| Minutes of the meeting of the EAHIL Council,
held 23rd June 2005, 09.00 – 12.00,
Palazzo dei Normanni, Palermo, Italy.
President’s welcome and introductions: after greeting those present and facilitating “round the room” introductions, Arne Jakobsson explained that the meeting would comprise two sections; the first and major part would be devoted to a demonstration of the new Membership Database and a discussion about the future shape of EAHIL, whilst the remainder of the time would be devoted to the usual items on the agenda. PART ONE: Membership Database: Arne had set up a demonstration of the new web database especially for Council Members, stressing that they would have an important and expanded role in the future development of EAHIL, particularly with regard to recruiting and validating new members from their region, using the membership database as a key tool. Thus he and the Board were very keen that Council members should become familiar with it as soon as possible. Arne demonstrated the main features, pointing out that the database was structured for access on three different levels.
Level 1 was the general entry level for personal users. Existing members could check and modify their data, and from 1st January 2006, potential new members would be able to apply for membership online. When a new member has applied, the system will forward their details to the relevant national Councillor for validation. The form was easy to use and individuals can elect to join one of the Special Interest Groups at the same time. It would be a requirement that all members must enter the database at least once a year to check their details and re-validate their desire to stay in membership; this was to ensure that the database did not stagnate and that details were up to date. The system is password controlled but a “forgotten your password?” help feature was available. Following a suggestion from Peter Morgan, it was agreed that there would be a short piece added to the application page giving some guidelines on who would qualify for EAHIL membership, as well as the “welcome” message. Arne demonstrated the features available to individual members on the database: they could scan the lists under name or country, send an email to another member, or contact other members of SIGs.
Level 2 was the “Councillor” level. EAHIL Council members could scan and amend the records of their national colleagues, and also, importantly, validate new membership applications. It was hoped that Council members would be diligent about this and deal with applications quickly.
Level 3 was the “Supervisor” level, for use by the system administrators. Following the demonstration, Council members agreed that the new database was user-friendly and would provide a lot of very useful features. It would be important to keep the membership information up to date. Suzanne Bakker said that only paid up members on the existing Secretariat files would be automatically transferred to the new system, with the aim of getting our records as accurate as possible. The new database would become the definitive list of members and would be used for mailing out printed copies of JEAHIL. Council members could help greatly by checking the records of their national colleagues and also by promoting EAHIL membership through their national associations and discussion lists, as appropriate. It was also agreed that an option not to receive printed copies of JEAHIL would save potential unnecessary duplication, especially in cases where there were several members from the same library address.
PART TWO: Minutes: the minutes of the Council Meeting held 22nd September 2004 in Santander, Spain, were signed as a correct record. President’s Report: Arne Jakobsson had pre-circulated copies of his report to save time. It would also be published on the website. Nominations Committee: The Board had agreed that it was very important for the future success of EAHIL to have good, active national Council Members. However, in the past, it had sometimes been difficult to find good candidates and some people were reluctant to put themselves forward. Therefore it was proposed to set up a small “Nominations Committee” with representatives from the different regions of Europe, to seek out and encourage good candidates from their area. The meeting agreed this would be a good idea and that it should be put before the General Assembly with a view to setting up a Nominations Committee as soon as possible. The Board were also looking into amending the Statutes to change the number of Councillors each country was entitled to per number of ordinary members, to prevent the Council becoming over-large and unwieldy. Future events: - 2006 conference in Cluj-Napoca. Benoit Thirion gave a brief update on planning for the Cluj conference, which was proceeding well.
- 2007 workshop in Cracow: Barbara Niedzwiedzka reported that planning was going well. The dates had been fixed for 12 – 15th September 2007, and the IPC had proposed that the theme will be “The Education, Training and Continuing Development of the Health Library and Information Workforce”. The aim would be to have a “real” and participative workshop as opposed to a passive audience event.
- 2008 conference in Helsinki: Piirjo Rajakiili reported that the Finnish Medical Library Association had agreed to host the conference, which would probably take place 23 – 26 June 2008. There were still several options for the conference centre location under active investigation.
- 2009. Arne reported that the Board would be seeking expressions of interest in hosting the 2009 EAHIL workshop. Also during 2009, there would be an ICML conference in Brisbane, Australia, where it was hoped that an EAHIL strand could be organised.
EAHIL Website: Arne was pleased to announce that Benoit Thirion had agreed to take on the task of developing and maintaining the EAHIL webpages. Benoit would welcome input from other members with an interest in this area. Special Interest Groups: reports from the SIGs would be published in the next edition of JEAHIL. All SIGs were planning business meetings in Palermo. Open Access: Arne gave a reminder of the Open Access event that was planned to take place in Oslo during August 2005 at the University Medical Library site as a satellite meeting to the IFLA conference. Already 120 participants had signed up to attend what was sure to be a lively and topical event. Concluding remarks: due to lack of time, the President had to draw the meeting to a close. He thanked everyone for their participation and urged them to try out the new Membership Database for themselves at the earliest opportunity! He also once again stressed the importance of the Council members to the future success of EAHIL as it entered a new and exciting phase of becoming a non-subscription based organisation. The meeting closed at 12.15 |
