Minutes of the Meeting of theEAHIL General Assembly

held 15^th September 2006 at 15.30hrs

in the Conference Hall, University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania.  

1. Quorum.  Tellers reported that over 100 EAHIL members were present and had been issued with voting slips, therefore the General Assembly was declared to be quorate.

2. President’s Opening remarks.  The President, Arne Jakobsson welcomed members to the meeting, where there were several important matters that would need the formal approval of the General Assembly to facilitate the future development of the Association. In particular, it had been necessary to re-draft the official Statutes of EAHIL in order to bring them in line with the new non-fee paying membership structure.

3. Greetings from the MLA.  Becky Lyon introduced herself to those present as the representative of the Medical Library Association, replacing Eve Marie Lacroix who had retired from this position in August 2006. She delivered fraternal greetings from the MLA and extended an invitation to those present to attend the next MLA meeting, to be held in Philadelphia.  Arne Jakobsson thanked Becky and asked her to convey a small specially engraved gift to Eve Marie on behalf of EAHIL members, in recognition of her much-appreciated contributions to the work of EAHIL.

4. Minutes of the General Assembly meeting held on 24^th September 2004 in Santander and Notes of General Assembly meeting (non-quorate) held on 24^th June 2005 in Palermo were agreed as a correct record, and there were no matters arising not otherwise covered by the Agenda.

5. President’s Report.  Arne Jakobsson had previously circulated copies of his report and it had been published on the website. He would put a final version on the web after the conference. He thanked all EAHIL members for their support and help in taking the bold step of making EAHIL a non-fee paying association. All indications were that this move had been very successful and he had high hopes for the future of EAHIL.

6. Treasurer’s Report.  Manuela Colombi presented the financial results for the previous two years. EAHIL was in a healthy financial state at the end of 2005, as it moved to the new non-fee paying arrangements at the start of 2006.  She had prepared budgets for 2006, 2007 and 2008. Copies of all documents were available for perusal. Manuela explained that her aim was to keep a good balance between income and outgoings, whilst reducing expenditure on administrative costs as far as possible.  After a short discussion, the General Assembly accepted and approved the Treasurer’s report nem. con.

7. Secretariat Supervisor’s Report.  Suzanne Bakker reported on the work undertaken on behalf of EAHIL at the NVB bureau. Due to staff changes and sickness, the bureau had been understaffed for the first half of 2006, but as this had coincided with a reduced workload since no membership fees had needed to be collected from individual members within Europe, this had not had an adverse effect.  The Membership database was to be the definitive list of EAHIL members. Membership had increased dramatically from the beginning of 2006 and was presently standing at over 900, with the real possibility of reaching 1000 by the end of the conference. Suzanne also reported that the Nominations and Election Committees had organised the elections for President and Board members and that the Election Committee members had met to count the votes at Rene Marten’s office in Belgium on 11^th August 2006. The results would be officially announced later in the meeting.

8. JEAHIL Editor’s Report. Sally Wood-Lamont had prepared a written report, copies of which were available at the meeting. She highlighted the fact that interest in JEAHIL from advertisers was growing and that colour spreads had proved very popular.  From the beginning of 2006, articles submitted to JEAHIL had been peer-reviewed.  She was confident that JEAHIL could continue to be produced in printed format at least for the immediate future, as it was totally self-financing.  Themed issues were popular, and the JEAHIL Editorial Board had met at the conference to propose ideas for themes for future issues. It was noted that EAHIL would be celebrating its 20^th anniversary during 2007 and it was hoped to produce a special supplement to JEAHIL during 2007 (probably the August issue) to mark this event.  Sally would welcome all suggestions and ideas regarding this issue.  On behalf of all present, Arne thanked Sally for her continuing excellent work as JEAHIL editor.

9. EAHIL Elections for President and Board Members. The Nominations Committee and individual EAHIL members had been very successful in encouraging active members to stand for election for President and the Board vacancies. The nomination form had been published in JEAHIL and the nomination period ended on 31^st March 2006.  There had been two candidates for the position of President, and nine candidates for the EAHIL Board. All the candidates had been featured in JEAHIL with statements of their ambitions for EAHIL. Voting slips had been sent by ordinary mail in sealed envelopes, and the Election Committee members, Francoise Pasleau and Rene Martens met on 11^th August to officially count the votes. Francoise Pasleau reported the election results to the General Assembly.  For the position of President, Suzanne Bakker received 189 votes and Manuela Colombi received 113.  Suzanne was therefore declared as the next President.  For the Board members, Tony McSean received 170 votes (elected), Pirjo Rajakiili received 164 votes (elected), Benoit Thirion received 164 votes (elected), Meile Kretaviciene received 146 votes (1^st co-opted member), Enrica Veronesi received 103 votes (2^nd co-opted member), Freidhelm Rump received 96 votes, Ioana Robu 92 votes, Marta Viragos 64 votes and Joanna Venieri 60 votes. The General Assembly formally approved the election results. Arne Jakobsson thanked the Election Committee for their work and warmly congratulated Suzanne Bakker on her election as the next President.  On behalf of the Board and all members, Suzanne Bakker made a short speech thanking Arne for all his hard work and outstanding achievements during his term as EAHIL President and presented him with a specially engraved plaque to mark the occasion.  Suzanne also thanked Marta Viragos who was now leaving the Board after many years of excellent service, and presented her with a small gift.

