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PNCMLA 2022 Virtual Conference Recap

As with many conferences, the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Medical Library Association (PNCMLA) decided to continue with the virtual format for its 2022 conference. The conference was hosted using Zoom software. The conference was from October 20-21, 2022, for about four hours each day.

The keynote speaker was Alison Macrina, the founder and executive director of Library Freedom Project. The organization has the goal of providing librarians and their communities with the skills necessary to turn ideals into action, focused on issues like privacy, intellectual freedom, and information democracy. Alison presented on the issue of privacy of health information and discussed many issues like HIPAA and what it covers and what it does not cover.

The second day started with CE by Jessi Van Der Volgen, the Assistant Director of the NNLM Training Office at University of Utah, teaching attendees about How to Deliver Winning Webinars. Jessie provided practical tips and tricks on how to ensure that the webinars are interactive, and the audience of the webinars are engaged.

In response to the feedback from the previous virtual conferences, the conference in 2022 included Research/Quality Improvement/Program presentation and Poster/Lightning Talk presentations. The conference committee decided to not limit where potential presenters could come from. As a result, the conference had presenters from throughout the United States.

Attendees for each day ranged from 40-50 per day. In 2022, the conference board decided to record sessions based on previous feedback and after asking presenters for their approval. The recordings were made available to attendees after ensuring accessibility of the recordings.

The evaluation of the virtual conference was positive, but when questioned about whether attendees would like in-person, hybrid, or virtual, the vast majority wanted to remain with a virtual conference.

Lessoned learned:

  • The committee needed to archive their activities as there were many questions that could have been answered by reviewing what previous committees had done.
  • The committee needed to ensure the agenda schedule had enough breaks between presentations
  • Opening and closing activities did not need the time allotted to those activities.
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