Annual Report 1999/2000 

Consumer and Patient Health Information Section

Goal 1. Professional Development

MLA Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC, Canada May 2000

Section Sponsored Programs

• Contributed Papers
  • Co-sponsored with Chiropractic Libraries, International Cooperation, Complementary Medicine SIG, Mental Health SIG
    Calming the Dragon: The Mind-Body Connection in Healing
    Trends, resources and controversies in mind-body therapies,
    including nontraditional and non-Western approaches.
  • Solo Sponsorship
    Moving Toward the Mainstream: Providing Consumer Health Information in the Community Setting
• Invited Speakers
  • Co-sponsored with Hospital Libraries, Nursing and Allied Health Resources
    Walking Hand in Hand: Consumer Health Advocacy

Goal 2. Advocacy

• The new Consumer Health Librarian, NN/LM Network Office, at the National Library of Medicine, Cecilia Durkin will be a featured guest at the Vancouver meeting. Cecilia will describe NLM’s plans in the consumer health area and will take questions and input from the CAPHIS members.
• This new focus on Consumer Health topics continues the Focus Group that took place at MLA 1999 in Chicago, IL. That focus group was moderated by Karen Hajarian, and Interviewers were Paula Kitendaugh and MaryBeth Schell. The specific details of the Focus Group Session were included in the CAPHIS newsletter Connections. Four major areas that were covered included Electronic Resources, Training, Consumer Outreach and MEDLINEplus.

Goal 3. Organization

Bylaws

• Chair David Duggar reports that per his conversation with Suzanne Grifsheim and Mary Langman there are no by-laws changes this year for the CAPHIS section and that this Summer the MLA Model Bylaws will be updated, therefore next year our section will need to make changes to reflect these new Model Bylaws which will reflect changes in Section Alternate to Representative-elect.

Newsletter

• Newsletter editor Kay Deeney continues to publish our excellent newsletter Consumer Connections three times per year. It was hoped that this year, the Section could obtain sponsorship from commercial sources to help defray the costs of publishing and mailing the newsletter. While there are several companies interested in "advertising" in the newsletter, there were no firm commitments at the time of this report. The Section will continue to pursue sources to defray costs of the newsletter.

Section Officers

• Since all of the Section Chairs and officers are continuing in their positions, the only election will be for Chair Elect which will take place in early April 2000. Results of the election will be posted to the Section Website when completed. Current officers and their term(s) of office are:
  Janie Grosman, Chair 1999-2000
  Michele Spatz, Chair Elect 2000-2001
  Jane Fisher, Secretary 1999-2001
  Claire Hamasu, Treasurer 1999-2001
  Section Council: Rep. Gail Hendler 1999-2002
  Altern. Sharon Lezotte 1999-2002
  Bylaws Chair, David Duggar
  Govt. Relations: Gail Hendler
  Electronic Resources: Roz Dudden, Eric Delozier

Goal 6. Information Technology

• Thanks to the initial efforts of Roz Dudden and Eric Delozier, the CAPHIS Website continues to be a great source of information for those interested in, or working around Consumer Health Issues. Because the site is in great need of updating, this year will be spent developing volunteer Webmasters to continually update and add to the site.