President

Connie Poole
President, AAHSL 2009-2010 and
Associate Dean for Information Resources
Southern Illinois University School of Medicine

August 30, 2010
 
Summer is coming to a fast end with the return of students to the campus and the slightest nip in the air (here that means 85 degrees rather than 95!).  This also signals the start of the Fall meeting season, and the planning for the Association’s annual meeting is in full swing.
 
Nominating Committee:  The Nominating Committee chaired by President-elect, Pat Thibodeau, with members Ruth Riley and Chris Shaffer, has submitted an excellent slate for our consideration at the November business meeting.  The candidates and positions are:
 
President-elect -- Gary Freiburger (University of Arizona)
Secretary/Treasurer -- Jett McCann (Georgetown University)
Board member -- Karen Butter (University of California, San Francisco)
 
Committee Appointments:  Pat Thibodeau has also issued the call for volunteers for committee appointments for the upcoming Association year.  As she indicated, the Board is considering the Association’s needs for service and may have other appointments to be made in the coming months, so please respond to Pat’s call, if you would like to be considered for a known or yet to become known assignment.  Responses are due September 3 (see Pat’s e-mail of August 20 for more details).
 
Matheson Lecture:  The GIR/AAHSL Matheson lecturer for this year is Dave Davis, M.D., Senior Director, Continuing Education & Performance Improvement, Association of American Medical Colleges.  He has selected as his topic:  “Scaling the Knowledge Pyramid: the shared role of the clinician, the educator and the librarian”.   We were delighted to learn that the Matheson Lecture will be included in a CME track for this year’s AAMC meeting!  Dr. Davis has provided this description of his lecture; please plan to be there! (November 8, 1:30 to 3:00 p.m.)
 
“This session will focus on the concepts of 'knowledge' and 'evidence', of critical importance to best clinical practice, and to the education of learners - including faculty members- across the continuum of health sciences education. These concepts assume even more importance in the context of health care reform and require pro-active collaborations between clinicians, educators and information specialists – equal members of the health care knowledge team.
 
Objectives:
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to:
1) understand the forces driving the incorporation of evidence-based principles into education and clinical practice
2) appreciate the roles of librarians/information specialists in bridging gaps in lifelong learning, in education and in clinical practice,
3) articulate the differences between levels and sources of evidence
4) develop new roles for faculty members and the 'knowledge team' in the translation of best evidence into practice"
 
November Workshop:  The Program Committee has arranged for an excellent workshop on change management for the November meeting.  This is especially symbolic, as the Committee had chosen a different topic for the workshop and made a significant and nimble change in direction, based upon the current environment in which we all now operate (the “new normal”, I think).  A half-day session has again been planned to allow some of you to travel in the day of the workshop and conserve on travel funds.  Please mark your calendars for Saturday, November 6, from 1:00  to 5:00 p.m. for:

Managing Change in Academic Health Sciences Libraries: Leading Changes Without MigrainesTM, a workshop presented by Rick Maurer.  I’ve spoken to Rick by phone about some of our challenges, and we have shared with him your suggestions from the question on programming included in the reporting structure survey.
 
All workshop attendees will receive a complimentary copy of Rick's new book, Beyond the Wall of Resistance:  Why 70% of Changes Still Fail - and What You Can Do About it (2010). Each AAHSL Member Institution receives one complementary registration, any additional attendees from Member Institutions may register for $100.  If you have not already registered, please do so on the AAHSL Web site.
 
Member News:  Colleen Cuddy has been appointed Director at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York.  Colleen is a “graduate” of the NLM/AAHSL Leadership Fellowship Program.  She replaces Carolyn Reid, who retired, and Mark Funk, who has been serving as interim director.
 
Have a great Labor Day weekend and watch from more news about our Fall meeting!
 
Connie

July 1, 2010

Advocacy:  As part of the Joint MLA / AAHSL Legislative Task Force, I represented AAHSL at Capitol Hill visits on May 25.  Jane Blumenthal and I were teamed together to visit the offices of Congressman Patrick Tiberi (R-OH), co-chair of the Congressional Academic Medicine Caucus; Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL); and Senator Carl Levin (D-MI).  We, and other teams, advocated for increased funding for the National Institutes of Health and the National Library of Medicine and sought support and co-sponsorships for the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA).  The Congressional staff with whom we met were all interested in and supportive of health care issues, though cautious concerning budget implications.

New Directors Symposium:  I was delighted to attend the final session of the New Directors Symposium in Washington, DC, on May 22.  In addition to providing the attendees with information about AAHSL, I was able to participate in a program session on "The Life of a Director".  It was great fun, and the rapport and bonding among this group is formidable!

