Annual Report 1999/2000

New York-New Jersey Chapter

The NY-NJ Chapter currently has 333 members from the New York and New Jersey region. Chapter activities during the year supported the Medical Library Association's strategic plan and 1999/2000 priorities as follows:

Goal 1. Professional Development

• The 1999 Annual Meeting was jointly sponsored with the Upstate New York and Ontario Chapter, and took place October 17-19, 1999 in Saratoga Springs, NY. The theme was "Re-Creating Libraries: New Directions for Librarians in the Millennial Age."
• Three CE courses, 1) Systematic Review for Librarians: How to Refine the Gold, 2) More than MEDLINE: Making the most of the other NLM databases, and 3) Advanced IGM and PubMed Searching were all offered at this meeting in Saratoga Springs.
• Three other Chapter CE courses were successfully held: 1) MeSH for Searchers was presented March 2000 in New York, NY; 2) Online Resources in Alternative Medicine, September 1999, New York, NY; and 3) Introduction to Reference Sources in the History of Health Sciences, April 1999, New Brunswick, NJy.
• The Chapter's 50th Anniversary will be celebrated at the annual Spring Dinner on March 22, 2000 in New York, NY, with a talk on "Food as Medicine" by Dale Bellisfield, RN, Clinical Herbalist.
• Plans are underway for a one-day meeting at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City on October 26, 2000, and a joint meeting with the North Atlantic Health Sciences Librarians (NAHSL) Chapter in October 2001.

Goal 2. Advocacy

• The Chapter's Recruitment Committee recruited 25 new members this year, and the Professional Recognition Committee selected members to receive Chapter awards. All Chapter committee chairs and members received a service certificate at the annual business meeting. Three committee members who have belonged to the Chapter for less than three years, and three who have been members for more than three years received Outstanding Achievement certificates at the Annual Business meeting.
• AHIP membership information and awards information were added to the Chapter Web site this year. In December 1999 a new Chapter Credentialing Liaison was appointed, and a newly created liaison, the Benchmarking Chapter Educator, was established in March 2000.

Goal 3. Organization

• The Chapter's Executive Board meets quarterly with the committee chairs to assure the governance and sound fiscal functioning of the Chapter.
• The Strategic Planning Committee reviewed and revised the Chapter strategic plan for 2000-2005 in January 2000. After final review by the Executive Board in March 2000, the Committee Chairs will develop action plans for the five-year plan's goals and objectives.
• The Chapter Manual was revised to include committee structure changes, and it was distributed to the Board in December 1999.
• The Chapter successfully included new members on committees and on the Executive Board.
• The Chapter has developed three mechanisms for effectively communicating with the membership: 1) the printed quarterly newsletter, 2) the email discussion list, and 3) the Chapter Website.

Goal 4. Research

• The Professional Recognition Committee reviews proposals for our Chapter's research grant, and information about the grant application process is published in the Chapter newsletter.
• A $500 grant was awarded to three Chapter members to explore how faculty in the biomedical sciences are searching MEDLINE via the World Wide Web.

Goal 5. National Information Policy

• The Chapter's Advocacy Committee, chaired by one New York and one New Jersey member, updated the membership on legislative issues through the Chapter email discussion list, via newsletter articles, and through the Website.
• Members attended Library Advocacy Day in Albany on March 14, 2000, and will attend National Library Legislation Day in Washington this May 1-2, 2000.
• The Chapter joined with leaders from other information associations in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area to form an Information Alliance in order to increase the visibility and prominence of all types of information management professionals, and participated in two meetings in 1999.

Goal 6. Information Technology

• The Chapter continues to maintain a strong electronic presence through the email discussion list and the Website. In 1999, we redesigned the Website, moved it to a new server, and registered it at a new address. Recent MLA and Chapter announcements are highlighted there, and information is quickly updated. There was a total of nearly 7000 visits to the Website in 1999.

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

Patricia Tomasulo
Chair
March 15, 2000

Voting Members of the Board
Patricia Tomasulo, Chair
Kerry O'Rourke, Outgoing Chair
William Self, Incoming Chair
Ross Ljungquist, Treasurer
Patricia Burke, Secretary
Jane Fisher, Board Member
Cathy Weglarz, Board Member
Kathel Dunn, Board Member
Patricia Gallagher, Chapter Council Representative
George Walhert, Chapter Council Alternate

Non-Voting Members of the Board
Kerry O'Rourke, Nominee to MLA Nominating Committee
Veronica Plucinski, Parliamentarian
Richard Faraino, Chapter Credentialing Liaison
Valerie Rankow, Representative to the MLA Membership
Committee
Michelle Volesko, Benchmarking Chapter Educator

Committee Chairs
Robert Scheier and Elaine Wells, Advocacy
Van Afes, Archives
Veronica Plucinski, Bylaws
Robb Mackes, Networking Listserv
Susan Jacobs, Networking Newsletter
Patricia Gallagher, Networking Web Master
Kris Alpi, Networking Web Master
Claudia Lascar, Nominating
Joan Napolitano, Professional Development Annual Program
Roberta Bronson Fitzpatrick, Professional Development Spring Program
Kathel Dunn, Professional Development CE
Gail Hendler, Professional Recognition
Paul Barth, Recruitment
helen-ann brown and Kerry O'Rourke, Strategic Planning

Patricia Tomasulo
Information Services
Weill Cornell Medical Library, New York, NY
212.746.3794
Fax, 212.746.8364