MLA-Phil

This report covers the period of July 2001 to April 2002. The Chapter currently has 165 members.

GOAL 1. Professional Development

Our first program of the year was entitled “Use of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) in Medicine”. Brenda Seago, of Virginia Commonwealth University, gave an excellent overview of the history of PDAs, tips on different features and types available, and a description of a successful Palm Pilot Project. Andrew Clements, of OVID Technologies, then introduced us to OVID’s handheld application called OVID@Hand.
The meeting was held at Penn State Harrisburg.

The second program was a presentation and discussion of Real-Time Virtual Reference. The speakers were Sam Stormont, Reference Librarian at Temple University, an early provider of live reference service; Peter Bromberg, Program Development Coordinator of the South Jersey Regional Library Cooperative; and Cynthia McClellan, Public Services Librarian at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. The meeting was held at the University of the Sciences, in Philadelphia, and was well attended.

The Annual Business Meeting and Dinner is planned for April 16th, 2002. This year marks the 50th Anniversary of our Chapter, and we will be returning to the location of our first Annual Meeting that was held at the College of Physicians in Philadelphia. The current MLA President, Carol Jenkins, will be our featured speaker. Our archivist, Joan McKenzie, is creating a poster session display of Chapter historical highlights. We also plan on raising a toast to 50 fine years! And eating lots of Anniversary cake!

For CE credit we were pleased to sponsor the MLA teleconference “Sync or Swim: Managing the Flood of PDAs in Health Care”. Chapter members and guests assembled at Thomas Jefferson University. Although this was the second meeting held on the topic this year, it drew a large crowd. There was a sense of excitement when our chapter’s question was read and responded to, during the teleconference.

Another successful CE event was a presentation by Michelynn McKnight entitled “Proving Your Worth: Professional, Business and Political Skills”. It was held on December 14, 2001, at the Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania. There was much enthusiasm expressed for this class by those who attended.

GOAL 2. Advocacy

An exciting joint meeting is being planned that will include 4 chapters of MLA (Philadelphia, New York-New Jersey, Pittsburgh, and the Middle Atlantic Chapters) along with the Philadelphia Chapter of SLA. The meeting has been unofficially dubbed the “Quint” Meeting. The location will be downtown Philadelphia, and the dates are October 19-21, 2003. The Co-Chairs of the entire meeting are Anne Seymour, of the Philadelphia Regional Chapter, and Richard Faraino of the New York-New Jersey Chapter.

We welcomed a Cunningham Fellow to Philadelphia from March 10-24. Yuan Lin is an Associate Professor from the Medical Library of Sichuan University in China. Lin was hosted by Andrea Kenyon, Director of Public Services, at the College of Physicians. A welcome dinner took place in Philadelphia’s Chinatown on March 11th and Lin was royally entertained by many of our Chapter’s medical librarians throughout her stay here. We all very much enjoyed meeting Lin!

Our chapter contributed to MLA’s Benchmarking Project by publicizing it heavily to our hospital librarians, and by offering complimentary registration to our Annual Meeting and Dinner to the winner of a drawing that took place among those who participated. At last count, we had 14 participants in the project.

GOAL 3. Organization

The Transition Meeting took place on July 18, 2001, at the University of Pennsylvania. Outgoing and incoming Committee Chairs and Board Members exchanged information and brainstormed ideas for the upcoming year. The transfer of power took place smoothly.

GOAL 4. Research

A symposium publication celebrating the Chapter’s Fiftieth Anniversary was published this year in the January 2002 issue of the Journal of the Medical Library Association. Reprints of this publication, entitled “Patient-centered librarianship: the informationist and beyond”, will be presented to every attendee at this year’s local Annual Meeting.

A follow-up activity by MLA National is an invited Informationist Conference to be held at the National Institutes of Health, April 4–5, 2002. Anne Seymour is representing us at this important meeting.

MOTION

This report is informational and requires no action by the Board of Directors.

Patricia A. Heller, Chair
April 5, 2002