{"id":16971,"date":"2019-08-15T11:00:03","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T15:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/?p=16971"},"modified":"2024-10-21T10:55:52","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T14:55:52","slug":"making-exhibition-connections-lamar-soutter-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/2019\/08\/15\/making-exhibition-connections-lamar-soutter-library\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Exhibition Connections: Lamar Soutter Library"},"content":{"rendered":"

Libraries, museums, and organizations throughout the United States and across the world host National Library of Medicine traveling exhibitions. These sites plan and present enriching and engaging programs to connect their communities\u00a0with the information in the exhibitions and with the wide variety of publicly-available NLM resources.\u00a0This is the fifth post in a series called \u201cMaking Exhibition Connections,\u201d which invites host venues to share their partnerships, programs, and public engagement experiences with <\/em>Circulating Now readers. Today, Victoria Rossetti, the Education & Clinical Services Librarian at the Lamar Soutter Library, University of Massachusetts Medical School, talks about hosting <\/em>Graphic Medicine: Ill-Conceived and Well-Drawn!<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Graphic<\/a>
Graphic Medicine: Ill-Conceived and Well Drawn!<\/em> on display at Lamar Soutter Library<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Circulating Now:<\/strong> Please tell us about yourself and the Lamar Soutter Library. For example, what is your job? Where are you located? Who visits your library on a regular basis?<\/p>\n

Tori Rossetti:<\/strong> My name is Tori (Victoria) Rossetti and I\u2019m an Education and Clinical Services Librarian. I work with nursing, medical, and graduate biomedical science students and faculty at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, as well as healthcare providers in the UMass Memorial Health Care system. As a liaison librarian, the main portions of my job have to do with education and instruction, but I also work on literature searches and systematic reviews with different populations in UMass. My background is in the humanities, and my undergraduate degree was in English, so I have a vested interest in humanities in medicine, and one piece of my work in that is continuing to curate the graphic medicine book collection, which was started by Matthew Noe, and working to bring the benefits of graphic medicine to the curriculum.<\/p>\n

While our library mainly serves the Medical School, our library is visited by members of the public who may be patients or family members of patients, community members looking to use our resources, as well as clinicians, students, faculty, and more. UMass Medical is also the host to the Network of the National Library of Medicine\u2019s New England Region 7 Regional Medical Library, which is tasked with outreach and education in the surrounding states of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New York, and New Hampshire.<\/p>\n

CN:<\/strong> Why did you want to host Graphic Medicine: Ill-Conceived and Well-Drawn<\/em>!?<\/p>\n

TR: <\/strong>We thought the exhibition would be a perfect fit for our space for a variety of reasons. Our graphic medicine collection is popular, and the opportunity to connect programming and education to that collection was too good to miss. Our population is very interested in the variety of ways comics can be used in medicine and research that includes narratives but also encompasses science communication, health literacy, and is also deeply interested in the ways art and self-reflection can support wellness and foster compassion. One of my colleagues is fond of saying that medical school is like a fire hose of information; in that deluge, many of our students look for things to invest themselves in that let them pursue a passion, such as art, music, writing, or reading for pleasure.<\/p>\n

Because of our connection to the NNLM\/NER, we also knew that having the exhibition here would be a good opportunity for them as well. They have an ongoing graphic medicine initiative that puts themed graphic medicine book club kits into the hands of the public in the region and supports discussions around difficult health issues like addiction, aging, and emergency preparedness. We really looked at hosting the exhibition as an opportunity to engage with groups we have and haven\u2019t worked with before, to provide our students and clinicians with wellness and educational opportunities, and to promote existing library resources.<\/p>\n

CN: <\/strong>Were you trying to connect with specific groups within your community?<\/p>\n

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Flyer for public programming at the Lamar Soutter Library<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TR: <\/strong>We were aiming to make connections to a few different groups with some of our different programming. One group was our Graduate School of Biomedical Science (GSBS) students and faculty. GSBS has different information needs and different contact points with the library because their areas of study and scholarship are so different from the School of Nursing and the School of Medicine. The geographic location of the lab spaces can also contribute to a feeling that programming done in the library is not specifically aimed at the GSBS community. With the exhibition, we saw the opportunity to invite Matteo Farinella (author of Neurocomic<\/em> and The Senses<\/em> as a guest speaker to lecture on \u201cThe Potential of Comics in Scientific Communication\u201d and to follow that with a careers chat. We were able to connect with a class where the faculty member already taught Neurocomic<\/em> as part of the curriculum and the interest grew from there, culminating in a very well attended event.<\/p>\n

The other population we targeted were our School of Medicine students and faculty, particularly those who had already demonstrated an interest in humanities in medicine. We hosted a Graphic Medicine Panel featuring Dana Walrath (Aliceheimers<\/em>), Cathy Leamy (Suzie and Ray <\/em>comics), and MK Czerwiec (Taking Turns<\/em>). The panel focused on the creation and application of graphic medicine, the aim being to offer an introduction to an audience that may not have been familiar with graphic medicine, while also offering insight into how it is used in medical education and consumer health education.<\/p>\n