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For more than twenty years Mahslin has been dedicated to providing and facilitating access to health information resources and services. The "Hall of Fame" was recently established to recognize the performance and leadership of members and supporters of the health sciences library community. At the April 29, 1998 annual meeting, Mahslin welcomed its first members into the Hall of Fame: James A. Daly, Jr., Nancy B. Fazzone, Nancy Elizabeth Frazier, The Massachusetts Medical Society, and the Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Department at the U-Mass Medical School's Lamar Soutter Library. Congratulations to all !!

Jay Daly began his early work career as a writer of novels and short stories. His interest in literature led him to work as a director of a number of public libraries. In an effort to return to writing, Jay began his medical library career fifteen years ago, on a pert-time basis. Eventually, Jay's writing took on an altered alphabetic state - QBasic computer code.

As the inventor and developer of QuickDoc, the interlibrary loan front end and report writer which interfaces with the National Library of Medicine's Docline system, Jay has been around the world and has been the recipient of the Medical Library Association's Institute for Scientific Information , Frank Bradway Rogers award for "distinguished professional contributions to the application of technology in the delivery of health care information." QuickDoc is now used by more than 1,150 medical libraries internationally and is 'Made in Massachusetts'.

Nancy B. Fazzone, Library Director at the North Shore Medical Center, became the first profession librarian at the Salem Hospital in 1977 (now called the North Shore Medical Center). Nancy developed that medical library from a small nearly empty conference room into a state of the art facility. A believer in good, traditional library practices as a foundation to service, Nancy soon demonstrated vision. She has an uncanny ability for predicting new trends and developments in libraries and technology. A founding member of the Northeast Consortium for Health Information (NECHI), when others did not know a bit from a byte, Nancy's library was the first to become computer literate and to sponsor beginning computer courses for librarians, showing the way to technology and the future for many a colleague.

Nancy has been professionally active within the library community at the local, state, and national levels. She has served as the chairperson of NECHI, as a member of the National Library of Medicine's Biomedical Review committee, and numerous library and professional committees at the national level.

During her tenure as President of Mahslin, Nancy provided the leadership necessary for the executive board to mature into a structure, cohesive, and professional working group to administer the organization. Nancy has been recognized by the Medical Library Association's Academy of Health Information Professionals at its highest level, as a 'Distinguished' member.

In addition to her many professional activities, Nancy is currently active in several community-based projects that foster literacy and self-sufficiency. Her most important quality, as described by all who know her well, is that Nancy takes the time to support and mentor others and provides a hard-working, professional role model.

Nancy Elizabeth Frazier is a founding member of the Southeastern Massachusetts Consortium (SEMCO) and has been recognized for her years of contribution to health sciences libraries. She has served a President of SEMCO (1985-1987) and as Treasurer (1990-1997). She arrived at Cape Cod Hospital in 1979 where she expanded the Medical Library from a small collection of books to a state of the art resource for the entire area. In December 1997, the Medical Library was named the Frazier-Grant Medical Library in honor of her efforts, and of Richard Grant, who donated to the Library over the past decade. Nancy has worked actively for the profession and Mahslin through her participation and chairmanship of various committees including Nominating, and Programming, as well as serving as a mentor and consultant to the membership-at-large.

The Massachusetts Medical Society is recognized for its long standing commitment to current, full-service medical libraries. Through its institutional CME accreditation program, the Society supports the development of quality continuing medical education programming with health care institutions by promoting the necessity of on-site information and library services. In addition, the Society has provided significant grant funds to medical libraries that have led to the provision of the emerging electronic knowledge-based technologies, including computer equipment. These applications have greatly assisted health care providers to obtain timely, accurate, and comprehensive clinical information for patient care, research, and education.

The Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Department at the Lamar Soutter Library. For the entire twenty years of Mahslin's existence, this statewide network of medical libraries, mostly small and mostly in community hospitals, has relied upon UMASS for access and delivery of the biomedical literature. While many of these documents have been available at other large libraries, the management and staff at the Soutter Medical Library have always clearly communicated their commitment to statewide service by providing cheerful, flexible, expedient, and cost-effective delivery of requested materials.

Services to the medical community are only one component of the UMASS' interlibrary loan operations. The department's performance and its services were recognized by the public and academic library communities when it was named 'ILL Department of the Year' by the OCLC network.

Many individuals and pieces of the Soutter Library's operations are required to achieve and maintain ILL service excellence, including; reference, shelving, photocopy, clerical and fiscal, and administration. However, the true responsibility for juggling and delivering the tens of thousands of documents requested of the Library each year, in addition to the necessary customer support, has largely fallen to two individuals - John Hemenway and Spiro Efstathiou.

Mahslin is indebted to these gentlemen and to the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center for supporting the network in its earliest stages, as a mature documents delivery system, and as it enters the electronic era of literature availability.

