Enhancing the research and publication efforts of health sciences librarians via an academic writing retreat.

Background: This case study describes the South Central Chapter of the Medical Library Association (SCC/MLA) initiative to develop an academic writing retreat for members who sought the necessary time and support to advance their research projects toward publication.

Case Presentation: SCC/MLA staged a dedicated writing retreat to coincide with the organization's 2012, 2013, and 2014 annual meetings. Each cohort met over two days to write and to workshop their peers' manuscripts.

Medical education and information literacy in the era of open access.

The Open Access movement in scholarly communications poses new issues and concerns for medical education in general and information literacy education specifically. For medical educators, Open Access can affect the availability of new information, instructional materials, and scholarship in medical education. For students, Open Access materials continue to be available to them post-graduation, regardless of affiliation.

MRSQ Informatics Education columns: past, present and future.

This is the last Informatics Education column under the current editors. The outgoing editors identify six key themes that reflect the changes in informatics education over their seven-year tenure. The themes are picked from the 29 previous columns published under their editorship.

Academic health sciences library Website navigation: an analysis of forty-one Websites and their navigation tools.

Background: The analysis included forty-one academic health sciences library (HSL) Websites as captured in the first two weeks of January 2001. Home pages and persistent navigational tools (PNTs) were analyzed for layout, technology, and links, and other general site metrics were taken.

Methods: Websites were selected based on rank in the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, with regional and resource libraries given preference on the basis that these libraries are recognized as leaders in their regions and would be the most reasonable source of standards for best practice.