Reflections on MLA ’09

MLA held its annual conference in Hawaii this May, thirty years since its last

Click on the image above to view an audiovisual slideshow summation of MLA ’09 created and narrated by Gary Childs

visit.  Coordinated by Michelle Kraft, conference planners used social media to make it easier to follow the proceedings, both for those onsite and for those unable to attend. Eric Schnell put together a replay of the Twitter feed along with links to official and unofficial coverage <http://bones.med.ohio-state.edu/mla09/>. We put out a call to those MLA-Phil Chapter members in attendance for brief, informal reflections. Responses were received from Karen Albert, Fox Chase Cancer Center; Barbara Cavanaugh, University of Pennsylvania; Christine Chastain-Warheit, Christiana Care Health System; Marie FitzSimmons, Penn State College of Medicine; Gary Kaplan, Thomas Jefferson University; and Rebecca Landau, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.

Your overall impressions?
KA: It was a good meeting, didn’t seem like the attendance was that much smaller than usual, and the Philadelphia Chapter was well represented! Some of the vendor-sponsored special events were wonderful, like EBSCO’s evening outing to the Bishop Museum.
BC: Lots of networking opportunities. Themes of synthesizing and linking information, sharing information within our own profession,new roles for librarians.
CCW: Yes, I was there but I felt I spent all my time in meetings related to my position as Chair of the Hospital Library Section and covering meetings for those section committee chairs who couldn’t attend, and some covering of the Section Council booth. I remember going to only two programs. I did spend time with my vendors in the exhibit hall.
MF: I had an enchanted time in Hawaii. I noticed many people (including Etheldra) walking between sessions in the open air Convention Center with an aloha smile planted on their faces! The setting was truly beautiful.
GK: Great mix of speakers, programming and networking opportunities in a beautiful and fascinating part of the world.

One thing you learned?
KA: It’s amazing to contemplate what impact passage of the Cornyn-Lieberman or Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) would have. This legislation may be re-introduced into Congress this year. It could extend the NIH Public Access Policy to the other major government funding agencies, requiring each researcher with funding to submit an electronic copy of the final manuscript accepted for publication to a digital stable repository permitting free public access.
BC: I was very focused on linking library resources to the electronic medical record (EMR). I hadn’t been aware of just how many products claim they can do this. I learned that there are different levels of linking, and that true context-sensitive integration is much more difficult to achieve than a simple “i” for information button. Also, I began to think of “informationists” and “bioinformaticians” as very broad terms. These are terms that can represent many types of library positions, ranging from clinical to research, from public services to technical services, from library-based to embedded “librarian in context” scenarios.
CCW: If you have authors, make a policy that all donate one copy of any book to the library. Have a raffle: Lunch with the Librarian!
MLA needs to do a better job promoting and encouraging new and emerging leaders. Sixty percent of MLA members intend to retire in the next five years (I am one). There is going to be an Emerging MLA Leaders Task Force and it will be rolled out in DC in 2010. Focus on competencies of lifelong learning and professional success–prepare a CE for MLA on professional competencies. Most medical librarians (46%) start off in a non-medical library (I did—I  was a school librarian for six years). Beef up distance learning and education—the MLA CE Clearinghouse should offer distance ed for essential competencies. Create an annual meeting experience for everyone to build networks—48% of MLA members stay home. The Annual Meeting revenues equal 36% of the MLA budget; therefore, participation is essential. Online forums are planned for next year–also planned is the selection of a book that all attendees will read (hopefully)—Dan Pink’s Whole New Mind. MLA wants to build a conference community and improve on wireless access. They want an engaging meeting experience for all. MLA intends to make the video conferencing software available to all task forces and groups. The Social Networking Task Force will assist.  They want MLA to be an essential benefit and pathway to leadership.
MF: [One thing I learned is that] the sand on Waikiki was imported in the early part of the century. [Also,] PubMed will undergo an interface redesign expected to be released in late summer 2009. Single Citation Matcher will remain on the PubMed homepage. As an independent project, Advanced Search and My NCBI will also be updated in the coming months.
GK: MLA is getting a new association management system this year. Watch for improvements on mlanet.org!

Have any links to a good conference piece: a blog post, a photo, a presentation?
BC: Link to comments about Penn’s IRB poster: <http://npc.mlanet.org/mla09/?p=859&cpage=1#comment-306>
MF: Two popular resources that were discussed at the Open Access Session:
Ten simple rules for getting published <http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.0010057>
and SciVee <http://www.scivee.tv/>, the “YouTube for science.” “Make your research known through videos, podcasts, and postercasts.”
GK: The online poster viewer for the conference posters is fabulous: <http://posterexperience.com/index.php>. Here’s a link to Rebecca Landau’s poster on “Solo librarian and outreach to hospital staff using web 2.0 technologies” <http://www.posterexperience.com/poster.php?id=28>. Gillian Mayman delivered a talk on “Integrating a course on applying social media technologies to health communications into a curriculum.” Not especially useful without the audio, except that the slides are truly inspired <http://tinyurl.com/l3funz>!

Compiled by Gary Kaplan and Gary Childs.

Gary Kaplan
Senior Librarian, Information Services
Scott Memorial Library
Thomas Jefferson University
Philadelphia, Pa.
gary.kaplan@jefferson.edu

Gary M. Childs
Education Librarian
Hahnemann Library
Drexel University–Health Sciences Libraries
Philadelphia, Pa.
gc24@drexel.edu

—
Here is a link to an audiovisual slideshow summation of MLA ’09 created and narrated by Gary Childs:
<https://rmcp.dcollege.net/playlists.aspx/515/16773/html>
[alternate URL:
http://www.screencast.com/t/aPVNS4CSDw8]

or watch it below.