Category Archives: CAHSLA Colleagues

Notes from the 2025 MLA Conference

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Held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from April 30 – May 2, the annual Medical Library Association conference was great as always, despite having to make some last mintue pivots due to travel restrictions for employees of the NIH. One major pivot was having to find a replacement for our chosen main speaker. The planning committee asked a group of medical students from StreetMedicine@Pitt to fill in, and they shared their experiences about the “student-run interdisciplinary organization that strives to bring healthcare and social support to the rough-sleeping and unhoused community in Pittsburgh.” Hearing the students describe the Street Medicine team was very inspiring as they shared stories about the rounds they make every Wednesday and the connections they make with the community. 

From the sessions I chose to attend, three major themes emerged: systematic review services and support; AI impact and ethical concerns; and inclusive hiring practices and onboarding. One interesting place two of the themes overlapped was in a paper session called “Anything You Can Do, AI Can Do Better… or Can It? Comparing ChatGPT’s Search Strategy Outputs with Cochrane Review Searches” presented by a group of librarians from UNC Chapel Hill. The librarians studied ChatGPT’s current capabilities to produce comprehensive searches for systematic reviews. They compared human created searches to GenAI produced searches, using nine published Cochrane reviews for the comparisons. They did find a few pros but many cons to using ChatGPT to produce comprehensive searches. The pros: it was a bit of a time saver, and there were very few errors with syntax and logic. Cons included: fake MeSH terms, duplicative and lengthy keyword search phrases, lower recall than human searches, inability to reliably access and replicate validated filters, and high variability of results based on models and prompts. Their research confirms what I have seen using GenAI in research – it can be helpful to give broad outlines or to get started on a project, but human intervention is still necessary. The full slide presentation is available online. 

Many sessions surrounding AI were focused on (or at least touched on) ethical issues and environmental impact of Generative AI. It was clear that many librarians are very concerned about the use of AI. One librarian, calling herself A Librarian Against AI, shared a zine she created that covers many of these issues. In a separate presentation, one librarian gave tips to help mitigate the environmental impact of AI use, such as: utilizing AI tools to fit the task, like pre-trained small models for simpler tasks; using efficient prompting; and avoiding generating unnecessary images. This one especially hit me – I learned that image generation uses three times the energy of a GenAI text inference, which already requires a lot of energy. 

I truly enjoy attending the annual MLA conference, this was the third year I’ve gone. I learn so much as a health sciences librarian and have fun networking. Finding people who also nerd out about systematic reviews is always a great time. And, I like to treat myself to local food. If you are in Pittsburgh in the near future, I highly recommend Bar Marco. MLA 2026 will be in Milwaukee, and I’ll certainly be attending!

Submitted by Lynn Warner, University of Cincinnati

Pharmacognosy and Farnsworth – a Project Update from the Lloyd Library

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Greetings from the Lloyd Library & Museum! This is Christine Jankowski, Archivist and Records Coordinator, reporting on an ongoing project that interns and I have been working on. The project is part of the never-ending processing of the Norman R. Farnsworth Papers and his work in the field of pharmacognosy. Pharmacognosy is a branch of pharmacology concerned with the physical characteristics and natural sources of medicine (per Steadman’s Concise Medical Dictionary) and Farnsworth was a renowned pharmacognosist who taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) during the 1970s and was involved with the American Society of Pharmacognosy (ASP) until his death in 2011.

One project Farnsworth was deeply involved with of was NAPRAlert or NAtural PRoduct Alert. It was an online database of natural products, ethnomedicine, pharmacology, and botany. Its sources include ethnomedical information, pharmacological/biochemical information of extracts of organisms, case reports, clinical and non-clinical studies. Farnsworth first began work on NAPRAlert when he was assigned to the Botanical Codex Committee of the ASP. This research was based on work by Dr. Eldin V. Lynn, who compiled monographs on the phytochemical components of various botanicals. Farnsworth served as an editor for some of Lynn’s publications and from 1975-1980, Farnsworth amassed hundreds and thousands of research articles, papers, and book chapters. Some of these were then organized into Volume 8 of Lynn’s Index, but the remaining lead to the creation of NAPRAlert. 

The database amassed over 200,000 articles and scientific papers. With the bulk dates from 1975-2005, there are far older articles that were photocopied out of books – some dating to the 1800s! Users included graduate and doctoral students at UIC and members of the ASP. Eventually, online access to this research had a paywall attached to it. Unfortunately, due to lack of resources, the database went offline around 2020. Due to budget and the frequency of papers released online, they estimated they only had 20% of all published papers fitting NAPRAlerts criteria from 2005-2020.

Although NAPRAlert.org is offline, the physical articles still live on in the basement of the Lloyd. Well over 100 double banker boxes house the thousands of physical copies of the articles, each with its own unique identifiable code written on them and a bonus of occasional notes made by Farnsworth or his students or peers. Some of the original IBM cards used to identify each article remain in the collection too! Aside from Farnsworth’s book collection, this was the largest portion of his papers that remained to be processed. Because of NAPRAlert’s offline status, some unique research requests we’ve received, and the need to rehouse all these papers, I had a crazy idea: recreate NAPRAlert for our researchers. 

Organizing thousands of articles at essentially item level is an outstanding task to perform. Thankfully, I’ve had a number of interns to keep the project moving. They continually review and rehouse the paper materials of the Farnsworth collection. I always hope for the day that everything Farnsworth is organized and processed and properly ready for researchers because it all has been, admittedly, chaos. I know that this is a slight setback. However, I believe that this will be a tool essential for remote researchers and members of the ASP and will be a huge payoff by ultimately garnering more interest in the Farnsworth papers.