Cornerstone Award:  The AAHSL Board is very pleased to announce that the 2010 AAHSL Cornerstone Award recipient is Carol Jenkins, Director of the Health Sciences Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Her nominators cited her many contributions to AAHSL and to the field of academic health sciences librarianship, but especially her recent work toward the association’s goal to educate, develop, and nurture directors and prospective directors, as chair of the Future Leadership Committee and her leading role in the NLM/AAHSL Leadership Fellows Program.

AAHSL Scholarships:  The Future Leadership Committee has announced AAHSL scholarship awardees for 2010.  These scholarships partially fund participation in a variety of leadership development activities.  Awardees are:
--Keith Cogdill, Director, South Texas Regional Information Services, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, for the 2010 ACRL/Harvard Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians
--Michelle Frisque, Head, Information Systems, Galter Health Sciences Library, Northwestern University, for "Designing Sustainable Strategic Change," MS in Learning and Organizational Change course
--Deborah L. Lauseng, Liaison Services Coordinator, Taubman Health Sciences Library, University of Michigan, for the 2010 ACRL/Harvard Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians
--Roger G. Russell, Assistant Director for User Services, Laupus Library, East Carolina University, for the 2010 ACRL/Harvard Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians
--Christie C. Silbajoris, Director, NC Health Info, Health Sciences Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for the TRLN Management Academy

Leadership Fellows Program:  The 2010-2011 Leadership Fellows Program is now open for applicants.  This successful program is beginning its ninth year!

Reporting Structure Survey:  President-elect Pat Thibodeau distributed a survey on changes in library reporting structures in an e-mail dated June 21.  The response deadline is July 6; if you have not yet completed the survey for your institution, please do so.  The final question concerns ideas for the fall workshop, so please also give us any suggestions you may have.

Member News:  Cynthia Henderson is now the executive director of the Louis Stokes Health Sciences Library at Howard University.  Welcome to Joe Swanson, Jr., who is interim director at Morehouse School of Medicine Library.  Best wishes to Tovah Reis, who retired from Brown University on June 30;  welcome to David Banush, who will be the AAHSL contact at Brown.  Welcome to Janet Crum, library director at Graff Library of City of Hope, a new Associate Member.  Janet has already made use of the listserv and done a mini-survey!

Hope you all have safe and festive Independence Day celebrations!

Connie

AAHSL President's Message #4
April 30, 2010

Spring Meetings with Partners -- NLM, AMIA, AAMC, ARL:  President-elect Pat Thibodeau, Past-President Julie Sollenberger, and I visited partner organizations in Washington, DC, in April.  I'll send a fuller report in my next message, but wanted to share a few overall impressions.  Last year's visits were embodied by the terms "stimulus funding" and "shovel-ready", which permeated the air of DC (yes, that was only a year ago!).  This year's visits also had a few common threads that emerged in the discussions with our partner organizations: interprofessional and team education, global focus, and the need for nimble / creative responses to and communication in changing environments.

To show how the seeds sown in one year's visits may come to fruition... at last year's Spring Visits, we met Dave Davis, M.D., AAMC's  senior director for continuing education and performance improvement.  Because of our expressed interest in interprofessional education and lifelong learning, Dr. Davis later asked AAHSL to provide feedback on a draft joint report by AAMC and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) on Lifelong Learning in Medicine and Nursing.  Julie Sollenberger prepared the AAHSL Board response.  The final report has now been issued; AAHSL's suggestions are included; and Julie, as AAHSL president, is named on the External Review Panel.  The final report is available.  The Lifelong Learning Initiative is described at http://www.aamc.org/meded/cme/lifelong/start.htm.

Public Access: AAHSL responded to the January 2010 Scholarly Publishing Roundtable Report, highlighting key commonalities in the Roundtable Report and AAHSL recommendations previously contributed to the Office of Science and Technology Policy.  The AAHSL response to the report is posted on the AAHSL web site.

AAHSL and nine other national and regional research organizations have sent letters of thanks to the original sponsors of  H.R. 5037, "The Federal Research Public Access Act" and also letters encouraging co-sponsorship of the bill.  A joint letter of thanks to the bill's sponsors has also been prepared by MLA and AAHSL.

Membership News:  Jolene Miller is director of the Raymon H. Mulford Library at the University of Toledo.  Emma Stupp now represents the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Public Health Library and Information Center.  Welcome to you both!

You may have noticed a change in the 2010 AAHSL Membership Directory.  To more effectively use this document as both an annual report of the previous year and a directory of the current year, the listings of committee memberships in the Directory has changed.  The committee charges and memberships are for the current (2009-2010) association year.  The annual reports list the members for the previous (2008-2009) association year.

