Archives Committee

The archives are currently housed at the Massachusetts Medical Society in Waltham. Donations to the archives have been received from various past Officers and Committee Chairs. This year, the archives have been used mainly to answer historical questions raised by the MAHSLIN Board. Items for the archives are welcome but please check with the Archives Committee Chair before sending donations.

Respectfully submitted,

Elizabeth Fitzpayne, Archives Chair
March 29, 2004

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Education Committee

The Education Committee organized and sponsored the following activities below:

PUBMED and DOCLINE Update
Donna Berryman
Mark Goldstein
July 23, 2003
1:00 PM – 4:30 PM
Children's Hospital Computer Training Room

National Center for Health Statistics and Beyond
Mary Burgess
October 20, 2003
9:30 AM – 10:30 AM
Children's Hospital, Pavilion Conference Room

Roles and Essential Skills for the Expert Searcher (co-sponsored with NASHL)
Teleconference
March 10, 2004
1:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Children's Hospital, Enders Auditorium
**As a result of this teleconference, the Education Committee is organizing an "Expert Searcher" web page. This page will contain names of expert searchers in specific content areas, resources and links to articles, web sites, and tips on expert searching. Watch the MASHLIN web site for the addition of this page.

Web Design and PhotoShop (Exact title to be determined)
Brendan Wahlberg
Webster Veterinary Library
Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine
June 16, 2004
10:00 AM – 3:00 AM

The Education Committee is also developing a continuing education course in preparing and writing flyers and newsletters. Details to be announced at a later date.

In late October 2003, Massachusetts was the site of the annual North Atlantic Health Science Librarians (NAHSL) annual meeting in Sturbridge. Members of the MASHLIN Education Committee assisted in planning and developing the program as well as organized and ran the registration desk.

Alison Clapp conducted a quick poll asking MAHSLIN members about the necessity of continuing education (CE) credits for educational sessions. Half of the respondents said that CE credits would be nice but not essential in determining whether they would take a course; the other half of the respondents reported that CE credits made no difference in determining whether they would take a course. MLA has a difficult and costly application process for granting CE credits. The Education Committee wanted to get feedback from the membership regarding this issue.

A second Technology Day is in development. Committee members are working with Massachusetts Medical Society staff to finalize a program. The Technology Day Committee members include Elizabeth Fitzpayne, Carolyn Carregal, Kristin Cuccion, Leon Barzin, Alison Clapp, and Anne Fladger. The date will be Sept. 22, 2004.

Respectfully Submitted,

Anne Fladger, Chair
Committee Members:
Alison Clapp
Nathan Norris

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Hospital Library Standards Ad Hoc Committee

Members: Anne Fladger, Chris Bell, Florence Mercer, Donna Beales

MMS Contacts: Caroline Carregal, Sharon Nordling, Elizabeth Fitzpayne

During the spring of 2003, I was asked to chair a special ad hoc committee to work with the Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) Accreditation's staff to revise recent changes to the medical information resources criteria for accreditation/re-accreditation as a Provider of Continuing Medical Education.

Previously the MMS had detailed standards mandating that hospitals have a medical library on-site and employ a trained medical librarian. In 2003, these standards changed substantially and were condensed to read as follows:

"Provide access to medical information resources to support self
directed learning".

This special ad hoc committee has been meeting with the Accreditation staff to discuss the recent changes to the criteria and the feasibility of MMS adopting the Medical Library Association's Hospital Library Standards. The issue was brought to the Accreditation Committee on January 14, 2004. The minutes for this meeting were approved on March 10, 2004.

On March 17, Ms. Sharon Nordling, Manager of the CME Accreditation Program sent me an e-mail outlining the Accreditation Committee's discussion concerning adopting the Hospital Library Standards. I quote the following statements from the minutes,

"The Committee is concerned with the feasibility of full implementation in hospitals under increasing cost restraints. The standards, as articulated, raise the bar for health science librarians beyond what most community hospitals may be able to accomplish."

The Committee did support recommended changes to Element 3.5 as suggested by the Ad Hoc committee and the application reflects these changes.

There will be further discussion of this matter at the Accreditation Committee's next meeting.

In reporting this discussion to Jeannine Gluck (chairman of the MLA Standards Committee at the time the standards were written), she expressed a desire to discuss the outcome with the current chair, Robin Hassig. Jeannine suggested perhaps writing guidelines outlining how the standards might be met by smaller and more financially challenged hospitals.

