Meeting with Publicity and Reference (Continue from July 14, 2009)

Today I met with Lynn who does reference, marketing, publications, publicity, and statistics. In reference she helps people get resources that they might need. In marketing she offers exhibits and events so that the medical library can be seen from other people. In publications, she's done announcements about the library in the Yale Medical Bulletin. For publicity, she makes sure events are announced in the newspapers, on the Yale website, etc. again so that other people get the opportunity to find out and see more about the medical library. For statistics, she keeps track of questions asked at the information desk, in the Liaison program, in the Library Chat-IM, and with the texting. The statistics are recorded every 2 days a month, to where people put all the information about how many questions came to them, in a web form, the information is then calculated and put in statistic form. Lynn is also a Liaison for pediatrics and dermatology and is a personal librarian to a group of Yale medical students. She balances the time to achieve her work by each day, when possible, taking one topic and working on it all day. Like for instant one day she might spend the day doing statistics but the next she might do publications. What makes her job challenging is that some days she might be busy all day in meetings and only get about an hour in her office to work. Throughout her 27 years of working at the medical library other programs that she has been a part of are Consumer Health, Yale Health Plan, and with the New Haven free public library promoting health by buying computers, books, creating a website, so that people have more access to learning about healthy living. She also been a part of programs with the Yale school of nursing. What Lynn enjoys about her job is the aspect of helping at the information desk and finding resources that can teach and help others. Some future goals that she has are to learn ballroom dancing and to reach a higher level in her career, she's currently at a 3 but hopes to soon be at 4, through a promotion package. Some things that have changed during her time at the medical library that I found interesting was that in the 1990s the physical library changed, when she 1st came to the library in the 1980s no computers were around, that the 1st computer the library had was more like a typewriter, that there was only one computer for the whole staff, and that over the years the staff members have changed.