Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions (RMUoHP) encourages and supports all employees to continually engage in professional development opportuniteis. This past May, RMUoHP medical librarians Karen Newmeyer and Ashley Bassett and Library Assistant Monica Benavides attended the Utah Library Association Conference at the Utah Valley Convention Center in Provo, Utah. The three-day conference brought in library professionals and staff from around Utah to participate in networking experiences, classes, workshops, and presentations related to library services and resources.
The conference offered a wide variety of breakout sessions with topics ranging from how to write and use library policies to how libraries can work with the community. Keynote speakers included Kris Boesch, the CEO and Founder of Choose People; Roger Altizer, Jr., the co-founder of the Entertainment Arts and Engineering, the Director of Digital Medicine for the Center for Medical Innovation, and the founding Director of The GApp lab (Therapeutic Games and Apps); Miguel Figueroa, employee at the Center for the Future of Libraries; and Ally Condie, international bestselling author and founder of the non-profit WriteOut Foundation.
After attending the conference, RMUoHP’s Learning Resource Center staff have big ideas that they would like to implement to improve library resources at the university. Ms. Benavides and Ms. Newmeyer left the conference wanting to plan more library events and provide interactions into experiences that will make students and faculty want to come back. The librarians also are looking to implement surveys to engage those who take advantage of the resources that the library has to offer, create a library research game to supplement library orientation, and create more of a memorable brand for the RMUoHP library.
Ms. Bassett, who currently serves as the Vice Chair and will move into the Chair role in 2019 for the Library Instruction Roundtable (LIRT), attended the LIRT meeting held during the conference, where participants presented free online resources related to library instruction. Ms. Bassett explains that “LIRT members meet monthly to discuss library instruction—what’s going on at various universities, new programs, problems and challenges, and new ideas.” LIRT is a small roundtable organization with less than ten members, mostly made up of academic librarians at various universities across the state.
Ms. Newmeyer, Ms. Bassett, and Ms. Benavides thoroughly enjoyed the conference and look forward to implementing their new ideas into RMUoHP’s current Learning Resource Center to improve the resources and services offered to students and faculty.
To learn more about the Learning Resource Center at Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions, please visit http://lrc.rm.edu/.