Respectfully submitted,

Anne Fladger

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Membership Committee

Our effort to recruit new members this year includes:

1. The MAHSLIN brochure was revised and updated. In January 2004, the Board selected an official logo designed by Donna Beales after the logo contest held on our website. With the new LOGO and a brief and minor revision of the original brochure, our new and updated brochure was born. One copy of the brochure is enclosed in the package for your reference. Hopefully, you can pass along to potential members. Call me at 508-961-5267 if you need more copies.

2. Donna Beales arranged that a message was sent to Simmons Library School listserv inviting current GSLIS students to attend our Annual Meeting.

3. On April 6, Anne Fladger and Donna Beales gave a presentation on MAHSLIN to David Ginn's Medical Librarianship class at Simmons Library School and extended the invitation for them to attend our annual meeting . Two students signed up for the offer.

The plan on our future edition of membership directory is to go electronic next year. We will be updating info ongoingly, so that the info will be current all the time. The printed version of the Directory will cease after this year.

As of 4/12/04, we had 112 members registered for MAHSLIN. The same number as 2003. We had 126 members in 2002. There seemed to be a downward trend in membership.

This year, our new members are:
Attfield Kathleen Silent Spring Institute
Berryman Donna New England Region, NN/LM
Bissonnette Bette Saints Memorial Medical Ctr
Houlihan Jerry Mathews Medical Books
Lennox Rob Rittenhouse
McDonagh Erin OVID Technologies, Inc.
Noonan Kathryn Lemuel Shattuck Hospital
Norris Nathan Beth Israel Deaconess
Reid Trish Somerville Hospital

I would like to thank my associate Jennifer Lanouette for all her assistance, She assisted with the directory, brochure , name badges, lists and more lists to compile, update and print, I couldn't have done all these without her help. And I hope you all find them informational.

Respectfully submitted,
Bonnie Hsu, Membership Chair

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Nominating Committee
The slate for 2004-2005 is:

VP/President-Elect Anne Fladger, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Secretary Julia Whelan, Mass General Hospital
Treasurer Molly Foley, Faulkner Hospital

Chris Nims
Nominating Committee Chair

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Publicity Committee

Public relations/newsletter

MAHSLIN was the proud recipient of an MLA Public Relations Award in 2003. The award was announced during the annual MLA conference, and was given for MAHSLIN's public service announcement. MAHSLIN took top honors in the "Other" category.

The year was punctuated by some legislative/regulations alerts relating to the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MLIN) and the Massachusetts Medical Society. While these organizations are not directly linked to MAHSLIN, their funding and organizational structure changes have impact on some MAHSLIN members, who either belong to the statewide MLIN consortia, or have ties to Continuing Medical Education. MAHSLIN members need to be kept informed about these matters in order to take appropriate action when necessary.

MAHSLIN NETWORK NEWS will benefit from the recent addition of a new digital camera, purchased by the MAHSLIN Executive Board. The camera will be valuable in recording MAHSLIN history as it happens.

In December, MAHSLIN held a logo contest among its members to find a symbol that would bring a professional look and feel to our organization. Several artworks were submitted, which the Board judged, exempting any member who had submitted an artwork. I'm honored to say that mine was selected to represent our organization.

I have enjoyed serving my colleagues in the role of Publicity Co-Chair these last four years. I hope MAHSLIN will continue to grow and promote itself as an important resource for medical professionals and citizens on Massachusetts in the coming years.

Donna Beales
Publicity Co-chair

Website

The MAHSLIN website serves the membership as a communication tool and
resource. The website is a valuable component in supporting the mission & "MAHSLIN serves as a professional resource to its members from the
Massachusetts health sciences information community."

This year we changed the site address to http://www.mahslin.org. Those going to the old site will still be directed to the new address.
Areas recently updated include: the annual meeting, ILL statistics,
membership directory, and the salary survey. The site is currently being updated to include the new MAHSLIN logo. Additional enhancements are being discussed by the publicity committee.

On behalf of MAHSLIN, I wish to thank Elaine Martin and Penny Glassman of the NN/LM New England Region for their administrative and technical support during the past year.

Respectfully submitted:

Joseph Harzbecker
MAHSLIN Web Coordinator/Publicity Co-Chair

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Technology Committee

As Technology Chair from March 2003 - April 2004, I have worked with the
annual meeting organizer and have arranged for the audiovisual needs for
the 2003 and 2004 annual meetings.  Arrangements were also made to
display the MAHSLIN public service announcement at NAHSL 2003.  A new digital camera (Olympus Stylus 300) was purchased for use at annual
meetings and educational events.  The RML agreed to hold and distribute
the MAHSLIN video collection.  Please contact the RML at 508/856-5979 to borrow a video.

Mary Piorun
Technology Chair