Annual Report 1999/2000 

Veterinary Medical Libraries Section

Progress on Goals for 1999/2000, arranged by MLA's Strategic Plan outline, are:

Goal 1. Professional Development

• A) Invited Speaker at MLA Meeting. The Veterinary Medical Library Section (VMLS) is sponsoring an invited speaker session at the 2000 annual meeting in Vancouver, BC. The speaker is Julia Blixrud, Program Officer from the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Her topic is on the SPARC Initiative and BioOne. While this was not set as one of the goals for 1999/2000, it deserves to be mentioned since it provides a very nice follow up to one of the section goals for 1998/1999 regarding veterinary journal pricing. Last year the section strongly encouraged MLA to join SPARC.
• D) Standards for Veterinary Medical Libraries. One of the goals chosen by The VMLS Executive Board was to contact the American Veterinary Medical Association and the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges to inquire if they would welcome a set of standards for Veterinary Medical Libraries to be used for accreditation purposes. The task was assigned to the VMLS Survey Committee. However, things were delayed when the Chair of the Committee had to resign midyear. Hopefully, a response from the AVMA and AVMC will be available by the MLA annual meeting. If the answer is yes, then the section will pursue writing a set of standards. A collection of the standards produced by the other sections of MLA have been obtained.
• D) New Basic List of Veterinary Serials. The VMLS has long had a Basic List of Veterinary Serials, but it has become woefully outdated. The Veterinary Serials Committee was assigned the goal to update the list. A new list will be made available at VMLS business meeting for consideration by the membership. Once approved, the list will be posted on the VMLS Website. (This goal also fits under MLA's Goal 4c: Research.)

Goal 6. Information Technology

• A) New Union List of Veterinary Serials. Another goal set for this year was to start production of the 3rd edition of Veterinary Serials, a union list. Given the tremendous changes in computer technology since the last edition, the Union List Committee would like to make this edition electronic and available over the World Wide Web. The year has been spent in testing various software programs to see which one can best perform the multitasks needed for the project and developing standardized formats for entries. Another aspect of this project is to include the serial holdings of every veterinary library (wishing to participate) in the world. The European Veterinary Medical Libraries Group (EVLG) has already expressed interest in participating in the project. A formal call will go out to veterinary libraries late this year, asking for their holdings.

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

C. Trenton Boyd, Chair
Rebecca Davis, Chair-Elect
Leslie Behm, Treasurer
Laura Osegueda, Secretary
Carolyn Kopper, Section Council Representative