Lastly, a phrase from Joni Mitchell's song, Big Yellow Taxi, keeps resonating through my head.: "Don't it always seem to go / that you don't know what you've got / till it's gone"   We've had some unexpected bumps with our latest listserv upgrade.  This has reinforced for me the value of our listserv and how fortunate we are to have colleagues who respond so generously and quickly to our requests for help or information (see above reference to the growing need for nimble communications in a time of change).  We'll keep working on the listserv set-up; for now, should you wish to respond to me (and a few of you take the time to do so, and I appreciate it), please use my e-mail (cpoole@siumed.ed) as all responses will go to the list.

Connie

AAHSL President's Message #3

February 26, 2010

AAHSL Board Retreat:  The AAHSL Board of Directors held its retreat in Atlanta, January 21-22.  It is always exciting and stimulating to spend dedicated time with respected colleagues on behalf of the Association and its members.   We enjoyed a surfeit of peach cobbler and warm (compared to the midwest) weather and hospitality!

In the planning portion of the retreat, the Board developed a statement of values for the Association to accompany the vision, mission, and goals and objectives developed for the Strategic Plan last year.  We would welcome your feedback and reaction to the following values statement:

As an organization, AAHSL values:

• Innovation: developing and adopting new and relevant approaches to emerging and ongoing challenges
• Inclusivity: promoting, providing, and projecting a positive, supportive and safe environment, and welcoming an atmosphere of cultural differences and comprehensive participation.
• Collaboration and partnerships: building strong foundations of collegiality and cooperation with other organizations to achieve common goals
• Advocacy: speaking out with a credible voice to influence policy decisions and outcomes that benefit the common good
• Integrity: acting honestly and ethically to make decisions that are trusted by the membership and our partners
• Transparency:  conducting association business, programs, and planning in an open and visible manner.  
• Agility: striving for nimbleness and the ability to act quickly, change direction, and embrace opportunities
• Openmindedness: exploring new and different ideas, opinions, and strategies that assist the association in meeting its goals.

The Board also approved the Association's 2010 budget, received an overview of MemberClicks functionality, and discussed a wide-range of topics affecting our members.

Public Access: AAHSL responded to the request for comment by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) regarding the development of policies to deliver public access to the published results of taxpayer-funded research.  The AAHSL response, prepared by Jean Shipman, Chair of the Scholarly Communication Committee, was submitted to the OSTP blog and encourages expanding the NIH Public Access Policy to include other science and technology governmental agencies that fund research awards with tax-generated revenue. The response is posted on the AAHSL Web page (http://data.memberclicks.com/site/aahsl/news-20100118-ostp-public-access-response.pdf)

Advocacy:  The Joint MLA/AAHSL Legislative Task Force and the MLA Governmental Relations Committee held a virtual meeting on February 4.  Because MLA is meeting in Washington this year, the task force will meet and do its Capitol visits in May in conjunction with the MLA meeting.

Separately, Pat Thibodeau (president-elect), Julie Sollenberger (past-president), and I are planning our upcoming Spring visits to our Washington, DC-based partners in April.

Leadership: Two articles on the NLM/AAHSL Leadership Fellows Program are included in Journal of Library Administration 49(8), November 2009. Carolyn Lipscomb, Elaine Martin, and Wayne Peay's article ("Building the Next Generation of Leaders: The NLM/AAHSL Leadership Fellows Program") describes the program and its evaluation study in the context of the AAHSL leadership initiative. The fellows in the second cohort (Brian Bunnett, Nancy Allee, Jo Dorsch, Gabriel Rios, and Cindy Stewart) contributed an article on their experience in the program ("The NLM/AAHSL Leadership Fellows Program: A Year in Review"). The special issue also includes articles on other leadership programs in academic and special libraries and is edited by Martha Bedard.

The New Directors Symposium began the virtual phase of its curriculum with a January webinar on "Future Roles for Libraries," facilitated by Carol Jenkins and Elaine Martin. The 20 new directors participating in the symposium worked together ahead of time in small groups writing scenarios for new roles and needed capacity. They chose to focus on curriculum redesign, alignment with academic computing, mobile computing, library as student center, and expanded research roles. The scenarios were presented during the webinar, and the group of new directors and faculty discussed common themes, success factors, and how the director supports and determines priorities among the potential roles. Many ideas were exchanged about what the directors are doing on their campuses. The group plans to continue the conversation until the March webinar on "Technology and the Library."