10. EAHIL Statutes. Tony McSean explained to members that it had been necessary to alter the wording of the official EAHIL statutes to accommodate the new membership situation.  With our greatly increased numbers, we needed to revise the rules regarding the number of Councillors from each country, and also the procedures for approving new EAHIL members, renewing membership and termination of membership had changed. It was also desirable to clarify the rules around such issues as voting at the General Assembly, membership of the Board, and the statutes regarding finances.  All the proposed changes had been published in full in the August 2006 issue of JEAHIL, and Tony also had copies available at the meeting.  After a brief discussion, Bruce Madge proposed and Patricia Flor seconded the motion that the General Assembly approve the adoption of the new revised version of the statutes.  On a vote this was agreed with only one member voting against the proposal.

11. EAHIL Membership Database. Arne Jakobsson reported that the new membership database was in operation and working well.  He urged members to visit the database, make sure their details were up to date, and make use of the facilities offered. There had been discussion in the Board and Council meetings about the desirability of all members making fuller use of the group discussion lists. It was proposed that the forthcoming elections for EAHIL Council members could be conducted entirely “online” via the membership database.  Arne also reminded members that it was possible to add a photo to their records, and to print off a Membership Card for the year.

12. Election Committee officers.  Arne Jakobsson explained that Rene Martens was stepping down as an election committee officer and therefore proposed a new committee comprising Francoise Pasleau, Simone Bouzidi and Maurella Della Seta, all of whom had volunteered for the task.  The members formally approved the proposal.

13. EAHIL Special Interest Groups. Linda Lisgarten reported that each of the SIGs had arranged a business meeting at the Cluj conference, and that a report from each group would be published in the next issue of JEAHIL. In particular, the former WHO Documentation Centre SIG had decided at their meeting that this group should be extended to cover the whole area of public health and would be renamed as the Public Health Special Interest Group. Linda also mentioned that many thanks were due to the EAHIL webmaster, Benoit Thirion, who had facilitated the addition of many pages of valuable information to the SIGs webpages. It had been suggested that the new membership database could also boost SIG membership by giving the option to join a SIG when applying for EAHIL membership.

14. EAHIL Awards of Merit.  Arne Jakobsson was delighted to announce the Board’s decision to give the Award of Merit for 2005 to Gabriella Poppi.  Paying tribute to her huge contributions to the work of EAHIL over many years, Arne remarked that she had been particularly active in encouraging all her Italian colleagues to join EAHIL and tireless in promoting the work and importance of the WHO libraries. She had been a valuable contributor to the work of the EAHIL Board and had served on several conference organising committees. Everything had been done with great grace, charm and purpose, and he was sure that all EAHIL members wished to thank her and wish her a long and happy retirement. Arne Jakobsson then announced the Award of Merit for 2006 had been given to Eva Alopaeus. Eva had served on many EAHIL Programme and CEC committees, and had been creative and innovative – the Walk & Talk sessions at Oslo and the Empowerment session at Cluj were both her idea and had been a great success.  Eva had also served on the committee developing the Code of Ethics for EAHIL, and a Council member for Sweden, as well as being very active in the Nordic-Baltic Association. She is an advocate of Evidence-Based librarianship and has a strong belief in the importance of quality in the profession, something of which she is a great example. Arne presented both the Award of Merit winners with a specially engraved vase.  Both Gabriella and Eva replied with a few words of grateful thanks for their awards.

15. EAHIL conferences and workshops.  Arne Jakobsson announced that the Board would like to receive expressions of interest from candidates wishing to organise/host the EAHIL 2010 conference. As it was considered desirable to have a geographical spread of conference locations, it would be especially good to receive proposals from southern or central Europe, but the Board would consider all proposals on merit. If possible, expression of intent should be sent to the Board in time for their January 2007 meeting.

16. EAHIL 20^th Anniversary. Arne Jakobsson reminded members that 2007 would mark the 20^th year since EAHIL was founded. The Board was looking for suggestions of ways to mark the occasion. Several ideas were briefly discussed, including suggestions for tee-shirts and other mementoes, plus the desirability of marking the occasion at the workshop in Cracow and producing a special souvenir issue of JEAHIL with contributions from long-standing members. It was also suggested that it would be good to look forward as well as looking back, and that articles looking at the likely future of the profession and how EAHIL might develop in the next 20 years would be very interesting and may help focus on our strategic plans. Arne said the Board would be happy to receive all ideas and suggestions on the subject.

17. Any other business.  There being no other business, Arne thanked all members present for their valuable contributions to the meeting, which he declared closed at 16.40 hrs.