Michelle Kraft, AHIP, is well known throughout this profession through her social media participation, technology prowess, and spirit of cooperation. Michelle is always happy to share her knowledge and to encourage people to leave their comfort zones and embrace a new technology. Her knowledge and leadership skills are clearly recognized by her coworkers and others in the profession.
Michelle is a hands-on, working hospital librarian in a large hospital setting. She works the reference desk, performs literature searches, fixes broken links on electronic resources, and supervises the paraprofessional staff of the library. Her involvement in the daily operations of a hospital library is vital to her understanding of the medical librarian profession.
Her passion for social media and technology has made her well known to MLA members. Since 2004, Michelle has been the author of the widely read blog, the Krafty Librarian. “Krafty” shares her thoughts, insights, technology hints, and encouragement on issues in medical librarianship. She has over two thousand people following her on Twitter, and she has a professional Facebook presence. She regularly is contacted by other librarians who hope she can answer questions for them on a wide variety of topics.
In addition to writing regularly for her blog, Michelle is widely published. Her journal articles on topics such as the use of technology, wikis, electronic journals, podcasts, Second Life, mash-ups, and blogs have appeared in Medical Reference Services Quarterly, the Journal of Hospital Librarianship, National Network, and Library Journal. She has addressed the emerging roles of librarians in light of the Affordable Care Act. Her book and software reviews have been published in the Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries, the Journal of the Medical Library Association, Collection Management, iMedicalApps, the American Medical Writers Association Journal, and Technical Services Quarterly, covering topics such as blogs and Athens access. Her presentations include personal appearances and webcasts, and they focus on social media, Facebook, Twitter, and Web 2.0. She was also one of the instructors of MLA’s highly successful emerging Web 2.0 technology online class, which was taught by members of the MLA Task Force on Social Networking Software, and a webcast on e-books.
Mark E. Funk, AHIP, FMLA, MLA president in 2007/08, said he wanted MLA to introduce social media into its activities, to allow greater participation for members who could not attend the annual meeting. He set up a Task Force on Social Networking Software to guide MLA through this change. Michelle was part of this task force, which performed even better than he had hoped. Michelle participated in other MLA activities, such as the emerging 2.0 technology webinars. She has been a key player in implementing onsite meeting reporting through immediate blog posts and use of Twitter as a communication means at various meetings. Teresa L. Knott, AHIP, cochair with Michelle for the 2012 annual meeting in Seattle, reflects that she and Michelle “shared a passion for finding ways to make the meeting accessible to those unable to attend by establishing social media channels to share meeting content and by organizing a strong cohort of people to share their experience through these channels.”
Michelle served as chair of the Medical Informatics Section (MIS), was a member of the Board of Directors, and was a leader in various sections. Michelle is a member of the Academy of Health Information Professional (AHIP) at the Distinguished level.
Michelle began her career as a hospital librarian at the Cleveland Clinic main campus Alumni Library and moved on to manage the library at one of the Cleveland Clinic regional hospitals. When the opportunity presented itself, she moved back to the Alumni Library.
Michelle was a leader in transforming the Cleveland Clinic Alumni Library into a branch system that encompasses the main campus hospital library and eight Cleveland Clinic health system libraries. She is on the task force to set up library services for Cleveland Clinic’s newest hospital in Abu Dhabi, gaining valuable perspective on international library operations.
Her progressive leadership roles in MLA and other professional organizations are impressive. She has served as president-elect, president, and past-president of the Ohio Health Sciences Library Association. She served on MLA’s Task Force on Social Networking Software beginning in 2008, MLA’s 2009 Nominating Committee, and MLA’s 2009 National Program Committee. She served as past president of MIS, cochair of the 2012 National Program Committee, and member of the MLA Board of Directors. In addition, she participated in the multi-type regional library system’s Library Leadership 2000, was a member of the Library Advisory Board of the New England Journal of Medicine, and was a member of Doody Enterprises Library Board of Advisors.
Several of Michelle’s colleagues from the technology side of the library universe shared their thoughts on what to expect from a Krafty presidency. Amy Blevins, University of Iowa librarian, said, “Michelle is the kind of person who gets things done. She doesn’t rush into things, and she listens to people, but she also doesn’t hesitate to take action. She is not overly concerned with tradition and wants to see MLA move forward and thrive as an organization. Michelle will kill off a sacred cow if it’s no longer relevant to health sciences libraries.”
Heather N. Holmes, AHIP, Akron General Hospital clinical informationist, described her expectation with one word: transparency. She said, “Michelle makes a conscious effort to reveal what goes on behind the scenes in various roles within and outside of MLA. She has dedicated a section of her blog to ‘Behind the Scenes: MLA.’ She will share her successes and her failures with the spirit of encouraging other medical librarians to be the best they can be.”
Max C. Anderson, University of Illinois technology guru, said, “Michelle is on top of trends not only in regards to technology, but other areas like institutional funding and how to use social media for the biggest benefit.”
Michelle’s undergraduate degree is in English from St. Louis University. She received her master’s of library and information science from the University of Missouri–Columbia.
Michelle was a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I swimming champion in various events. She is currently taking a break from swimming competition at the master’s level until her family and professional duties allow for more pool time. (She says she would be a professional swim coach if she could make a living at it.)
As the mother of three active children, ranging from ages four to twelve, Michelle understands work-life balance. She says that her secret weapon and biggest supporter is her husband, Michael Kraft. A software programmer for a local Cleveland company, Mike shares Michelle’s love of technology.
Michelle briefly described her goals as president in terms of catharsis or a catalytic effect on moving the organization forward. She is looking forward to working with incoming MLA Executive Director Kevin Baliozian, whom she describes as “a Red Bull drink in a decaf world” and who brings a lot of energy to his new position. She envisions strategic planning updates and a stronger information technology and web presence. She would like to see a strong education curriculum focused on professional development for all medical librarians and special programs focused on the new health and medical library practitioner.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you Marlene Englander, AHIP, and Marian Simonson, AHIP, for their contributions.