The 1998 annual NAHSL conference was held in Boston this year, with great success. Sunday was chock-a-block full of CME courses with offerings in the areas of consumer health resources, web-based instruction, health statistics, alternative medicine, grant writing the Internet, and of course, PubMed/IGM. Many people took advantage of the numerous CME opportunities provided at sites throughout the city. Sunday evening was a time to greet friends and meet new colleagues, take a trolley tour of historic Boston, and enjoy a delicious buffet dinner.

During a full day of business on Monday, conference members heard discussions on the "Visions of the Future in Medical Education," as well as "Visions of the Future with Consumer-Focused Libraries and the Educated Patient." While many attendees enjoyed a box lunch, a number of people took the opportunity to get a quick bite at one of the local Boston restaurants. Either way, everyone returned ready to participate in the mini-courses of their choice, covering such topics as evidence-based medicine, UCMP Online, integrative medicine, knowledge management, and the research publication process. Following this most productive day was a truly enjoyable banquet at the Prudential's "Top of the Hub." Good, food, good company, and a great view!

Tuesday, the final day of the conference, was also full of people and information. A continental breakfast was followed by MLA and RML greetings. The conference was rounded out with a panel discussion on "New Paradigms, New Relationships; Medical School and Affiliated Hospitals."

Congratulations to all who helped put together this fund and informative three-day event.

ARCHIVIST POSITION FILLED

The Mahslin Executive Board recently decided that the organization is in need of an Archivist to organize, sort, and preserve the many documents that have accumulated after nearly twenty years of doing business. Mahslin's history, it must be admitted, is presently housed in several assorted, albeit sturdy, boxes, kept by the Secretary. Some materials are very easily located and others are, well...

Thus, it is a pleasure to announce that Kate Kelly of MGH's Treadwell Library, has agreed to join the Board as Archivist and assume the task of organizing and maintaining our past. Welcome aboard, Kate.

As of September 15, 1998 Mahslin has 134 members. All but 28 of these members are on MAHSLIN-L.

Please forward any membership database changes or corrections to co-chairs Cathy Guarcello or MaryBeth Edwards at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, mbedward@world.std.com or cguarcel@world.std.com.

If you know of any potential new members, please pass their names along.

Just a reminder that the Bylaws Committee is always open to suggestions from the members for changes or updates to the Mahslin bylaws. If you have any suggestions, contact Pat Vigorito at Morton Hospital and Medical Center. Tel: (508) 828-7407; Fax: (508) 824-6941; email: vigorito@juno.com.

FYI - - 1998-1999 Consortia Chairs

BBLC -Len Levin, New England Baptist Hospital

SEMCO-Kathy McCarthy, South Shore Hospital

NECHI-Nancy Fazzone, North Shore Medical Center

CMCHRL-May Ann Adams, Harrington Memorial hospital

WMHIC-Judy Campbell, Holyoke Community College

DPH-Alice Welch, Massachusetts Department of Public Health

CIR-Nancy Callendar, Emerson Hospital

SEMCO members held a luncheon on June 5 at the Nimrod Restaurant in Falmouth to honor Nancy Frazier, who has retired as Librarian at the Frazier-Grant Medical Library of Cape Cod Hospital (see Mahslin Hall of Fame). Nancy was a founding member of SEMCO, served as the Librarian at Cape Cod Hospital for many years, and has been a wonderful mentor and friend to many of us. Jeani Vander Pyl is the new Librarian at Cape Cod Hospital after serving as the Library Director at the Osterville Free Library and as the Computer Systems Librarians at the Sandwich Public Library.

The new SEMCO officers for 1998-1999 are:

Kathy McCarthy, President

Patricia Vigorito, Vice-President

Nancy Ling, Secretary

Joan Boyer, Treasurer

(Where to find them):

Regional Headquarters: Boston Public Library

www.bpl.org/brls

Regional Headquarters: 135 Beaver Street, Waltham

www.mmrls.org/

Regional Headquarters: 8 Flagg Street, Shrewsbury

www.cmrls.org/

Regional Headquarters: 58 Main Street, Hatfield

www.wmrls.org/

Regional Headquarters: 707 Turnpike Street, North Andover

www.nmrls.org/

Regional Headquarters: 10 Riverside Drive, Lakeville

www.semls.org/

Take a few minutes to see what colleagues are doing in other regions.

If you would like to submit information to the Mahslin Newsletter, please contact Terri Niland, Editor, Fahey Health Sciences Library, Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Hallmark Health System, 170 Governors Avenue, Medford, MA 02155. Tel: (781)306-6606; fax: (781)306-6655;

email: tniland@shore.net.

Deadline for submissions is December 31, 1998 for January 1999 issue.

Mahslin Homepage address: http://nnlmner.uchc.edu/mahslin

Mahslin Network News Address: http://nnlmner.uchc.edu/mahslin/news.html