Amigos Staffer Wins Poster Prize at SCC/MLA Conference

Congratulations go to Amigos Member Discount Services Representative Erica Owusu, whose poster at the South Central Chapter of the Medical Library Association's annual conference October 2-7 in Little Rock received the Elizabeth K. Eaton, PhD Research Award for First Place in Contributed Posters.

The poster session's title, "Children’s Hospital Library Outreach: Promoting Library Services to Children's Hospital Visitors and Evaluating Effectiveness," summarized a project Erica undertook as an intern at Children's Medical Center in Dallas, TX.

The project was an attempt to identify an underserved population that could benefit from library services offered by the hospital and promote library awareness and literacy. The population consisted of hospital patients and their visiting families in waiting rooms. The project resulted in the creation of the Library Traveler (LT) program to bring library services to patients and families, using a cart equipped with giveaway materials and supplies to assist those in the waiting areas.

A survey of respondents revealed that visiting families largely appreciated the service and became more aware of the hospital's library offerings. Also, the hospital's libraries found it a useful, low-cost, low-tech, low-maintenance service that could be assigned to library volunteers and interns to operate.

A library student at the poster session who works in pediatric nursing thought the program would be useful and wanted to share it with the youth librarian at her institution. Two journal column editors approached Erica to feature her project as an article in their magazine focused on medical librarianship. A medical librarian at a different Dallas area children's hospital requested a copy of the project to share with their family librarian.

Erica noted it was her first poster session at any conference. "I found the experience to be educational and rewarding," she said. She admits she underestimated the attention and interest the project would receive from her peers in the medical library field and was pleasantly surprised to receive the first-place award. "Overall, I'm grateful I received the opportunity to share research I completed as an intern at Children’s Medical Center."