Teaching and Learning: AAHSL and the Research in Medical Education (RIME) Steering Committee agreed to appoint a shared working group to advance the discussions held at the RIME business meeting in Boston, November 2009, about potential joint educational research topics.  AAHLS representatives to the Research Collaboration Task Force are from the AAHSL Teaching and Learning Committee: Jo Dorsch, Jacque Doyle, and Jerry Perry, with project direction by Rick Forsman.

Cornerstone Award Nominations:  A reminder that the AAHSL Board is soliciting  nominations for the 2010 Cornerstone Award.  The Cornerstone Award is given to an individual, group, or institution 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 deadline for submittal of nominations is April 30, 2010.  For more information on the award and the process of nomination, please visit the Web site: http://www.aahsl.org/mc/page/cornerstone.

Membership News: Mark Funk has been appointed Acting Director of the Weill Cornell Medical Library, with the upcoming retirement of Carolyn Reid.

We are putting the final touches on the 2010 membership directory; watch for it in March.  Because of the many changes in the annual statistics this past year, that publication will probably be issued in April.  Again, the Board would enjoy hearing your reaction to the values listed above.

Connie

AAHSL President's Message #2

January 4, 2010 (for December 2009)

Happy New Year!  I hope you all had restful and refreshing holidays.

Bylaws:  AAHSL starts 2010 with newly revised bylaws.  The bylaws changes were approved with 58 "yes" votes.  Thanks to all who took the time to hear about and discuss the proposed changes at the business meeting and to submit your votes.  The accepted changes confirm and rename our membership categories (now full and associate), more clearly indicate eligibility for serving as officers and on committees, and provide for dissolution of the association's assets in a standard manner.

Annual Statistics:  You have heard from Gary Byrd that the annual statistics process has been closed with 124 annual surveys and 115 salary surveys submitted.  The Annual Survey had some significant changes from previous years based upon results from a survey conducted by the Assessment and Statistics Committee.  We appreciate the work of all members and their staffs to compile and submit the statistics this year.  Our response rate remained the same as last year, which is a credit to the value that we all find in the shared statistics.

IMLS Proposal: A proposal was submitted on behalf of AAHSL to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, Continuing Education Category, for support for the creation, refinement, and delivery of a "Positioning the Professions: STM Publishing" curriculum for practicing librarians. This project is an outgrowth of the Joint AAHSL/Publisher Liaison Task Force and the Chicago Collaborative.  Jean Shipman is serving as co-principal investigator (with me as President of AAHSL).  Margaret Reich, publishing consultant, is serving as Project Manager, and Cynthia Olney, evaluation consultant, is serving as Project Evaluator.  The grant development was shepherded by Michael Homan and Gail Yokote, as co-chairs of the Task Force.  The project, if approved, will run three years (July 2010 through June 2013) and enjoys letters of support from all representative members of the Chicago Collaborative.  

NIH Consumer Health RFI:  Linda Watson, past past-president of AAHSL, has coordinated the AAHSL response to the NIH's request for information on consumer health information interests and behaviors for seeking and using health information.  Thanks to all of you who sent comments and ideas to Linda.  The AAHSL response will be posted on the AAHSL Web site; watch for it there.

SPARC: The AAHSL Board has accepted an invitation from SPARC to be represented on the SPARC Steering Committee.  Initially, this will be for a three-year term starting January 2010.  The chair of the AAHSL Scholarly Communication Committee will be the AAHSL representative, with  Jean Shipman serving in this capacity.  The invitation from SPARC acknowledges the importance of the academic health sciences voice in SPARC activities.  Many thanks go to Karen Butter, immediate past chair of the Scholarly Communication Committee for representing us so well with SPARC.  

Cornerstone Award Nominations:  While we are still remembering the great Boston reception and Cornerstone Award given to Tony Mazzaschi.....the AAHSL Board is now soliciting  nominations for the 2010 Cornerstone Award.  The Cornerstone Award is given to an individual, group, or institution 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 deadline for submittal of nominations is April 30, 2010.  For more information on the award and the process of nomination, please visit the Cornerstone web page (which also includes the press release announcing Tony's award--which was seen and mentioned to Tony by NIH Director Francis Collins!).

Membership News:  L. Maximilian Buha, M.D., was named executive director of the Houston Academic of Medicine -Texas Medical Center (HAM-TMC) Library.  Cecilia Botero is associate dean, Smathers Libraries and director, Health Science Center Libraries, University of Florida.  Barbara Kuchan is interim director at Temple University, following Mark-Allen Taylor's retirement.  Colleen Cuddy is interim director of New York University Health Sciences Libraries, following Karen Brewer's retirement.

