I’m Tobin Magle, the Biomedical Sciences Research Support Specialist at the Health Sciences Library on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. I’m so excited to be a guest writer for the Krafty Librarian as she takes on her responsibilities as MLA president.
My dirty little secret is that I don’t have a library degree: my background is in research science. I have a PhD in microbiology, and my research focused on parasites like Toxoplasma gondii and Plasmodium falciparum, the causative agent of malaria.
While working on studying these pathogens is a very worthwhile and necessary pursuit, it just wasn’t for me. I began investigating careers outside the research laboratory and came across the listing for my position at CU Anschutz, somewhat incidentally you might say.
To make a long story short, it ended up being a perfect fit. I can focus on helping others do all the very important aspects of research science that often get short changed. I honestly feel like I won the lottery. I can’t believe I’ve been working at the CU Anschutz HSL for almost a year now! Time flies when you’re having fun I guess.
I primarily focus on bioinformatics, data management and sharing, and scholarly communication (if you can call that focus). These all fall under the theme of providing research support on our campus. I aim to bring a research/informatics perspective to the blog. I hope you enjoy it!
Welcome to the “library world” Tobin! Looking forward to your posts from the bioinfo/research perspective since, being in a community hospital library, where little research is done, it is something I don’t know much about but want to!
Thanks Louisa! If there’s anything specific you want to know about, I’m open to suggestions!