from the beginning...

I learned early on in my graduate studies, that I communicate in circles--twists and turns. I never tell a story or give an account in chronological order. Even now, my mind is telling me to share a poem with you that immediately popped into mind as I typed the words 'twists and turns'. ;-)

I will digress from sharing it with you now, but will post it later in the comment field of this post.

Because I know my sharing style can be jagged, I figured it would be a good idea, before I go any further in describing our progress with this mural, to describe how and why this mural idea really came to be.

As my profile says, I am a graduate student at Emporia State University. I am pursuing a masters' degree in Library and Information Science. Last Fall, or rather, last July, I began work on a practicum at KU med center through Dykes Medical Library. I wanted to focus on outreach work and the ways in which a health librarian could be of service in that regard. Because I enjoy working with young people, Pediatrics seemed like a good place to start.

Getting involved with Pediatrics was quite easy. I sat down with the head nurse of the wing, Kristine Brees, and she put me in connection with Andrea Kennedy Smith, the Child Life Specialist in her unit.

I generally went into PEDs about twice a week, I pulled in juvenile book donations from William Allen White Library in Emporia and adult books from Kansas City Missouri Public Library.

I visited with kids--played games, read books, held babies. And while my experiences were engaging and fruitful, my adviser, Candice Boardman, kept saying there has to be more... She pushed me to look deeper and try and determine what a professional outreach health librarian could do on a broader more fluid level.

I sat down with Karen Cole, the dynamic library director of Dykes Library, and we hashed out ideas. We figured maybe offering access to medical databases may be the answer and/or offering pamphlets on different services offered by the library. But Pediatrics is place of families under stress~books to read and time spent is a divine intervention~'the medicalness' if you don't mind me making up a word, is not what I believe they need... not from a librarian. What's golden is the interaction--the maintenance and sharing of literature, and quite possibly literature based programming.

I would love to see a set story-time in KU's pediatrics unit or something similar. I suppose that is still a possibility...

Realizing what I did about PEDs, made me step back a bit. I began to look at the potential of being not only a outreach source to PEDs but also to the outlining community.

ah...what about a community liaison?... the hospital sits in the community, as do the schools, and as do community centers. Why not cultivate relationships within these venues as well?

Now, generally, yes, such a role falls within the "public" library system, and Dykes is an academic library. But within this particular community, the pubic library consists of 3 locations. Because of this, I believe, it is hard not to find cracks in the amount and quality of service offered to the community. Cracks that have nothing to do with effort, but with resource and time
availability.

It's that good old quote, "it takes a village to raise a child', yes? yes.

Between the months of September and now, April, I have made subtle connections with the Rosdale Development Association, Rosedale Middle School, and the School of Social Welfare at KU. The school of social welfare for instance offers tutoring at Rosedale Middle School every Wednesday that I was able to get involved with... and then there has been a great buzz around Dykes Library on behalf of the persistent and diligent Anne Huffman, the director of Public Services, to get local kids engaged and involved in the health sciences. The stage is set to work with both Wendy Wilson of the RDA, and Donna Devine from the School of Social Welfare to offer and cultivate programming for young people of this community.

Remember the Cicades last summer? Remember how loud they were? It always made me think about the innate power that resonates when voices & people come together...
;-)



I must say that working in PEDs has been a real privilege...Andrea and another young lady Emily Hernandez ,a music specialist in PEDs, and most certainly the nurses in the unit do amazing work. I have to say, nurses make the world go 'round.