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 #7 – May 2008

Many of our AAHSL Committees had an opportunity to meet at the MLA meeting in Chicago earlier this month. Thanks, April, for arranging for the meeting room! We’ve asked the committees to do mid-year reports this year, so you’ll be hearing about their progress in June, either here in this message or from the Committees directly. While at MLA, we heard about projects that have a lot of synergy with some of our priorities. The MLA theme of “connections” was very pertinent in this regard!

Advocacy

On May 5th, a number of AAHSL members participated in a webcast sponsored by ARL to review potential talking points for the NIH Public Access Policy Request for Information. On May 20th, at the MLA Annual Meeting, the Scholarly Communication Committee facilitated a standing room only Open Forum on the NIH Public Access Policy where it was clear there are many unanswered questions from both authors and librarians. Of particular concern are issues around deposit requirements, copyright and version control. We added these points to our submission to the most recent NIH Request for Input in which we reiterated our strong support for the policy. You can read AAHSL’s comment (look for a May 29th submission date) as well as others at http://publicaccess.nih.gov/comments2/comments_web_listing.htm .

Teaching and Learning Initiatives

Among the priorities for the Teaching Learning Oversight Committee and its two task forces is to seek synergies in the work of other organizations as we move through an ambitious agenda. One potential partner in our work is the GIR. At their spring meeting in San Francisco the GIR Education SIG developed several working documents that may be of interest to AAHSL members. They can be found on the GIR wiki at http://tinyurl.com/5zasep.

Matheson Cooper Report Testimonial

Check out the latest from Darrell Kirch from AAMC at http://www.aahsl.org/Matheson/Darrell_Kirch_ltr.cfm

Member Transitions

Retiring: Ada Seltzer (Mississippi); Wilba Swearington (LSU-New Orleans)

Interim Director: Mary Bushing (South Dakota); Deborah Sibley (LSU-New Orleans)

Director Appointment: Wallace McClendon (Florida); Rajia Tobia (UT-San Antonio); Nadine Dexter (Central Florida); Fatima Mncube-Barnes (Meharry); Jean Shipman (Utah)

New Associate Member: Katherine Russell (King/Drew Health Sciences Library in Los Angeles)

Relocation: Tamera Lee (Medical College of Georgia) moving to Louisiana.