Annual Report 1999/2000 

2000 National Program Committee

Activities

• The 2000 National Program Committee held its second meeting in Chicago on May 15, 1999. Liz Bayley joined the committee membership as the Canadian Health Libraries Association/Association des bibliothèques de la santé du Canada (CHLA/ABSC) liaison. The meeting program schedule for 2000 was confirmed and approved, and work assignments for committee members were affirmed.

Plenary Sessions

• There will be three plenary sessions, not including the Janet Doe Lecture. Plenary I will feature Dr. Tom Ferguson on consumer health issues. David Suzuki, noted Canadian environmentalist, will present Plenary II. Plenary III on the topic of electronic publishing will be presented jointly by Paul Ginsparg, Ph.D., physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Betsy Humphreys, associate director of Library Operations, National Library of Medicine, and will serve as an introduction to a post-conference symposium on the same topic.

Section Programming (Diana Cunningham, Coordinator)

• In May, all section program chairs for the annual meeting in 2000 were confirmed and added to the listserv established to facilitate communication and planning. Two planning sessions were scheduled during the 1999 annual conference. A total of 30 program plans were finalized in June. Descriptive information for the contributed programs was completed for the "Call for Papers" that appeared both on the MLA conference Web page as well as in the MLA News, August issue. A total of 194 papers was received in November, and all papers were sent to the section program planners, or their designee, for blinded peer review. With permission, the American Medical Informatics Association reviewer form was used. Three members of the 2000 NPC along with the Section Council liaisons for the 2000 and 2001 NPC completed the blinded review of the General paper sessions. In addition, highly ranked papers from the sections were folded into the review process of this group. Because of the caliber of these papers, two NPC-sponsored contributed paper sessions were established, bringing the total number of programs to 32. Eighty of the 193 papers were accepted for potential presentation. Three were referred for possible poster presentation. A model letter/contract and requirements for presenting a paper in Canada were distributed to the planning contacts.
• Section business meetings were scheduled in two slots, rather than three. All SIG meetings are now part of the informal time slots. The historic conflicts with SIGs will not be an issue in 2000; however, this also means that there are fewer time slots for Section business meeting. The final program and final abstracts copy for both contributed and invited papers were sent to MLA in February, and the final copy was proofed and all audiovisual requirements were transmitted to MLA in March.

Posters (Carole Gilbert, Print Coordinator; Eve-Marie LaCroix, Electronic Coordinator)

• Traditional and electronic posters will be presented together in the exhibit area at the same time. Ample space is available for viewing. Final poster abstracts were submitted to MLA Headquarters for publication in the annual meeting program supplement. There will be 103 posters presented at the meeting. Of these, 10 are by Canadian authors and 30 are electronic presentations.
• All necessary information for submitting abstracts, as well as guidelines for preparing effective presentations, were placed on MLANET. Five of the electronic poster presenters submitted a structured abstract, meeting the criteria for consideration for the Research Section award. Presenters will use both the poster board and "canned" laptop presentations without a live Internet connection, requiring electrical outlets only. There were no problems organizing the electronic publications, and presenters seem quite pleased to have a poster board and the flexibility to use both printed material and a laptop.
• Alice Witkowski developed a poster evaluation form that will be tested at this year’s poster session. The purpose of the evaluation is to provide presenters and the NPC 2001 with useful feedback.

Open Forum

• This year’s open forum will feature two presentations. Bernie Todd Smith will coordinate a presentation on MLA’s benchmarking initiative, and Valerie Florance will discuss the Association of American Medical Colleges’ better_health@here.now initiative.

Website (George Beckett, Coordinator)

• New information has been posted to update the annual meeting Website on a regular basis. Links to the CHLA/ABSC Website and from CHLA/ABSC’s site to the Vancouver meeting Website were provided to encourage Canadian participation. CHLA/ABSC has assumed responsibility for having essential information for the web site, as well as meeting materials, translated into French. The addition of a conference e-mail listserv has been beneficial for fostering communications among those interested in the conference. Several compliments have been received about the site, and the NPC 2000 credits Kate Corcoran and her Web crew at MLA headquarters for exceptional work in making the site pleasing to the eye, as well as useful for information sharing.

Publicity (Paula Raimondo, Coordinator)

• Calls for participation, posters and contributed papers were prepared and distributed via the usual mechanisms, including web sites and chapter listservs. The Local Assistance Committee (LAC) slated monthly articles, beginning in January, for the MLA News to promote the meeting and Vancouver. CHLA/ABSC produced complementary publicity materials for its members, including promoting the meeting in its publication, Bibliotheca Medica Canadiana.
• In conjunction with the LAC and the CHLA/ABSC, a number of e-mail messages about the conference were distributed widely. Topics included: 1) Vancouver 2000 Preliminary Program on MLANET; 2) Year of the Dragon lore; 3) significance of the dragon symbol; 4) LAC e-mail address for questions concerning Vancouver and environs. Publicity messages were distributed to all MLA chapter listservs, MEDLIB, and the listserv of the BioSciences Division of the Special Libraries Association.

