Message From the President

Linda Watson, MLS, AHIP, FMLA
President, Assoc of Academic Health Science Libraries
Director, Health Sciences Libraries
University of Minnesota Twin Cities

December 31, 2007

Looking toward 2008: Based on what we heard reported by our AAHSL committees and task forces at the annual meeting, it will be another busy and productive year for AAHSL. The Board of Directors is holding its planning retreat January 10-11 in Chicago, where we will finalize our 2008 budget based on committee requests and strategic priorities. I’m suggesting the following framework for those priorities: Leadership Development; Advocacy; Partnership and Engagement; Research, Outcomes and E-Science. All supported by an infrastructure that includes our financial resources as well as our information technology platforms. More on this after the Board meeting.

Matheson-Cooper Report Anniversary: It has been 25 years since the publication of Academic Information in the Academic Health Sciences Center: Roles for the Library in Information Management by John A.D. Cooper and Nina Matheson in the October 1982 issue of the Journal of Medical Education. Michael Homan and Jim Shedlock have created a special website to commemorate the event. Take a look from the link on our AAHSL home page. We’ve shared this with Nina, who thought the site was excellent.

Advocacy: A wonderful holiday gift! On December 26th, President Bush signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2007 (H.R. 2764), which includes the provision that directs the NIH to change its existing Public Access Policy, implemented as a voluntary measure in 2005, so that participation is required for NIH-funded investigators. Researchers will now be required to deposit electronic copies of their peer-reviewed manuscripts into NLM’s PubMed Central and have them available to the public no later than 12 months after publication in a journal. This is a huge step forward for proponents of open access, and I know how hard many of you have worked to help this happen. Now we need to help our institutions comply. Also in this spending bill is a directive to the Environmental Protection Agency to reopen many of its libraries that had been closed over the past few years - another issue on which our associations have weighed in. Our collective voice matters!

Annual Statistics: Hope you all completed your 30th Edition Annual Statistics and the Salary Surveys that were due December 31st, and are working on the Descriptive Library Survey due January 15th. Thank you Gary Byrd for keeping us informed of tips and tricks in using the new input system.

Cornerstone Award Nominations: The AAHSL Board is soliciting nominations (including self-nominations) for the AAHSL Cornerstone Award. This award is given for a notable or important contribution made during the most recent four years that has assisted AAHSL in achieving its mission or had significant impact on the profession of academic health sciences librarianship. The award may be given to an individual (member or non-member), an informal or formal group working on a project or activity (committee, task force, ad working group, team, etc), or an institution (library, university, or association). The deadline for submittal is April 30, 2008. For details about criteria and how to submit a nomination, please see the AAHSL website:

http://www.aahsl.org/Applications_Awards_Scholarships/cornerstone.cfm

Member Transitions: We welcome a new director, Steward Brower, at the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa. Marianne Burke at the University of Vermont is taking a 6 month sabbatical January-June 2008; Jeanene Light will be Acting Director.

I wish everyone a happy and healthy new year!

Linda Watson, MLS, AHIP, FMLA
President, Assoc of Academic Health Science Libraries
Director, Health Sciences Libraries
University of Minnesota Twin Cities