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Press Releases

May 2009

MLA Testifies for Increased Library Funding
MLA and AAHSL Issue Statement to Scholarly Publishers and Vendors

MLA Testifies for Increased Library Funding

On March 16, 2009, Hope Barton, director, Central Technical Services, Access Services and Distance Education, Main Library, University of Iowa Libraries-Iowa City, testified on behalf of the Medical Library Association (MLA) and the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) in support of the Fiscal Year 2010 appropriation for the National Library of Medicine (NLM). Speaking before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies, Barton, chair of MLA's Governmental Relations Committee, recommended:

continued commitment to providing NLM with meaningful funding increases on an annual basis,
continued support for the NIH Public Access Policy, and
continued support for the role of the medical library community in NLM's outreach, telemedicine, disaster preparedness, and health information technology initiatives.

Barton thanked the committee for its leadership in providing funding increases through the economic stimulus package and the FY 2009 Omnibus Appropriations package, which will stimulate biomedical research and improve NLM's dissemination of health information to researchers, practitioners, and the public.
She also commended the committee for its foresight and leadership in supporting the NIH Public Access Policy, which contributes to the development of a biomedical informatics infrastructure that will stimulate further discovery by enabling a much greater interlinking of information from NLM's wide-ranging set of databases. It also contributes to outreach initiatives by providing much-needed access to health literature to those without direct access to medical libraries.

Barton's testimony highlighted several NLM programs and services, including:

PubMed and GenBank: online repositories in the health sciences that are helping to revolutionize medicine and advance science to the next important era: individualized medicine based on an individual's unique genetic differences;
Clinical Trials database: a listing of more than 70,000 U.S. and international trials for a range of diseases and a repository for summary results information;
NLM's Disaster Information Management Research Center: an expansion of the library's capacity to support disaster response and management initiatives;
"Go Local": a service that engages health sciences libraries and other local and state agencies in creating Websites that link from MedlinePlus to relevant information on local pharmacies, hospitals, doctors, and other health and social services.
MLA, a nonprofit, educational organization, comprises health sciences information professionals with more than 4,000 members worldwide. Through its programs and services, MLA provides lifelong educational opportunities, supports a knowledgebase of health information research, and works with a global network of partners to promote the importance of quality information for improved health to the health care community and the public.

For more information, please contact Mary M. Langman, langman@mlahq.org, 312.419.9094 x27.

MLA and AAHSL Issue Statement to Scholarly Publishers and Vendors

The Medical Library Association (MLA) and Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) have issued the "Statement on the Global Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Health Sciences Library Collections."

The statement draws on the principles and issues addressed in a recent statement by the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) and provides a framework for discussions between the health sciences library community and scholarly publishers about viable options for maintaining robust scientific, technical, and medical (STM) collections and services in the current economic climate.

Data from a 2009 AAHSL survey found that academic libraries have had mid-year budget reductions in the current fiscal year and that nearly 70% are expecting budget cuts for the coming year. Community hospitals are also closing libraries due to budget pressures, severely decreasing or eliminating access to vital health information and resources. These circumstances coupled with disproportionate increases in STM journal prices over the last several years have eroded the purchasing power and flexibility of libraries to build diverse collections suited to institutional needs.

The associations maintain that following the principles established by ICOLC in license and purchasing negotiations will benefit both the library and publishing communities by avoiding temporary and possibly permanent cancellations of valuable information resources.
MLA, a nonprofit, educational organization, comprises health sciences information professionals with more than 4,000 members worldwide. Through its programs and services, MLA provides lifelong educational opportunities, supports a knowledgebase of health information research, and works with a global network of partners to promote the importance of quality information for improved health to the health care community and the public.

AAHSL is composed of the directors of 116 libraries of accredited US and Canadian medical schools, as well as 28 associate members. AAHSL's goals are to promote excellence in academic health sciences libraries and to ensure that the next generation of health practitioners is trained in information-seeking skills that enhance the quality of health care delivery.

For more information, please contact Mary M. Langman, langman@mlahq.org, 312.419.9094 x27.