Facilitating Collaboration and Research in Sex and Gender Differences and Women's Health: Year One Experiences

Abstract

Librarians at the University of Florida Health Science Center Libraries partnered with faculty to promote awareness of and access to research on women's health and sex and gender resources in an outreach project funded by the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health Office of Research on Women's Health. The project featured elements that facilitated cross-disciplinary collaboration (using CoLAB Planning Series®, or CoLABs), instruction to various groups (including faculty, undergraduate students, graduate students, and professional students), collection development, and information dissemination. Librarians leveraged existing partnerships with faculty and built new ones. Success in this project demonstrates that libraries can partner effectively with their faculty on emerging trends and new initiatives.

KEYWORDS:

• Collaboration
• gender differences in health
• health sciences libraries
• outreach
• sex differences in health
• women's health

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank Linda C. Butson, Consumer Health & Community Outreach Librarian, for her invaluable assistance in writing the proposal and designing and implementing the project. We would also like to thank Bess de Farber, Grants Manager, Smathers Libraries, for developing and facilitating the CoLAB series and working with us to incorporate CoLABs into the project, and Christine Fruin, Scholarly Communications Librarian, for assisting with the open access publishing fund and allowing us to use and modify policies developed for the general fund.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mary E. Edwards

Mary E. Edwards, MLIS, EdD, AHIP ([email protected]) is Distance Education & Liaison Librarian, Biomedical and Health Information Services; Hannah F. Norton, MSIS, AHIP ([email protected]) is Reference & Liaison Librarian, Biomedical and Health Information Services;

Hannah F. Norton

Nancy Schaefer, MLIS, MA, AHIP ([email protected]) is Reference & Liaison Librarian, Biomedical and Health Information Services; all at University of Florida Health Science Center Libraries, P.O. Box 100206, Gainesville, FL 32610-0206.

Nancy Schaefer

Michele R. Tennant, PhD, MLIS, AHIP ([email protected]) is Assistant Director, University of Florida Health Science Center Libraries, P.O. Box 100206, Gainesville, FL 32610-0206; and Bioinformatics Librarian, University of Florida Genetics Institute, P.O. Box 103610, Gainesville, FL 32610-3610.