Local Assistance Committee (Jim Henderson, Chair)

• The Local Assistance Committee promoted the 2000 meeting at the 1999 meeting in Chicago, IL, with a large, attractive booth provided and staffed by Tourism Vancouver. Only one Vancouver person attended the Chicago meeting, so volunteers from across Canada, the Pacific Northwest, and the NPC generously donated time to help distribute local information at the booth. A Tourism BC screensaver displayed on a video monitor and distributed on diskette and fortune cookies with customized messages promoting the meeting augmented fridge magnets, tourist brochures and stickers with the striking dragon logo. Books, t-shirts, donated tickets to local attractions, and car rentals were raffled at the booth. Crossed flag pins were distributed to the NPC, MLA Board and Chapter and Section representatives.
• The invitation at a business session was supported by fortune cookies and the appearance of the purple dragon, who belted the incoming MLA President with its tail. The "Classical BC" video with "Carmina Burana" soundtrack was well received. Similar promotion was undertaken at the CHLA/ABSC meeting in Halifax a week later and the PNC/MLA Chapter meeting in Seattle, WA, in the fall.
• All LAC members met with the site visit team during their meeting at the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre in October. Alternatives for the opening reception and other social events were highlighted.
• The Local Assistance Committee contributed local links to the meeting Web master and reviewed the site to ensure accuracy. The LAC wrote an insert on border crossing for attendees for inclusion in the Preliminary Program. The NPC CE Co-ordinator has been contacted to prevent border crossing problems for CE presenters and their materials. The LAC has prepared a restaurant guide to be included in the bag given to all attendees. As well, to help address the high cost of the meeting to Canadians because of the exchange rate on the Canadian relative to the US dollar, a "Best Buys" brochure has been written and distributed to CHLA/ABSC members with the preliminary program. This brochure is being distributed in response to requests for inexpensive accommodation from non-Canadian MLA members and is unofficially posted on the Medical Library Service Website.
• The LAC developed a publicity program in conjunction with MLA Headquarters, NPC members and CHLA/ABSC representatives. Articles by local people on Vancouver attractions have been submitted to MLA News. Postings to listservs have been written and forwarded for editing and posting. The start of the Chinese Year of the Dragon was a point of focus, as will be the March 20 registration deadline. Other Canadian publicity efforts have called attention to the added value of a joint meeting for Canadians and to Canadians presenting at the meeting.
• Arrangements have been made through Tourism Vancouver for a hospitality booth staffed by LAC members, Tourism Vancouver staff, and Lady Vancouver Club volunteers.Volunteers for stuffing meeting bags, to host dine-arounds, and to help during the meeting are being solicited. A guide to libraries has been prepared and library tours are being arranged. In addition to the tours arranged by MLA, activities locally and elsewhere in BC have been identified. Local commercial tours will be offered through Tourism Vancouver, perhaps at the hospitality booth.
• The LAC did not have a large population of health librarians to draw upon. As a consequence, much has been accomplished by the small group, with one person doing the work usually done by committees of several people. It would not have been possible to operate this way without regular meetings generating continuous activity, a talented committee, support from Tourism Vancouver, and encouragement and help from the NPC and MLA members in Canada and especially the Pacific Northwest.

Continuing Education (Katy Nesbit, Coordinator)

• Thirty-four continuing education courses will be offered in Vancouver. Additionally, two conference symposia are scheduled. The pre-conference half-day symposium is entitled "Out of the Mist, Into the Millennium: A Symposium on Alternative and Complementary Health Care Information". The Chiropractic Libraries Section sponsors it. "Dragon by the Tail: Myth and Reality of Electronic Journals" will be the post-conference symposium on Wednesday afternoon and evening. The Collection Development, Medical School Libraries, and Technical Services Sections sponsor it.

Fundraising

• By mid-November the NPC had raised $74,000 to support the Vancouver meeting.

Other

• The NPC chair, associate chair, and the LAC chair met in Vancouver in early October with Carla Funk, Renee Carey, and Ray Naegele for a final site visit prior to the annual meeting. Discussion centered on social events, hotel arrangements, exhibit arrangements, AV requirements, local assistance committee activities and preliminary program requirements.

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

Brett A. Kirkpatrick, Chair
Joanne G. Marshall, Associate Chair

Committee Members
George Beckett
Diana Cunningham, Section Council Liaison
Tom Flemming
Carole Gilbert
Jim Henderson, Local Assistance Committee Chair
Eve-Marie LaCroix
Katy Nesbit, C.E. Committee Liaison
Paula Raimondo
Jean Sayre
Linda Walton
Alice Witkowski

Frieda Weise, President and Board Liaison
Liz Bayley, CHLA/ABSC President and Liaison
Renee Carey, Meetings Consultant (through October, 1999)
Jeannie McClarty, Meetings Consultant (since October, 1999)
Ray Naegele, Staff Liaison