Wrapping up with Woods Hole

October 4th, 2005 Stewart Posted in Uncategorized |

I fell way behind in my postings from Woods Hole, mostly because the days there are so activity-enriched that there is little time for much of anything else. If I wasn’t in a class or evening workshop, I was working on the group project or networking with other attendees.

The entire experience is hard to describe. Gary Byrd, my director, asked me if I learned much new material beyond the coursework I’ve completed toward my advanced certification in medical and health informatics. While there was some new material, in fairness, much of the coursework was review for me, not too surprising when you consider that Woods Hole is meant to be a survey course.

The idea of “change agency” has really stuck with me, though, and in many ways the course is designed perfectly to engage those kinds of thought processes. While I sat through the PubMed session, which was mostly review, I cobbled together an idea for an RSS newsfeed of recent UB-published articles to be posted to our homepage. While learning the specifics of database-to-Web projects, I mapped out a plan for creating a CiteULike-style product for our library. The course helped me immensely with ideas and tools to help me craft better support products for my library. A newly-discovered colleague and I are planning on writing up the experience for one of our library association journals; I wonder if we could survey the rest of the participants for ideas that came to them as change agents for their own institutions.

Of course, that kind of social networking was just as important. I met library peers from several institutions, but I also made friends with genetic researchers, physicians, pharmacists, and other practitioners, and these are friendships I hope to continue for years to come. Another course participant commented on how our outings to Captain Kidd reminded him of his freshman year in college; there might be even more to it than that. I remember what it felt like when I was a college freshman, how there were no real limits on what I could do and how it felt like the whole world was there just for me to explore. That feeling resurfaced at Woods Hole and I brought it home with me.

This week, I’m wrapping up some minor projects at UB HSL that have been hanging over my head so that I can begin working on all the other ideas that came to me during the NLM course. But for now, the most important thing I can do is to encourage others, in the strongest possible terms, to apply for next year’s course.