Colleague Connection with International Colleagues at MLA Annual Meeting

Submitted by Jie Li

ICS members have always been interested in connecting with International colleagues. During the MLA Annual Meeting, ICS members are eager to assist our international librarians, especially the first time MLA attendees. In the part, ICS members went to International Visitors Reception and other events, such as Librarians without Borders Open Forum to meet and communicate with librarians from other countries. At the Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, MN, ICS Chair Rick Ralston arranged ICS members to spend sometime with the Local Hospitality Table to meet international visitors and he himself spent quite a lot of his free time at the hospitality table.  At the 2011 ICS Business meeting, members discussed how we may better connect to the international librarians. One idea at the meeting was to ask MLA Headquarters to provide a list of international MLA Annual Meeting registrants before the meeting, so ICS membership may connect with them before they arrive in United States. At the International Visitors Reception, when having a conversation with Carla Funk, MLA Executive Director, who is also MLA's International Affairs Officer, I briefed Carla about this idea. Carla informed us that MLA Headquarter will be happy to provide ICS with a list of international participants. So in the future MLA Annual Meetings, especially the 2013 joint MLA/IFLA/ICML meeting in Boston, ICS members will have a great opportunity connecting to our international colleagues.

Jie Li

Biomedical Library

University of South Alabama 

Email: jli@jaguar1.usouthal.edu