Submitted by Rolf Schafer
Rolf
Schafer from Sydney, Australia reports on his attendance at the 2011 MLA Annual
Meeting, held May 13-18, 2011 at the Minneapolis Convention Center,
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
Minneapolis
was the venue for this year’s annual meeting and the National Library of
Medicine’s 175th anniversary celebration. The last time the annual
meeting was convened in Minneapolis was 25 years ago, where celebrations for
the NLM sesquicentennial were also held.
Registrations
for the annual meeting totalled 1886, with 87 of these from outside the United
States, Canada and Mexico. I was the only delegate who travelled from Australia
to attend the convention. E-Conference registrations were taken up by 101
members who could not travel to the meeting, yet were still able to be part of
the meeting community via online access. This online access included video
streaming of keynote and other select plenary sessions; access to audio
sessions with electronic presentations and online access to posters before,
during, and after the meeting.
A
total of 129 contributed and invited papers combined with 176 poster papers
were presented over the four days of the conference. Continuing education
courses offered during the conference numbered twenty-six and covered a range
of professional competency areas. [1]
The
theme for this year’s meeting was designed to help librarians rethink existing and emerging areas in
health librarianship: rethink service, rethink technology, rethink space,
rethink
leadership, rethink engagement, rethink research, and rethink outcomes. With so many
information channels requiring our attention today, we need to allow time to rethink what we need to do in order to
remain relevant to our institutional contexts and those we serve.
To
enable more meeting attendees to connect and engage, MLA has embraced and promoted
popular social networking tools through a concept known as “Conference
Community.” At MLA’11, we were offered
Twitter, CrowdVine, CoverltLive, FriendFeed, foursquare, quick response codes
and the MLA’11 Blog site. These services are designed to facilitate interaction
with attendees and exhibitors at the meeting on a whole new level. The centrepiece of the Conference Community services at MLA’11 was
“ReThink Conversations.” After each plenary session, attendees were asked to
discuss a related question via Twitter. Display monitors were strategically
placed around the convention centre so that attendees can watch and respond to
the live conversations. Tweets can be made using a mobile device, laptop, or
computers in the Internet
Café. [2] To my knowledge, I am not aware of all these
networking tools being offered and utilised at a library conference in
Australia.
The
following is an account of my MLA’11 experience and the sessions I attended.
Saturday
The
Welcome Reception and opening of the Hall of Exhibits was held on Saturday
night. Here a gathering of some 516 companies and vendors displayed their
products and wares. The exhibit hall also contained an area for the posters
sessions, the Internet Café, Technology Showcase centre, and some electronic
displays.
Sunday
An
early morning started as I attended the International Cooperation Section
Business meeting. Following this the 2011 annual meeting commenced with a
welcome session at which President Ruth Holst greeted delegates on behalf of
the Association. Welcoming remarks and salutations followed from Clare T.
Leibfarth, President of the Midwest Chapter, and from Gabriel R. Rios, Cochair
of the 2011 National Program Committee. Ruth Holst then delivered her Presidential
Address which emphasized the themes of rethinking our value and roles. A
highlight of her presentation was the sharing of snapshots of the various MLA
Chapter meetings that she attended throughout the year.
After
a coffee break, delegates reassembled for Plenary Session II - The John P.
McGovern Award Lecture. The speaker, Clay Shirky - writer, consultant, and teacher
on new technology and social media shared his thoughts on rethinking social media and how it relates to our profession. Shirky
examined the way network technologies provide for groups to get things done,
including collaboration tools, social networks, peer-to-peer sharing,
collaborative filtering, and open source development. A very thought provoking
lecture and pragmatic view of what is occurring now and what is to come with
social media and emerging technologies were presented.
Following
lunch, members attended Business Meeting I where the treasurer’s report and
other annual reports of the Association were formally adopted. Recently elected
office-bearers were also announced. Contributed Paper sessions sponsored
by different sections of MLA filled the remainder of the afternoon. I attended
a session with the title of Next Steps:
The Future. The papers covered topics that included the
21st Century Health Information Professional, leveraging social
media tools to engage library users and the next generation of auto alerts.
