Tag Archives: 2024-2025

For your reading pleasure: CAHSLA Chronicle, June 2025 No. 16

Chronicle,

Please enjoy the latest issue of the CAHSLA Chronicle. A big thank you to Jim DaMico for serving as Chronicle editor over the past year! As Jim transitions to CAHSLA Vice-President, Emily will continue on as Chronicle editor. Please don’t hesitate to send news, updates, or articles on projects, presentations, etc. for inclusion in the Chronicle to Emily at any time throughout the year.

In this issue:

President’s Page, Secretary and Treasurer Reports
Call for Volunteers
Notes from the 2025 MLA Conference

Read the full issue

President’s Page

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Hello CAHSLA!

It is hard to believe I’m nearing the end of my term as CAHSLA President. In August the role will officially be passed to Matthew Cooper, who already has some fun ideas for next year that I am very much looking forward to. I want to especially thank Vice President Matthew Cooper, Secretary Karen Whyte, and Treasurer Emily Kean, I could not have done it without their support! And, a big thank you to Jim DaMico and Emily Kean for editing the CAHSLA Chronicle. 

We had a great time at the picnic on June 4th, despite the cicada cacophony. We had an interesting discussion about movies and music, in particular the “saxophone guy” from The Lost Boys (real name: Tim Cappello, and he has had a fascinating career). We also debated whether Snappy Cicada Pizza was ever actually a thing – I was so sure it was, like many kids who were around for the cicadas in 1987 in Cincinnati, I can still sing the jingle – but after some googling, I believe Matthew was correct: Snappy Tomato Pizza fooled us, there never was cicada pizza. Six-year-old me is very sad at this news – maybe 2033 will be our year when Brood X returns. 

My summer continues to be jam packed with work! I’ll be finishing up a Health Literacy project this month that I have been working on in support of the new FLEX ICU at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, and I’d love to share that work with CAHSLA when it is complete. Working with a few UC colleagues, we are also wrapping up a bibliometric analysis of systematic reviews authored by faculty members from UC, which is fascinating work CAHSLA members may find interesting as well. I promise I will also be carving out some time to take a break and enjoy the fleeting summer, and I hope you are all able to do the same.

Thank you all again for your support, and I hope you have a great summer!

Lynn Warner, CAHSLA President

Secretary’s Report

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CAHSLA Business Meeting – 4/16/25, 5:45pm

Weavers Guild of Greater Cincinnati/Weavers Guild Fiber Arts Center

In attendance:

Lynn Warner, UC

Sharon Purtee, UC

Jennifer Bennett Jones, UC

Edith Starbuck, UC (Retired)

Matthew Cooper, Cincinnati Children’s

Jim DaMico, Cincinnati Children’s

Rachel French, Cincinnati Children’s

Lauren Darpel, Cincinnati Children’s

Karen Whyte, Cincinnati Children’s

Emily Kean

Jennifer Pettigrew, Christ Hospital

Amy Koshoffer, UC

Aja McCarthy, UC

Christine Jankowski – Lloyd Library

Akram Pari, UC (Retired)

Rachel Rembold, UC

Devhra BennettJones, UC

Weavers Guild president Amber Ostaszewsk gave attendees a fantastic tour of the Fiber Arts Center. We learned about the history of the building and the guild, as well as viewed spinning wheels and looms used for classes. Thank you to Jennifer Pettigrew for arranging our visit!

After the tour, there was a brief business meeting. Lynn Warner welcomed members and reminded the group that elections are coming up. Members who would like to run for board positions should contact Lynn. Nominations will go out soon. 

Thank you for Jim and Emily for sending out the latest Chronicle. 

Jim is presenting at the LAMPHHS conference in Boston about the history walk that was launched at Cincinnati Children’s last fall. Lynn proposed that we do the history walk as a group at some point.

Christine invited the group to Lloyd Library’s exhibition opening event on April 25. The exhibition, titled “The Enduring Impact of the African Plant Diaspora” runs until July 25. More information can be found here:https://lloydlibrary.org/exhibits/

There was a final UC Respect committee meeting on Friday, April 18, where they will be showing a film on race and racism in Cincinnati.

Our tour guide, Amber, also let us know that Renee Fleming will be doing a panel talk and Q&A at Music Hall on May 20. More information can be found here: https://mayfestival.com/concerts-and-events/buy-tickets/2025-season/music-and-mind-conversation-with-renee-fleming/

The meeting was adjourned and members enjoyed dinner together.

Submitted by Karen Whyte, Secretary

Annual Summer Picnic – 6/4/2025, 4:30 PM

The annual CAHSLA summer picnic was held at French Park. A main course of fried chicken was supplied by CAHSLA, with members contributing several delicious side dishes, drinks, and some truly addictive cookies.

Although attendance was sparse, the conversation was lively and mostly focused around music, namely a saxophone player from some movie I’ve never seen.

Outgoing President Lynn Warner was presented with a hand-made card and gift card for her service.

As incoming CAHSLA President, Matthew Cooper noted, “…let’s celebrate the season in all its contradictions. Let the sun warm your fears, let the winds carry them away. And if you see a flower with teeth… just back away slowly.”

