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 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 #6 –April 2008
Advocacy
On April 8th and 9th, I participated in a meeting of the Joint Legislative Task Force, and our spring visits to Capitol Hill. Other AAHSL members included Jane Blumenthal, Karen Butter, Marianne Comegys, Sandra Franklin, Michael Homan, Pat Thibodeau, Marty Thompson. This year for the first time, with the help of AAMC and Health and Medicine Council of Washington, we held a lunchtime briefing for members of congressional staff on the topic of the National Library of Medicine, and why we advocate for support. Mark Funk and I gave a presentation with screen shots and information provided by NLM staff. We used Autism as a theme to present the wide range of resources and services supported by NLM, from researcher to health professional to patient and family. We were competing with a number of other activities on the Hill, so were disappointed that we only had 8 staffers attend, but the presentation we prepared can be repurposed and used by any of you in your own environments if you want to give a general overview about NLM resources and services to your community. It will be posted shortly on MLANet. Finally, we all crowded into Representative Obey’s office to present him with MLA’s Distinguished Public Services Award.
On April 10th, Julie Sollenberger and I made our annual spring visit to AAMC and ARL, unfortunately without Elaine who had the flu. At the AAMC we met with Dave Moore (Government Relations), Valarie Clarke (Faculty Affairs), Tony Mazzaschi (CAS), Eric Wilkerson (MedEdPORTAL), Bob Sabalis (LCME) and Morgan Passiment (GIR). We had a wide ranging discussion about the outlook for NIH and NLM funding, the implementation of the NIH Public Access Policy, and AAMC’s work on conflict of interest issues. Tony is working on preliminary plans for a session at the annual meeting on the NIH Policy, geared to research deans. We told him we’d be happy to work with him on that, although he expressed some concern that this not be pegged as a “library issue”. He also told us that many of the societies (particularly those under FACEB’s umbrella) were now actively pursuing helping their members comply with the policy – including addressing their journal policies. Others continue to resist. Valarie was interested in hearing about our NLM/AAHSL Leadership Fellows program, and was quite impressed. She encouraged us to publish our experience so far (which Wayne, Elaine and Carolyn are pursuing). We learned of proposed new medical schools at some stage in the pipeline of LCME accreditation. This website: http://www.lcme.org/newschoolprocess.htm provides a good summary. Two thoughts occurred to us: potential new AAHSL members down the road, and will our LCME Information Resources standards continue to stand the test of time as the new schools look at different ways of providing library services.
At ARL, we met with Duane Webster, Jaia Barrett, Pru Adler, Karla Hahn, Jerome Offord, Martha Kryillidou, and by conference call, Neil Rambo. We talked about our complementary efforts at educating our members about E-Science (and how that relates to CTSA in some of our institutions), and in developing or recruiting staff who have background and experience necessary for us to make sustained contributions in this area. We mentioned the Informationist model. We also discussed the NIH Public Access Policy, diversity efforts, and statistics.
Regarding the NIH Public Access Policy, we discussed concerns that publishers might try to attribute any journal cancellations that libraries do because of serious state budget cuts to impact from the NIH Policy, and thinks we need to get our in front of this in how we each characterize any cuts we might make this year. Plans are in the works by ARL for another webcast in early May to discuss the latest round of public input solicited by NIH. Karen Butter and I are tracking this.
Teaching and Learning Initiatives
In February, I told you about the AAHC Affiliates meeting that Julie and I attended and the consideration of a proposal from AMIA concerning informatics curricula and competencies. A Steering Committee is now being formed to explore these issues, with AMIA taking the lead, and we have asked Rick Forsman, AAHSL’s Teaching/Learning Project Coordinator to be our representative to the Committee. We will report more as this project unfolds.
Future Leadership
Congratulations to the latest cohort of AAHSL Leadership Scholarship awardees: Doreen R. Bradley (U Michigan), Katherine V. Chew (U Minnesota), Jane Fama (U Massachusetts), Douglas L. Varner (Georgetown), and Frances M. Yarger, (U Pittsburgh). And thank you to their directors for supporting them!
I hope to see everyone in Chicago in May!
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