Afterwards
I joined other international librarians at the International Visitors Reception
hosted by the International Cooperation Section.
Monday
The
morning began with Plenary Session III
- Janet Doe Lecture. T. Scott Plutchak, Director of the Lister Hill Library of
the Health Sciences Library at the University of Alabama-Birmingham delivered
this year’s lecture. His lecture was titled, “Breaking the Barriers of Time and
Space: The Dawning of the Great Age of Librarians.”
The
second session of section programming commenced after the mid-morning break
with eight concurrent sessions to choose from. My choice was Top Tech Trends.
Here a panel of six librarians shared the latest offerings in technology,
websites and social media tools. Topics included meeting schedules, project
management tools and data visualisation.
At
the conclusion of this session I attended the MLA Awards Ceremony and Luncheon
where MLA members were recognised with various awards, honours and
scholarships.
The
afternoon was devoted to Section sponsored programs and to Section Business
meetings. I attended a session sponsored by the Leadership and Management
Section on rethinking libraries in hard times.
Tuesday
At
7:00 am I joined several other colleagues for breakfast at a ‘sunrise seminar’
hosted by
Wiley-Blackwell
to hear about the latest concepts in evidence-based healthcare and clinical
decision support tools that help clinicians and nurses find quick answers to
the latest evidence. By 9:00 am we were ready for the second MLA Business
Meeting comprising the Presidential Inaugural Address and MLA’12 invitation.
Gary
D. Byrd (left) SUNY at Buffalo Health Sciences Library, Buffalo,
NY and Rolf Schafer
(right) Walter McGrath Library, St Vincent's Hospital Sydney
with Dr. Donald A.B. Lindberg,
Director, National Library of Medicine at the 175th Anniversary
celebrations for NLM.
The
annual National Library of Medicine (NLM) update was held after morning coffee
and was well attended. Dr Donald Lindberg, Director of the NLM assisted by two
associate directors delivered the update. The highlight of their presentation
was an overview of the services, programs and accomplishments that NLM had
delivered over the past 175 years. The fourth session of concurrent section
programs occupied the remainder of the day.
That
evening, meeting attendees and Friends of the National Library of Medicine
joined together to celebrate NLM’s 175th anniversary. The unique
birthday cake clearly stole the show at the celebration.
NLM Birthday cake - a sweet rendition of the NLM
building in Bethesda, MD.
Wednesday
The
morning began with the Joseph Leiter NLM/MLA Lecture delivered by Dr Peter J.
Hotez. Dr Hotez is the distinguished research professor, Walter G.
Ross Professor, and chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and
Tropical Medicine, The George Washington University. His research focuses on
vaccine development for parasitic diseases, particularly hookworm and
schistosomiasis. Hotez also has a strong policy interest to promote the control
of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). The 2011 Leiter Lecture was titled, Open access and control of the Neglected
Tropical Diseases, “The NTDs.”
Plenary
Session IV followed and featured Geoffrey Bilder, Director of Strategic
Initiatives at CrossRef with more than sixteen years of experience as a
technical leader in scholarly technology. Bilder titled his presentation, What color is your paratext? His wacky
and lively delivery style, complete with 251 PowerPoint slides, helped us to
rethink scholarly communication and understand some of the challenges facing
researchers with emerging technologies and scholarly publishing.
Next
year’s annual meeting will be held in Seattle, Washington, May 18-23, 2012.
If
you are not able to attend in person, consider taking up the e-conference
registration where you will have online access to videos of the plenary
speakers and all conference presentations with audio recordings.
References
1.
Ray Naegele, Medical Library Association. [Personal communication]
2.
MLA Annual Meeting and Exhibition, May 13-18, 2011; Minneapolis, MN –
Official Program
Rolf Schafer
Walter
McGrath Library
St Vincent's Hospital Sydney
Australia
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