AAHSL has gained a new member: Dalhousie University's W. K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library, Halifax, Nova Scotia; Patrick Ellis is the institutional representative.

Welcome to all our new members and representatives!

Board retreat: Lastly, the AAHSL Board of Directors will be having its annual planning retreat January 21-22.  We have a number of items on our agenda, but please let me know if there is something you would like discussed by the Board.

Best wishes for 2010!  

Connie

AAHSL President’s Message #1

November 2009

Giving thanks: While the glow of Thanksgiving is still upon us, let me offer some thanks for our recent meeting in Boston. To Barbara Epstein and Jim Curtis and their stalwart Program and Education Committee, thanks for an excellent Saturday afternoon workshop on the electronic health record and knowledge-based information. The room was packed and the topic riveting. The Matheson lecture with Chuck Friedman was also the work of the Program Committee; his address on health information technology from the perspective of the Office of the National Coordinator attracted a large and diverse crowd. The Joint AAHSL/Publisher Liaison Task Force presentation on the Chicago Collaborative also played to a full house (do you detect a theme here?). We enjoyed two receptions: one at Tufts University, courtesy of Eric Albright and his gracious staff, the other in conjunction with the GIR, sponsored by EBSCO; thanks to both for the marvelous hospitality. And thanks to all of you who were able to be in Boston and attend these many sessions, committee meetings, Statistics discussion, and a long and very hot business meeting!

Board Transitions: At our recent business meeting, Pat Thibodeau was elected president-elect and Sandra Franklin was elected board member; we are delighted to have them on the Board. Linda Watson, immediate past-president and Mary Ryan, board member, completed their terms on the Board; we thank them for their tremendous service.

Appointments: New committee chairs for 2009-10 are: Judith Robinson, Charting the Future; Judy Consales and Elaine Martin, Future Leadership; Dottie Spencer, Program and Education; Jean Shipman, Scholarly Communication; and Elaine Martin, E-Science Task Force. Continuing appointments are: Gary Byrd, Assessment and Statistics; Michael Homan, Vice-Chair, Joint Legislative Task Force; Cynthia Robinson, Teaching/Learning Committee; Gail Yokote and Michael Homan, Joint AAHSL/Publisher Liaison Task Force; Kerry O'Rourke, LiME/AAHSL Joint Task Force; Logan Ludwig and Gary Byrd, CAS representatives; and Chris Shaffer, AAHSL Webmaster.

Leadership Development: Also in Boston, eighteen of our colleagues began the New Directors' Symposium. The Symposium has taken on a different format and will run through next May, with both virtual sessions and in person sessions held in conjunction with AAMC and MLA meetings.

A new cohort of five leadership fellows and their mentors also began their year in Boston. More information on both programs and their participants is available on the AAHSL web page.

Member Transitions: Susan Murray is now Head of the Health Science Library at McGill University. Susan was unable to attend the recent meeting in Boston, but the AAHSL Board and I were able to greet and get to know 16 new and interim/acting directors at this year's new directors' lunch there.

Bylaws Vote: Proposed bylaws changes necessitated by the work of the Membership Task Force were discussed at the recent business meeting. The ballot for change has been sent to voting members (e-mail dated November 23); please take the time to review the materials and vote before December 18.

President's Remarks: At the close of the business meeting, I made a few remarks about recurring themes I have been considering recently. Representing AAHSL at the meeting of the Committee on Libraries of the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada, my assumption that we have more in common than not was rewarded when I heard of their lively discussions on statistics! Representing AAHSL at the meeting of the Association of Academic Health Centers, I heard speaker after speaker mention alignment and integration of missions, administrative efficiencies, and sustainability. Despite major fiscal downturns, the AHCs were finding ways to invest in new models, missions, and sustainable futures.

The themes that resonated for me from these experiences were "ask the right question" and "run toward the fire". This past year AAHSL stepped back with a strategic plan and the Membership Task Force and asked who we were and what were were about. We clarified and recommitted to our identity, our mission, and our goals. At the Board's retreat in January, we will be taking a look at the fit of our strategic plan after a year and considering feedback we've heard. We'll consider the Association's values and how to incorporate them in the Association's work. We'll look at the sustainability and future models for some of our activities. We'll look at our relationships with other organizations and how to further those and strengthen some of our partnerships. We'll look at the next steps to take with the results of the Membership Task Force report. And, we will look at the best investments that AAHSL can make to further our common missions....by asking the right questions and running toward the fire.

If you have thoughts for our Board retreat deliberations, please share them with me or one of the Board members.

Connie

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