Personal branding is an introspective process by which you define yourself professionally, and it can serve as your pathway to professional success. There are six steps to building your personal brand: (1) taking an introspective look, (2) understanding the brand that may already exist, (3) developing your personal brand mantra, (4) crafting your physical footprint, (5) creating your digital footprint, and (6) communicating your message. Your personal brand is a promise of value and performance, and it is necessary to meet the expectations of your audience. Effective brand management is a key component to maintaining a positive brand reputation.

This lecture discusses a philosophy of educating health information professionals in a rapidly changing health care and information environment. Education for health information professionals must be based upon a solid foundation of the changing paradigms and trends in health care and health information, as well as technological advances, to produce a well-prepared information workforce to meet the demands of health-related environments. Educational programs should begin with the core principles of library and information sciences and expand in interdisciplinary collaborations. A model of the health care environment is presented to serve as a framework for developing educational programs for health information professionals. Interdisciplinary and collaborative relationships-which merge health care, library and information sciences, and other information-related disciplines-should form the basis of education for health information professionals.

This article discusses an innovative course to educate the next generation of librarians and meet the demands of the changing health information environment

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, US public health authorities and county, state, and federal governments recommended or ordered certain preventative practices, such as wearing masks, to reduce the spread of the disease. However, individuals had divergent reactions to these preventive practices. Objective: The purpose of this study was to understand the variations in public sentiment toward COVID-19 and the recommended or ordered preventive practices from the temporal and spatial perspectives, as well as how the variations in public sentiment are related to geographical and socioeconomic factors. Methods: The authors leveraged machine learning methods to investigate public sentiment polarity in COVID-19–related tweets from January 21, 2020 to June 12, 2020. The study measured the temporal variations and spatial disparities in public sentiment toward both general COVID-19 topics and preventive practices in the United States. Results: In the temporal analysis, we found a 4-stage pattern from high negative sentiment in the initial stage to decreasing and low negative sentiment in the second and third stages, to the rebound and increase in negative sentiment in the last stage. We also identified that public sentiment to preventive practices was significantly different in urban and rural areas, while poverty rate and unemployment rate were positively associated with negative sentiment to COVID-19 issues. Conclusions: The differences between public sentiment toward COVID-19 and the preventive practices imply that actions need to be taken to manage the initial and rebound stages in future pandemics. The urban and rural differences should be considered in terms of the communication strategies and decision making during a pandemic. This research also presents a framework to investigate time-sensitive public sentiment at the county and state levels, which could guide local and state governments and regional communities in making decisions and developing policies in crises.