Business Meeting History of the Health Sciences Section of MLA

MLA History Section Business Meeting Minutes,
Washington, DC
May 23, 2004

Attendees: Ursula Ellis, Michael Flannery, Anne Maria Frketich, Patricia Gallagher, Stephen Greenberg, Heidi Heilemann, Sara Anne Hook, Diane McKenzie, Eric Meyerhoff, Richard Nollan, Katie Oomens, Debra Scarborough, Joan Stoddard

The meeting called to order by Patricia Gallagher.

Chair's Report : Chair's Report delivered by Patricia Gallagher.

• Procedure manual was distributed. The issue of staggered terms of office was presented. After some discussion, it was decided that it would be best if all officer elections occurred on the same year. This would require the current Secretary/Treasurer to serve an additional year so as to get in sync with the rest of the terms of Chair, etc. The Secretary/Treasurer agreed. The motion to amend the procedures manual to have elections occur in the same year was offered; the motion carried unanimously.
• Pat proposed a donation to the Barbara Van Brimmer Scholarship Fund be made on behalf of the Health Sciences Section. After some discussion, the amount of $500 was presented for a vote of approval. The motion carried unanimously.
• Listserv: A list of currently subscribed members of the listserv was generated and checked against the list of current MLA members. As per our decision at the 2003 meeting (and subsequent email conversations), the listserv is limited to members of MLA (part of the reason being our own lack of confidence in the membership lists currently provided by MLA). Any non-MLA subscriber was contacted and invited to join MLA, and then removed from the list. Our next step is to continue to encourage members of the Section to sign onto the Section listserv.
• 2004-2005 elections: Suzanne Porter has agreed to chair the Nominating Committee, and Heidi Heilemann expressed willingness to serve as a member. Members of the section are encouraged to volunteer to participate, either as an officer, or on a committee.

Treasurer's Report: Treasurer's report presented by Michael Flannery covering May 2003 to May 2004.

The beginning balance was $4,157.89; the ending balance of $4,462.89 reflected two Section dues payments totaling $519.50 less a $200 payment to the Lindberg Research Fellowship program and a $14.50 check printing fee accrued when the bank account was transferred to Birmingham. The motion to approve the Treasurer's report as offered passed unanimously.

CE Report: CE Co-Chair Report presented by Steve Greenberg.

• Greenberg and Gallagher still have two courses in the registry. They taught their half-day course to the NY/NJ chapter in April.
• There has been some discussion about reviving the introduction to archival management course. Flannery is interested, as is Paul Theerman. It would be desirable to have MLA (and section!) members teaching such a course.
• Greenberg and Gallagher are negotiating with MLA to produce a new book: an introduction to the history of medicine for medical librarians. This would be an e-book - - - MLA's first.

Section Programming Report : Section Programming Report presented by Anne Marie Frketich.

• Summary of the 2004 program was presented. The Section sponsored two programs at MLA 2004 - The Power of Leadership on Sunday 5/23, co-sponsored by the Nursing and Allied Health Resources Section and Emerging Infectious and Zoonotic Diseases: The Power of Disease on Society co-sponsored by the Veterinary Medical Libraries, Health Association Libraries, International Cooperation, and Public Health/Health Administration Sections on Tuesday 5/25. The section also co-sponsored the program Power to the Patient: New Definitions of Health Literacy. The primary sponsor for the program is the Consumer and Patient Health Information Section. Other co-sponsors are the Cancer Librarians Section and Relevant Issues Sections.
• Attended the Program Planners meeting held on Saturday, May 22, and learned the theme for the 2005 MLA Meeting in San Antonio is Diversity. The dates for MLA 2005 are May 14-19
• Ursula Scott of USUHS (Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences) is the program planner for the Federal Libraries Section. She and Hope Barton, University of Iowa, Collection Development Section, would like to know if we would be interested in co-sponsoring a program on the archiving of information on the Web. She stated there is a trend in this Administration to remove material that was once available on the Web and in Document Depositories and make it inaccessible to the public. She and Barton think it is important to archive/digitize this information. Scott said there is a government mandate to have a record of all government information and there will be a notice regarding this in possibly the October issue of the Federal Register. She was thinking of an invited papers session, but it was made clear that the section will not contribute monies toward invited speaker expenses.
• Ideas for the 2005 program presented during the HHSS Business Meeting included: Re-visit program we were going to co-sponsor at this meeting that got cancelled because of not enough submissions (It was the one we were going to co-sponsor with Dental - Power of the Past to Energize the Future) and see if it will fit into next year's theme. Health Association Libraries representative suggested something with an exhibit theme. Finding Aids on the Web; Archiving Web Info or missing info from the Internet; database info. Relationship of allopathic medicine to alternative medicine - acupuncture Possible co-sponsors NAHRS, Chiropractic, Relevant Issues. Possible title - Medical Diversity: Thinking out of the Box. History of handicapped persons who went on to make significant medical contributions. Expand to include Hispanic doc, black docs, Native Americans, gender label. Possible co-sponsors Health Association/ vision science (sig)/vet med lib/ other sigs-African American Medical Libr(SIG)

