Anita Loscalzo reports-

The 2000 Annual Meeting of Mahslin will be held at the Tower Hill Botanical Garden, http://www.towerhillbg.org/ , in Boylston on Thursday, April 27. Beth Schneider and Howard Silver are preparing a stimulating program for the day. Details are available on the Mahslin web page, http://nnlmner.uchc.edu/mahslin/index.html and in your March mail. See you there.

With great reluctance, The Mahslin Board has accepted the resignation of our Vice-President, Mary Linn Bergstrom. Mary Linn has moved to the delightful city of La Jolla, California, and will be the Head of Education and Outreach Services at the Biomedical Library of the University of California, San Diego. We will all miss her enthusiasm and great sense of humor, but wish her will in her new endeavors.

Len Levin, Chairman writes-

Over the past couple of years, the Mahslin Technology Committee has worked to act as a resource to Mahslin members for questions and comments surrounding PubMed. This will be especially important in this New Year with the changes coming (and already previewed) with the "new" PubMed. The Technology Committee is looking for a new member to join our group and to act as out PubMed point-person. Most meeting activity takes place via e-mail and does not require a very large time commitment. If PubMed is your "cup of tea", here is your chance to assist your colleagues across Massachusetts. For more information or to "sign-on", please contact Len Levin, committee chairperson, at the Woodard Library, New England Baptist Hospital in Boston, (617) 754-5155 or <."LLEVIN@nebh.org>.

In the last issue of the Network News, the Technology and Resources Sharing Committees recommended that all Mahslin libraries retain their membership in UCMP for at least one more year. Soon, the new SERHOLD will be released by NLM and all DOCLINE libraries will be encouraged to try working with their holdings directly on-line. Don't forget, though, that if you are a member of UCMP, your holdings in SERHOLD will be updated by the Medical Library Center of New York in a batch update at some point later this year. So, if you begin making changes in SERHOLD immediately, don't forget to also make these same changes to UCMP before their next update so that any changes you make on your own will not be negated. For additional questions on UCMP, SERHOLD, or the new DOCLINE package, please contact Len Levin, Mahslin Technology Chair at (617)754-5155 or <."LLEVIN@nebh.org>. Also, look for training sessions on the new DOCLINE package in future Mahslin announcements.

Every December the Mahslin Executive Board meets with consortia chairs and resource library directors for an opportunity to share information and exchange ideas. Thus, Board members get a better idea of what's going on "out there" and invited guests have a chance to gather information about what's going on in Mahslin that they can, in turn, pass along to their colleagues. This year the meeting was held on December 16, 1999 immediately following the regular Board meeting. The following guests were in attendance:

Cathy Guarcello and Marybeth Edwards BBLC

Andy Dzaugis CMCHRL

Ann Tomes NECHI

Pat Vigorito SEMCO

Patty Kahn NAHSL

John Stey NNLM/NER

Wanda Anderson Boston College

Richard Kaplan Mass. College of Pharmacy

Elizabeth Eaton Tufts University School of Medicine

Elaine Martin U-Mass Medical School

From the Countway-

-Construction is due to be completed in April 2000

-Elizabeth Wu is leaving

From the Mass. College of Pharmacy-

-will be opening a satellite campus in Worcester in the Fall 2000, having outgrown the Boston facility with no expansion room available

From Tufts University School of Medicine-

-A new research building is being constructed. It will have five floors to start, but with expansion possibilities for another five.

From the NNLM/NER-

-Pam White of Oregon stars December 27, 1999 as the Consumer Health Outreach librarian

-Ill cost increases : NLM staying at $9 for the time being ; U-Mass increasing to $10 around July 1 ; Resource libraries probably increasing to $11 at the start of the new year

And, in general-

-Beth Schneider is the new director of MGH' Treadwell Library

-DOCLINE's changes will not be ready until March 2000, at the earliest

-NAHSL meeting schedule as follows: Newport, RI in 2000 ; Connecticut in 2001

-John Stey recommends staying with UCMP for one more year

As many of you already know, our "retired" colleague, Gale Cogan has been hard at work building a health sciences library at the Sihanouk Hospital in Cambodia. She writes to update us on her progress:

Thought some of you might be interested in how my project of establishing the only English language medical library has been developing. By leaps and bounds - thanks to many of you. The original library at the Sihanouk Hospital-Center of Hope in Phnom Penh has grown to the point where weeding was essential. So now the items weeded from the collection have been donated to provincial hospitals with whom they deal. Thus, I am beginning to establish pocket libraries in other sections of the country. A big hurrah to all of you who have helped in this endeavor.

I have also been asked to establish a pediatric library at a new pediatric hospital in Siem Reap (where the Angkor Temples are). And any dental materials that I acquire are being donated to the dental school in Phnom Penh. So, you can see that all of you are helping this ravaged country gain a speck of progress in its medical care.

I would ask that if you have any medical books from 1995 on (or "Bibles"-as I call the essential ones-from 1990 on) to please contact me either online at gcogan@massmed.org or by telephone at (978) 692-5443.

Thanks so very much for all your help. It is most appreciated.

New Director of the Treadwell Library, Massachusetts General Hospital

Elizabeth Schneider, MLS, AHIP, has been appointed Director of the Treadwell Library at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. The former Assistance Director for Collection & Systems Management, Beth joined the Treadwell staff as a cataloger more than 15 years ago. She has served as the Interim Director since March 1999, when Jackie Bastille retired. Please join us in wishing Beth every success in her new role.

A New Professional Organization

Announcing a new professional organization in New England. The Medical Archivists Group aims to provide a forum for discussion of topics and issues faced by local medical archivists. The group is open to archivists, librarians, or anyone responsible for archives programs at local hospitals and medical institutions. The Medical Archivists Group meets two to three times a year. Meetings are generally held at a member institution in the Boston, MA area. For membership information, please contact:

Frances R. Overcash, Archivist Children's Hospital 300 Longwood Avenue Boston, MA 02115

voice: (617) 355-5286 fax: (617) 734-7763 frances.overcash@tch.harvard.edu

In addition, there is a Medical Archivists Group (MAGL) listserv. MAGL is a moderated email discussion list that provides a forum for exchanging information and discussing issues and topics faced by medical archivists. The list is primarily aimed at archivists, librarians, and those responsible for archival programs at hospitals and medical institutions. However, anyone with an interest in medical archives is welcome to join. To subscribe to the listserv, send an email to MAGL-subscribe@listbot.com or visit the Medical Archivists Group List web page at http://MAGL.listbot.com and follow the subscription instructions. This list is moderated by Frances Overcash (frances.overcash@tch.harvard.edu.)

Congratulations to Judith Sacknoff who has been selected to receive a 1999 Partners in Excellence Award. The award is presented annually to individuals and teams throughout the Partners HealthCare System for their exemplary performance and strong contributions to Partners. The award is being given for outstanding work in the area of Quality Treatment and Service.