Dr. Joanne Gard Marshall, alumni distinguished professor at the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been awarded the Medical Library Association's (MLA) Donald A. B. Lindberg Research Fellowship. Connie Schardt, current president of MLA, adjunct instructor at SILS and associate director for Public Services at the Duke University Medical Center Library, received an MLA Fellowship from the Association.
"It is a great honor to receive the Lindberg Fellowship to support the replication of my earlier research on the value and impact of hospital libraries on clinical care," said Marshall. "This is a great example of community-based collaborative research in which practitioners and researchers are working together to answer important research questions in the field. It is also an example of the important role that professional associations can play in supporting research."
The Lindberg funds will be used to augment a $144,000 grant that Marshall received from the National Library of Medicine to replicate her earlier research conducted in the Rochester, NY area. Changes that have occurred in health sciences library and information services since the original research was done have spurred this new investigation of the value and impact of new modes of accessing evidence-based information to support patient care.
The Lindberg Fellowship provides for a $9,945 grant that funds "research aimed at expanding the research knowledgebase, linking the information services provided by librarians to improved health care and advances in biomedical research."
Schardt has been actively involved with the Medical Library Association for the past 25 years. She currently is president of MLA and has served on the MLANET Task Force, chairing the MLANET editor search committee in 1998 and in 2006-2007, on the 1988 MLA Nominating Committee and on the 1998 National Program Committee. From 2002-2005 she was chair of the CORE [Center on Research and Education] Task Force that developed the CORE Toolkit, MLA's Web repository for educational and research materials. She also served a three-year term on the MLA Board of Directors.
In addition to her involvement with the MLA, Schardt created and teaches the online "Evidence Based Medicine for Medical Librarians" course at SILS. The course is available to SILS students and MLA members who want to take the course for continuing education credit. The course offers an opportunity for SILS students to learn alongside librarians and health professionals from all over the world. It has reached a global audience with students enrolled from Iceland, the United Kingdom, Egypt, India, Australia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Singapore, Canada as well as the US.
The Association will recognize Marshall and Schardt during the MLA Conference Awards Ceremony and luncheon held this year in Washington, D.C.
Marshall JG. The impact of the hospital library on clinical decision making: The Rochester study. Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 1992 Apr; 80 (2): 169-78.
