysis
Answers to Question 5
Answers to Question 7
Answers to Question 9
----answers to questions 5,7 and 9 sorted to display alphabetically

As you may remember, the SLA membership was asked to vote for or against a proposed name change (Association of Strategic Knowledge Professionals) late last year.

During the debate and voting period, I sent out a survey to the Chemistry Division to get your opinion on the name. Regardless of the final vote, we felt it was important to have a record of what the DCHE membership thought at the time, including how our division’s voting would compare with the larger association.

We also asked about your knowledge of the Alignment Project, how you kept up with the debate and discussion before and during the vote, and how you felt SLA had handled the process.

My thanks to the Executive and Advisory Boards for their feedback, as well as everyone who took the time to complete the survey.

2010 Sparks Award for Ye Li

2010 Marion E. Sparks Award for Professional Development

The SLA Chemistry Division (DCHE) is pleased to announce: Ye Li is the winner of the 2010 Marion E. Sparks Award for Professional Development. Ms. Li is the Chemistry Librarian at the Shapiro Science Library at the University of Michigan. She obtained her Masters degree in Library Science and her PhD in Chemistry at the University of Iowa in 2009.

DCHE will present Ms. Li with a $1500 check and award certificate to support her attendance at the 2010 SLA Annual Conference. Presentation will take place during the DCHE Annual Business Meeting/Breakfast in New Orleans, LA on Tuesday June 15th.

The Sparks Award is named to honor Marion E. Sparks, a pioneering and influential chemistry librarian who worked at the University of Illinois from 1913 through 1929.

Sci-Tech News - Issue #2 Online

The second online issue of Sci-Tech News—the official bulletin of the SLA Chemistry, Engineering, & Sci-Tech Divisions—is now available: http://www.sla.org/scitechnews.

Included in this issue:

• Message from the Chemistry Division Chair, with profiles on new members Hope Leman and Khue Duong. Hope also contributed another article and (yes!) poetry.
• Message from the MRM Section Chair.
• Bob Buchanan’s ‘Beyond the Chemistry Web’
• Conference report from the American Chemical Society Meeting, held this spring in San Francisco.
  

The next one will focus on the upcoming conference, with an August 1 deadline for all submissions. I’m sending out a call later today for conference reporters.

• If you would like to contribute an article for this next issue, including a report from another conference you’re attending this summer, please contact Kiem Ta (kiem.ta@okstate.edu) and me.
• If you want to be included in the next Membership Corner section, please contact Dana Roth (dzrlib@library.caltech.edu).
  

Chemistry Division Breakfasts at SLA Conference

If you're attending SLA this year in New Orleans, don't forget to order your breakfast tickets.

ROUNDTABLES - Join your DCHE colleagues for breakfast, networking and a spirited discussion on current topics and concerns.

• Academic Roundtable Breakfast (Monday, 6/14, 7:30-9:30am, $10, Ticket #400)
  --Sponsored by ACS Publications
  --Moderated by Ben Wagner and Luti Salisbury
  
  
• Corporate Roundtable Breakfast (Wednesday, 6/16, 7:30-9:30am, $10, Ticket #700)
  --Sponsored by GLTaC, Inc.
  --Moderated by Theo Jones-Quartey

BUSINESS MEETING - Networking breakfast and reports from the Executive and Advisory Board about DCHE activities. It's a chance to talk to Board members about getting involved in the Division. We'll also honor this year's Sparks Award winner.

• Chemistry Division Breakfast & Business Meeting (Tuesday, 6/15, 7:30-9:30am, $15, Ticket #500)
  --Sponsored by ACS Publications
  --Moderated by Teri Vogel
  

Nominations Announced

The SLA Chemistry Division’s Nominations Committee is pleased to announce their candidates for Treasurer and Chair-Elect (terms starting in 2011).

Chair-elect: Marie Fraties-Block

Treasurer: Yan He

To suggest additional candidates, send a petition with the names of 10 members along with the written consent of the proposed candidates to either Luray M. Minkiewicz, Cathy DiPalma or Mary Ann Mahoney by May 25.

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Marie Fraties-Block
Marie is currently the senior librarian for BASF Corporation and has been employed there since 1990. Previously she was employed at Bon Secours Hospital in Grosse Pointe, MI as the medical librarian. Marie received an MLS from the University of Pittsburgh and a B. A. from Central Michigan University.

Marie has been a member of SLA since 1992. As a Chemistry Division member she was the co-chair of the 2007 conference planning committee and was part of the 2008 nominating committee. In addition, Marie will participate at the 2010 annual conference at a panelist for the session on “Resources for Polymer Information” Marie has been involved with the SLA Michigan Chapter for many years and most recently as the Hospitality Committee Chair.

Marie notes that she takes the opportunity to attend SLA’s annual conferences because she gains practical work-related information, connects with informative and influential people, and develops lasting business contacts.

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Yan He

Yan obtained her B.S. in Chemistry from Beijing Normal University and M.S. in Organic Chemistry from Peking University in China. After she came to the states, she finished all PhD coursework in Organic Chemistry at University of Minnesota (Twin Cities) and she obtained her M.L.S. with Chemical Information Specialization from the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University (Bloomington) in 2006. Yan was the winner of the SLA Chemistry Division Marion E. Sparks Award for Professional Development in 2006. Yan has been the Science Reference Librarian and Chemistry and Mathematics Bibliographer at the Blommer Science Library of Georgetown University since 2007. She has coordinated several recent SLA Chemistry Division No-Host Dinner events at the SLA Annual Conferences.

Sci-Tech News - Now Online

Sci-Tech News, the official bulletin for the Sci-Tech, Chemistry and Engineering Divisions has relaunched as an online newsletter. The first issue can be viewed here.