Section Council Report: Section Council Report was presented by Diane McKenzie.

• Credential Committee Report, SIG marketing, and section programming were reviewed. This year sessions were limited to 4 presentations to give more time; this will also be true in 2005. Laura Osegueda from Vet Sci will lead a task force to look at a 2-year ahead planning format. Partnering with other SIGs and Sections is encouraged; next year sponsors may be listed alphabetically. Section Council has asked that there be more coordination of the daily calendar with the Section Calendar. 2004 statistics on section programming as follows: 138 papers were submitted; 59 contributed papers given; 39 invited papers given; 1 student paper; expanded to 3 poster session because of volume of submissions.
• 2005 - San Antonio Meeting, begin Sunday, May 14; theme is "Futuro Magnifico."
• Membership lists were discussed. NAHRS presented a resolution to the Board requesting changes to improve how membership lists are handled: Order for requesting a membership list will be online; online Directory will be updated more than once a year; new section members will automatically added to Section listserv; individual records online will list the sections a member belongs to MLA members will receive only one paper renewal notification plus 2 email notifications. It was suggested that the paper renewal form have in large letters: ONLY PRINT RENEWAL NOTICE. There was a discussion of the problem of how renewals are timed and the timing of both Section elections (in Feb-Mar) and of the Annual Meeting.
• Section Goals and Objectives outlined by JoAnn Marshall were diversity, advocacy, lifelong learning knowledge base and recruitment
• The issue of MLA wanting all web sites to have a similar look was expressed. The general consensus was that this not a good idea.
• Upcoming meetings:
  • o 2005 - San Antonio
  • o 2006 - Phoenix
  • o 2007 - Philadelphia
  • o 2008 - Chicago
  • o 2009 - Hawaii (maybe; co-sponsored with CHLA and Asian Medical Libraries)

Membership Committee : Membership Committee Report was by Richard Nollan.

• There was some discussion of the MLA membership database. MLA's datrabase is more current than the one on the web. It takes 3-5 days to process requests. Kate Corcoran maintains the list. Kurt Paul has left MLA. Richard raised the issue of the New Member/First Time breakfast. There were 180 at the breakfast out of 228 who could have attended. This year none of the chapter or section representatives were invited to talk. The decision was based on the large number. Allowing 180 people to introduce and talk briefly was more than enough to fill up the two hours alotted for the breakfast. Richard expressed our disappointment at not being able to at least make a short presentation or to hand out brochures. I didn't receive much support from around the table, but we may be able to send brochures using the new member list. A subcommittee will decide on what and how to forward brochures.
• The issue that we are a small section, with a fairly small number of members was also brought up. Thus we are concerned with attracting new members, and the NM/FT breakfast is one way we can do that. Someone suggested that another way would be to be sure that sections member subscribe to the listserv. Richard also brought up the possibility of affiliate membership, which the organization has (http://www.mlanet.org/joinmla/affiliat.html). It costs $80 but included joining sections.

Oral History Committee Report : Oral History Committee Report was presented by Heidi Heilemann.

The brochure is ready and was at the poster session. Recruiting for a 4-year project director's position has begun with several interviews in process. The first in a series at the Medical Library Center of NY is beginning; they are looking for volunteers to do interviews.

Incipit Report: Incipit Report was presented by Richard Nollan.

The issue is being put together now and will go out after the management meeting minutes are ready. A PDF version on the web was suggested, which met with general approval.

There was some discussion over programming ideas for the San Antonio meeting in '05. Also, the idea of some professional partnerships (SLA, SAA, etc.) and MLA was expressed. This would enhance the ability of the History Section to bridge important areas of mutual interest and gain important economies of scale to the benefit of all organizations involved. Diane McKenzie and Richard Nollan agreed to explore this possibility with MLA leadership.

There being no new business, the meeting was adjourned.

Respectfully submitted,

Michael A. Flannery

Secretary/Treasurer