Farnsworth speaking at the ASP Annual Meeting, 2006. From the American Society of Pharmacognosy Records, courtesy of the Lloyd Library and Museum, Cincinnati.

Examples of the double banker boxes in the Lloyd archives, c.2012. From the American Society of Pharmacognosy Records, courtesy of the Lloyd Library and Museum, Cincinnati.


An example of some of the papers being rehoused in the NAPRAlert series of the Norman R. Farnsworth Papers. Note its identifying number in the bottom right margin. From the American Society of Pharmacognosy Records, courtesy of the Lloyd Library and Museum, Cincinnati.

Medical Illustration & Comics to Graphic Medicine Display at University of Cincinnati

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We also have a new display put together by librarian Melissa Previtera: From Medical Illustration & Comics to Graphic Medicine, which highlights our new collection of Graphic Medicine books and medical illustration through the years. Stop by and check it out, and there is even a creation station where you make your own graphic medicine comic! 

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital – Preserving Our Collections

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In November 2024, Cincinnati Children’s Mitchell-Nelson History Library, Archives and Museum (MNHLAM) had much needed UV film applied on the library windows. 

The MNHLAM is in the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation and Clinic Building’s original Research Foundation Library, that opened in 1931 and is the last of the original Burnet campus. The building and the foundation exist due to the generous donation from William Cooper Procter who announced on January 4th, 1928 a $2.5 million gift to construct and endow the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation. 

Fun fact: Louise Sias, who received library training at the University of Wisconsin in 1915-1916 became the first librarian in the late 1930’s after working at the Henry Ford Hospital library. Sias worked at CCHMC for 30 years, building the library from scratch.

While long term damage from the sun’s UV rays have done considerable damage to the bindings of our early patient histoires, the goal of the UV film is to slow the deterioration of all the artifacts and bound volumes currently stored in the space. 

Funding for the UV film was generously provided by the Co-operative Society, the Hospital’s oldest philanthropic organization. The Co-operative Society, founded in January 1884, has given more than $14 million to various programs at the medical center, including the Mayerson Center for Safe and Healthy Children, the International Adoption Center and our Pediatric Primary Care Clinics. Additionally, members give generously of their time. They volunteer in an on-site sewing room where dedicated stitchers create children’s clothing, blankets and quilts for beds and cribs, toys for use by the Division of Child Life, soft helmets for patients with neurological disorders and teaching tools used by the nursing staff. They also brighten the medical center by decorating lobbies and public spaces for the holidays.

To prepare for the installation, I had to move all artifacts including some small bookcases, away from the windows. One snag that I ran into was moving a large, wheeled rack of hemofiltration equipment. The rubber on the wheels had deteriorated (it had been sitting in the sun since 2012!) to the point of breaking off in chunks so our Facilities team had to use a pallet jack to move it. Luckily, they will be able to replace the wheels when time permits. Once everything was moved, Environmental Services came in to clean the windows and window coverings and vacuum the sills. The next day, the vendor came to apply the UV film on all 15 window coverings. Another snag that happened is with the largest pane that was actually plexiglass which required a different type of substrate that the crew didn’t have. Thankfully, the material arrived and it was successfully applied. The next day Facilities came back to reinstall the covers and I put the room back together. In all, it took five days to complete the project. 

Exterior of the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation and Clinic Building, 2013
Close-up of deterioration of wheel
Window before cleaning and UV film application
Patient histories showing direct UV damage to the bindings of the volumes
Plexiglass covers removed from the original windows to prepare for cleaning
Environmental Services team cleaning windows and window covers
Plexiglass cover being cleaned
Plexiglass cover with UV film applied
Treated windows
Hemofiltration equipment rack. The wheels had deteriorated to the point where a pallet jack was needed to move it away from the window

By Jim DaMico, Archivist, Cincinnati Children’s

Cincinnati Children’s History Walk 

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The Cincinnati Children’s History Walk for the Burnet Campus launched on October 10, 2024, bringing to life decades of work of thousands of employees who have positioned us to be the leader in child health.

Laura Werts, Pratt Library director, was inspired after learning about the Boston Children’s Hospital History Trail from their archivist in 2019. Laura brought the idea to the History Committee and Kevin Proffitt, Archivist at the time began research into developing a history walk here.  

As the first full time Archivist, I was able to devote more time to planning and outreach across multiple departments to ensure a successful outcome. 

Over 20 employees were involved, and they came from Design-Construction-Space Management, Marketing and Communications, Creative Services, Language Access Services.  

Early on, we also aimed to make the experience inclusive–in line with our DEI commitment. We engaged Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Employee Resource Groups, Family Relations and the Family Advisory Council to make it accessible to those with mobility challenges and available in the three languages–English, Spanish and Arabic.  

The walk features 14 stops for employees. You can download a PDF of the map in the three languages from History Walk. It is also printed in English and available at the Welcome Desks and Family Resource Center. You can begin the walk at any point but if you want to follow the map route, it starts at Seacrest Studio in Location D.  

Each marker has a QR code which takes you to the stop on the History Walk website. You have the option to listen to narration in English, Spanish and Arabic. Maps in all three languages are available as PDF’s. 

For more information about the Cincinnati Children’s Archives, please visit our website.

Jim DaMico, Cincinnati Children’s Archivist leading a tour group
Rotary Polio Plus Sculpture
Ronald McDonald House
Entrance to The Children’s Hospital Research Foundation and Clinic Building

Submitted By: Jim DaMico, Archivist, Cincinnati Children’s

CAHSLA Colleagues

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