From the Chemistry Division:

• News from the Chair, Chair-Elect and MRM Section Chair, along with a preview of the DCHE schedule at the conference.
  
• Bob Buchanan's Beyond the Chemistry Web

For the rest of 2010, we will use Sci-Tech News as our main newsletter, to see if it can (and should) replace our DCHE newsletter.

We are always looking for contributions to the newsletter. It can be about technology, chemical information, a report from a conference, or something going on in your library you want to share. If you're interested in submitting an article, please contact Kiem Ta (kiem.ta@okstate.edu). The deadline for the next issue is April 1.

Assessing Collections & Information Resources in Science & Technology (Call for Presentations)

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS - Assessing Collections & Information Resources in Science & Technology
co-sponsored by ACS CINF and SLA Chemistry Division

240th ACS National Meeting & Exposition
Boston, Massachusetts, August 22-26, 2010
CINF Division

Collections and resources for scientific information are changing rapidly in format and accessibility, budget pressures are forcing hard decisions. How can information professionals assess the utility of collections for their clientele? Do you monitor usage statistics or other measures? How do they influence your decision making for managing budgets and services? How do different stakeholders utilize information about usage? We are interested in presentations from librarians, publishers and other information professionals on best practices for tackling this kaleidoscope of issues.

Topics might include:

• how libraries use usage stats
• how to compare similar resources to each other (such as Reaxys & SciFinder)
• journals / ebooks / databases - different resources, different stats
• how can compare different publishers (standardization)
• how publishers use data
• technical issues around stats
• how to use stats on cancellations?
• qualitative information methodologies (ex. Focus groups)

Abstracts may be submitted via: http://abstracts.acs.org
Submissions will be accepted through March 28, 2010.

Please contact: Leah Solla (leah.solla@cornell.edu) or Erja Kajosalo (kajosalo@mit.edu) for more information.

Call for Posters: 2010 Conference

All Sciences Poster Session - June 15, 2010 (Tuesday) - SLA Conference, New Orleans

SESSION CO-SPONSORS:
Biomedical & Life Sciences, Chemistry, Engineering, Food Agriculture and Nutrition, Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics, and Science-Technology Divisions, Special Libraries Association

CALL FOR POSTERS:
Is your library or knowledge center engaged in a new or innovative project that builds on a new strategic alignment, develops or adapts a novel operational model to reframe services, or synthesizes creative approaches to achieve scientific information or visual fluency in your group or organization?

Please consider sharing the results of your efforts at the upcoming All-Sciences Poster Session on Tuesday, June 15, 2010, at the Annual SLA Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. We are looking for poster submissions that explore any of these themes [more information about these poster themes are at the end of this post].:

• New Strategic Alignments
• Survival and Success Beyond an Economic Recession
• Information Literacy, User Instruction and E-Learning in the Sciences During and Beyond an Economic Recession: New Methods, New Participants, New Tools

Your poster presentation could help your colleagues immeasurably as we all seek to cultivate or enhance scientists' knowledge management skills and to demonstrate the value of our services to our parent organizations or potential clients. The poster session provides an informal and lively venue for sharing your innovative ideas on an important topic.

ELIGIBILITY:
Any SLA member is welcome to submit an abstract. In the event that a greater number of submissions are received than can be accommodated, members of the sponsoring science divisions will be given first preference.

GUIDELINES and LAYOUT:
Guidelines for materials and layout of poster presentations are available on the SLA Chemistry Division website at http://www.sla.org/division/dche/poster.html.

SUBMISSION of ABSTRACT:

• DEADLINE is March 15, 2010
• Please submit your name, institution, email address, poster title, and description (250 words or less) by email to Bill Armstrong at notwwa@lsu.edu
  

NOTIFICATION of ACCEPTANCE:
All applicants will be notified re: poster proposal acceptance on or before April 1, 2010.

QUESTIONS:
Contact Bill Armstrong (notwwa@lsu.edu) and/or Irene Laursen (irenelaursen@ymail.com)

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POSTER THEMES

1. NEW STRATEGIC ALIGNMENTS
In the currently recovering global economy, new cooperative arrangements are emerging to help our parent organizations or our core units--libraries, information centers, knowledge bases--adjust to rapidly evolving economic conditions. These developments may include new consortial initiatives, redesign of specific sectors of the workforce, outreach to new constituencies, innovative alliances between academe and the for-profit sector, or other collaborative scientific ventures. Come share pivotal steps of the process, changes in responsibilities or reporting relationships, and lessons learned from the success or failure of these ventures in the sciences.

2. SURVIVAL AND SUCCESS BEYOND AN ECONOMIC RECESSION
How do we promote, preserve, and redesign our research and analytical services in 2010 and beyond ? Let's look at how new operational models (scientific, technical, engineering, and medical e-book vendors, formal and informal modes of scientific communication, intergovernmental initiatives) are evolving, what we can do to improve them, and projections for academe, business, and industry in the scientific environment.

3. INFORMATION LITERACY, USER INSTRUCTION, AND E-LEARNING IN THE SCIENCES DURING AND BEYOND THE RECESSION: NEW METHODS, NEW PARTICIPANTS, NEW TOOLS

a. New tools and techniques for the interdisciplinary scientific information professional dealing with electronic management of citations, data, structures, graphical analysis, mapping, and/or presentations. Including innovative uses of social networking applications.

b. Electronic demos, tutorials, games in the sciences
Who produces them (publisher, in-house development) Who uses them? How are they funded, developed, publicized, marketed, and evaluated? What is their useful lifetime?

c. Scientific Information Fluency
What successes or failures have you encountered in teaching patrons – faculty, students, researchers, etc. – new ways of handling information in an all-electronic workflow, from the literature search to the discovery and publication process?