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May/June 2006: Issue 130
The Jones Eye Institute
Welcomes Karen Coker
On June 1st the the Jones Eye Institute (JEI) welcomed Karen Coker as their new Research and Education Associate/Assistant Librarian. The mission of the JEI’s Library is twofold: (1) to serve faculty and residents’ academic and clinical needs and (2) to provide an historical accounting of ophthalmology in general for UAMS’s Department of Ophthalmology and JEI. The main departmental library is located on the 6th floor of JEI, while the historical artifacts and resident materials are on the 2nd floor.
Karen’s main roles in the JEI Library include organizing the library’s resources, providing information to JEI faculty and residents about both the main and the departmental libraries, assisting with literature searches, and documenting and displaying artifacts and historical accounts. Karen’s responsibilities also entail the support of faculty and resident research development.
Although Karen’s new role as the departmental librarian has been a focus since coming on board, she has also been doing extensive training at the main UAMS Library for typical literature searching.
Quality literature searches, another major undertaking for Karen in JEI’s library, require extensive online search training. While Susan Steelman and Brynn Mays, medical reference librarians, provide mediated searches, Karen is being trained for the more typical literature search. In the process of this training Karen received her first requested literature search, one for Dr. Laurie Barber’s research on ocular surface stains. Susan is training Karen while using this topic as an example and, at the same time, providing a thorough but targeted search for
Dr. Barber.
Initial library organization is focusing on the resources in the 6th floor library. Resources in the library will be assigned NLM call numbers and be searchable through the UAMS online catalog. Karen has also been learning to build and maintain the documentation and displays of a medical institution’s history, whether past or currently unfolding. Eventually, Karen will document JEI’s antiques and archives and digitize photographs and older audiovisual materials.
Other future plans include providing workshops for JEI faculty and residents. Initial topics will include online searches, interlibrary loan, and electronic document delivery; other topics will be addressed over time, depending on need. More specialized training can be provided by the UAMS Library.
Experience Brought by JEI’s New Librarian
Karen’s education and career experiences are richly varied and yet carry a theme of research methodology and analysis. She has a B.A. from Hendrix College (Physics) and a Master of Public Administration (M.P.A.) and Ph.D. (Public Administration), both from Syracuse University. One of her specializations was science and technology policy. She recently renewed her endeavors in this policy area but now also addresses general research and development (R&D) processes and the social aspects of R&D. Not surprisingly, Karen is enjoying her discovery of math and physics in the field of ophthalmology.
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Karen Coker showing her library to Amanda Saar, Kathy Ridout, and Susan Steelman |
Throughout her career, Karen has applied research methodology and statistical analysis in public policy research, public and non-profit program evaluations, maternal and child health, and clinical trials. She is looking forward to doing the same and more for JEI’s clinical researchers. Karen’s career history includes Good Clinical Practices training and experience with FDA, NIH, and CDC regulations and guidelines.