 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
President’s Message #5 – March 2008
Advocacy
All NIH all the time! This has certainly been a busy month as we all work with our institutions to plan for NIH Public Access Policy implementation. You’ve seen more than a few messages from me as well as from Karen Butter and the Scholarly Communications Committee as we’ve worked together to share information we are learning from colleagues in ARL and from each other, and as we’ve developed official AAHSL communications. I hope you’ve taken a look at the updated Scholarly Communication Toolkit with its emphasis on the NIH Policy and joined the SCC Blog. http://www.usc.edu/hsc/nml/aahsl/open_access_toolkit.html. Thank you to Bill Clintworth and the SCC for their good work. If you didn’t get an invitation to the blog, please let Bill Clintworth know.
With input from the Board and from Karen, I submitted a comment on behalf of AAHSL to NIH in support of the Public Access Policy. You can see all the comments received and watch a videocast of the public comment session here: http://publicaccess.nih.gov/comments.htm. An additional comment period from March 31 – May 31 has just been announced at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-060.html . NIH will post the results and their analysis by September 30th.
AAHSL was a sponsor, along with ACRL, SPARC and the Greater Western Library Alliance of ACRL’s first OnPoint live chat on the topic of the public access policy. I was one of the conveners (it was my first use of Meebo!). The chat is archived at ACRL-Insider http://www.acrl.ala.org/acrlinsider/ (I’m not sure whether you need to be an ACRL member or not to access). Also note that our Scholarly Communication Committee is planning an Open Forum on the NIH Public Access Policy at the MLA meeting on Tuesday, May 20th from 3:30-4:30.
AAHSL/Publisher Dialog
The Joint AAHSL/Publisher Liaison Task Force co-chaired by Gail Yokote and Michael Homan has been busy planning a meeting with publishing representatives to discuss a broad range of issues important to publishers and AAHSL libraries. The Task Force was established by President Elaine Martin last year to develop a "strategy to promote direct ongoing dialog and examination of issues of joint concern and importance to AAHSL and STM publishers". A planning meeting involving publisher representatives and Task Force members will be held in Chicago at the O'Hare Hilton Hotel on May 22 at the conclusion of the MLA Annual Meeting. The meeting will explore a variety of topics of joint concern (e.g., branding, discoverability, preservation, licensing) and will address actions that could be taken to keep the AAHSL/Publisher dialog alive. This may include educational activities at existing conference venues, joint position papers, and other strategies. An invitation to a number of publisher organizations (e.g., Society for Scholarly Publishing) was sent by the Task Force to solicit participation in the May planning meeting. Thus far, the response rate has been wonderful. Other members of the Task Force include Karen Butter, Pat Thibodeau, Logan Ludwig, Jean Shipman, and Scott Plutchak.
***Award Nominations Reminder***
April 30th is the deadline for nominations for AAHSL’s two awards: the Cornerstone Award (for and individual) and the Innovation Award (for an AAHSL institution). Please review the criteria for the awards on the AAHSL website, and follow the instructions there for nomination. http://www.aahsl.org/Applications_Awards_Scholarships/index.cfm
Member Transitions
Leslie Schick has been named director of the Health Sciences Library at the University of Cincinnati.
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