Recap of the CAPHIS Caucus Annual Business Meeting

Submitted by: Shawn Steidinger

Twenty-three members attended the CAPHIS annual business meeting held online via Zoom on April 29 at 11:00 a.m., central time.

The first item on the agenda was the sharing of the caucus annual report that was sent to MLA HQ. Highlights included:

1. Newsletter: two issues published this year;
2. Membership survey: Megan Bell created a survey to get members’ feedback on ways to increase engagement;
3. Communication: Megan dedicated time to collecting email addresses for a caucus list to improve communication;
4. Programming: The caucus held two events: a recap of National Health Literacy Month programming in Oct 2025, and a session on consumer health collections with Margaret Ansell in March 2026;
5. Document created by the caucus: a draft Collection Development policy for the Goodreads list of consumer health-related titles and for Trusted Websites list.

Next, there was information shared about a schedule of upcoming events:

• June 24, 2026, at 1:00 p.m., central time: Health Literacy Month 2026 Promoting Health Literacy, the Library, and Library Resources to Patients;
• September 2026: Finding consumer health information in different languages;
• January 2027: Hospital librarian’s role in patient education, and finally,
• March 2027: AI and consumer health information.

Angie Tucker then shared our election results: Karin Bennedsen will be our Incoming Chair starting June 1, 2026, and our potential candidate for the MLA Nominating Committee 2027 is Dana Ladd.

Karin Bennedsen alerted the membership to the open position as Consumer Connections Managing Editor, her former role in the caucus. She noted that the newsletter is indexed in CINAHL.

Dana Ladd and Mindwell Egeland talked about the development of a draft Collection Development policy for both our GoodReads list and the Trusted Websites list. They noted that we are looking for volunteers to review new and old materials on GoodReads, as well as make up the Trusted Websites Task Force.

The meeting drew to a close after a productive discussion about consumer health librarianship and how the caucus can best serve its members. Current Chair Shawn Steidinger thanked attendees for their support and welcomed current Incoming Chair Megan Bell to the role.

If you are interested in joining our caucus and/or volunteering for our open positions, please reach out to CAPHIS Leadership: Shawn Steidinger (shawn.steidinger@utah.edu) or Megan Bell (mmbell@uab.edu)