At the end of April, I attended the Medical Library Association Annual Conference in Pittsburgh, PA. As the Data Services Librarian for the Health Sciences at the University at Buffalo, the MLA conference is a great opportunity to meet with other data services librarians to exchange thoughts, ideas and information. The conference also gave data services librarians the time and space to discuss what is happening at the federal level regarding NIH grants and how we can support our patrons during this time.

Last year I was on the committee that planned the first Data Management & Services symposium at MLA’24 in Portland, OR. This year I was honored to participate in the second data symposium as a panelist for a session titled The Spectrum of Data Librarianship: Exploring Diverse Roles and Practice. The panel sparked a great conversation with attendees about the broad array of duties that are taken on by data services librarians. The data symposium also offered a session about AI and Data Literacy in which a panel of experts offered their perspectives on how AI is being used by medical providers as well as researchers. The third session of the data symposium was a hands-on workshop focused on assessing the suitability of secondary datasets for re-use. It was exciting to be able to learn this new skill from experts!

I was also grateful to be asked to be asked to teach a CE titled Supporting Researchers in Optimizing Data Collection and Management. In this hands-on session I had attendees work through the process of taking a study protocol and using it to set up a database for data collection. The focus was on optimizing the data for analysis. I really enjoyed teaching this workshop and it opened excellent conversations with the attendees. As is usually the case with these things – I believe I learned as much as the students did.

The highlight of the conference for me was the presentation given by students who participate in the Street Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh program. I learned about how they approach providing services to unhoused people in Pittsburgh and the origins of the program. For those of you who watch The Pitt – this may sound familiar, as several of the medical students on the show volunteer on the “Street Team”.

I want to thank UNYOC for their financial support in attending this conference. It is truly appreciated.

Jocelyn Swick-Jemison