Attendees:
Matthew Cooper
Jim DaMico
Alex Herrlein
Emily Kean
Amy Koshoffer
Lynn Warner

Respectfully submitted by Emily Kean

Treasurer’s Report

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2025-06-10 CAHSLA Treasurer Report

CHECKING BALANCEas of 3/18/2025: $2,006.29
CHECKING DEPOSITS  
CHECKING DEPOSIT TOTALS  
CHECKING WITHDRAWALSWeavers Guild (Rental/Donation)$100.00
President Gifts (24 & 25)$100.00
Summer Picnic Reimbursement$50.00
CHECKING WITHDRAWAL TOTALS $0.00
CHECKING BALANCEas of 06/10/2025:$1,756.29
CASH BALANCEas of 3/18/2025$210.00
CASH DEPOSITS $0.00
CASH WITHDRAWALSBusiness Meeting Food ($126)$85.00
CASH BALANCEas of 06/10/2025:$125.00
TOTAL ASSETSas of 06/10/2025:$1,881.29

MEMBERS

15 Regular (Paid)

0 Student (Paid)

13 Life Members

28 TOTAL

Respectfully submitted by Emily Kean, Treasurer

Call for Volunteers

Chronicle, News You Can Use,

Program Committee

Looking for ways to get more involved with CAHSLA? Need service for RPT or AHIP? The CAHSLA Program Committee is a great way to get involved and contribute to the group whether you are a new or long-standing member.

Bylaws/Procedure Review Committee

Love bylaws? What about procedures? Then this is the committee for you! We are overdue to review and recertify our bylaws and procedures. This would be a great opportunity for a new member to learn more about the CAHSLA structure without running for Exec Committee.

If you are interested in either opportunity, please contact Matthew Cooper at Children’s or Emily Kean.

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

For your reading pleasure: CAHSLA Chronicle, March 2025 No. 167

Chronicle,

Please enjoy the latest issue of the CAHSLA Chronicle. Please don’t hesitate to send news, updates, or articles on projects, presentations, etc. for inclusion in the Chronicle to Jim or Emily at any time throughout the year.

In this issue:

President’s Page, Secretary and Treasurer Reports
RSVP now open – CAHSLA Annual Business Meeting
Pharmacognosy and Farnsworth – a Project Update from the Lloyd Library
Medical Illustration & Comics to Graphic Medicine Display at University of Cincinnati

Read the full issue

President’s Page

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Hello CAHSLA! I hope you have all been enjoying the warmer weather we’ve had lately. It’s been wonderful to get out of the office and see the sun for bit. 

We had a great time at our February outing, touring the UC Surgical Theatre and the new Anatomy Learning Lab at UC’s Health Science Library. If you missed it and are interested in seeing the Anatomy Learning Lab, please let me know – I’d be happy to show it off. The library has been full of students in the Lab recently, using the plastinates to study, which is great to see.

I have been busy doing the usual health sciences librarian stuff – instruction sessions, answering lots of reference questions, and assisting on evidence synthesis projects, among many other things. It’s been hectic but so much fun. I hope everyone’s 2025 is also off to a great start – I’m looking forward to our next CAHSLA meeting and catching up on what everyone is working on. (And big thank you to Jennifer Pettigrew for organizing our next meeting!) 

Lynn Warner, CAHSLA President 

Secretary’s Report

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February Workshop Meeting

Wednesday, February 20, 2025, 5:30pm

In attendance: Matthew Cooper, Cincinnati Children’s; Emily Kean, Unaffiliated; Jim DaMico, Cincinnati Children’s; Lauren Darpel, Cincinnati Children’s; Christine Jankowski, Lloyd LIbrary; Jennifer Pettigrew, The Christ Hospital; Lynn Warner, University of Cincinnati; Karen Whyte,  Cincinnati Children’s

CAHSLA members toured the historic Surgical Amphitheater at University of Cincinnati’s Surgical Department. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, surgical amphitheaters played an important role in teaching new surgeons. Christian R. Holmes set out in 1915 to create a medical center in Cincinnati based on the Johns Hopkins University teaching hospital model. As a result of Holme’s work, the Cincinnati General Hospital was opened, including the surgical amphitheater we toured. 

It was restored and rededicated in August 2005 after a 5-year project to repair the original skylight, update audio-visual equipment, and add new seating and windows, in addition to other upgrades. 

As of 2025, the amphitheater serves as a non-surgical classroom, conference, and meeting space and hosts visitors from around the country.

After a tour of the amphitheater, members traveled over to the Health Science Library to view and discuss the new plastinated body specimens in the recently opened Anatomy Learning Lab. The current collection features 10 specimens including torsos, kidneys, hands, and other body systems. The Anatomy Learning Lab is located on the E level of the library and open to students and faculty during library hours. Thank you, Lynn, for hosting us and providing fascinating information about the new specimen collection!

After a brief discussion of holding our next meeting at the newly renovated Mercantile Library, the meeting adjourned.

Respectfully submitted, Karen Whyte 

RSVP now open – CAHSLA Annual Business Meeting

Chronicle, Events,

We hope you are able to join us for the April CAHSLA Business Meeting on Wednesday, April 16th as we tour the Weavers Guild of Greater Cincinnati, eat dinner, and then hold a business meeting.

RSVP:   https://forms.gle/HXuoJxGgsMiHHQ5h8

Location:

Weavers Guild of Greater Cincinnati

4870 Gray Rd., Cincinnati, OH 45232

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZaoTpvJbRAnnD2nu9

Date:   Wednesday, April 16th

Time:   5:30-7:30pm

Details:

  • Arrive between 5:30pm and 5:45pm
  • 5:45pm estimated tour start time
  • Park in the parking lot behind the Weavers Guild of Greater Cincinnati (also called the Weavers Guild Fiber Arts Center)
  • We will be meeting Weaver’s Guild President, Amber Ostaszewski, who will give us a tour of the Fiber Arts Center. The tour will be on 2 floors (Stairs Only)
  • Dinner provided by CAHLSA following the tour
  • Business Meeting following dinner