EAHIL election
As announced in the EAHIL Newsletter of February 2004, elections are due to take place for the position of President and for three members of the Executive Board. In response to the announcement in the February 2004 Newsletter, we received four nominations for the Board, no other candidates for the Presidency. Arne Jakobsson has confirmed he will stand for re-election as President.
The election papers were sent out in June 2004, to be received by the EAHIL Secretariat not later than August 14th, 2004.
The results of the mail ballot will be reported during the EAHIL General Assembly in Santander (September 24th 2004, 17.00-18.30).
Shaping the future of EAHIL
EAHIL must somehow generate an income to support EAHIL activities. Two main alternatives have emerged, after much discussion in the EAHIL board, the EAHIL council, through the EAHIL Survey, the discussion lists and other contacts. One alternative is that we keep the annual membership fee as it is. The other alternative is that we abolish the annual membership fee and for conference/workshop delegates introduce a fixed fee that is transferred to EAHIL.
These two alternatives were presented in the August issue (No 68) of the Newsletter. A final proposal will be presented to the General Assembly in Santander.
EAHIL Survey of European Health Information Professionals
The EAHIL Survey of European Health Information Professionals has now been completed and the response has been overwhelming. A total of 346 health information professionals completed the survey. It is very encouraging that we reached both EAHIL members (111) and non-EAHIL members (168). 67 respondents skipped the question and did not state if they are a member or not.
The results of the EAHIL survey was presented in the May issue (No 67) of the newsletter and will be presented at a parallel scientific session in Santander. The EAHIL survey will also be presented in an abbreviated version during the General Assembly.
British Parliament Inquiry into scientific publications
EAHIL has written to the British Parliament Inquiry into scientific publications expressing a support to the 2 routes to open access:
• open access journals with author-fees and/or institutional subscriptions to author-pays journals
• e-print repositories where scientists can self-archive their preprint or published papers
EAHIL also pointed out the role of Health science libraries. The letter will be published in EAHIL newsletter when released by the British Parliament.
Professional Accreditation from EAHIL
In 2002 the Board discussed the possibility that EAHIL might begin to provide professional accreditation for health library and information workers throughout the range of countries from which we draw our membership. This is a perfectly normal and natural service for a professional association to provide for its members and for many national and international associations it is at the heart of their activity, and in some ways it is surprising that we have not considered and EAHIL professional qualification before now.
Liisa Salmi and a very strong group of members from all over Europe have worked hard for the past two years and drafted a proposal for professional accreditation from EAHIL. The Board has been consulted and involved at different stages of the process and so what we see here is a consensus view of both working party and Board.
There will be an opportunity to discuss a revised version of these proposals at the Santander general assembly. If they are approved then the Board and Liisa’s group will take them away and seek to put the scheme into effect as soon as possible, so that members can enjoy the benefits of a European professional qualification as soon as possible.
EAHIL scholarship
EAHIL Board has granted FOUR SCHOLARSHIPS at a maximum of 500 Euro each to facilitate participation at the 9th EAHIL Conference. Santander, Spain, September 2004.
Economic Result
The economic result for 2002 and 2003 and the budget for 2005 and 2006 will be presented at the General Assembly in Santander.
EAHIL secretariat
The work of the Secretariat is proceeding smoothly due to the administrative efficiency of our supervisor Suzanne Bakker. Most of the work is connected with accounting and administration. All financial registration is now done by the computer, which makes the production of various reports easier. A lot of effort has been made to correct the list of membership. Suzanne Bakker has started to work with the archives. As prescribed by law, archival material regarding finances must be kept for a period of seven years. Both for 2003 and 2004 Suzanne Bakker proposed a reduction of Supervisor hours, which was accepted by the Board.
EAHIL newsletter
Our enthusiastic and hard working chief editor Sally Wood-Lamont and her editorial team has produced our excellent newsletter on schedule.
The production plan 2004 for the newsletter:
Issue 66 – Spotlight pharmacy
Issue 67 - Feature articles
Issue 68- Theme Issue- International Collaboration
Issue 69 – 9th EAHIL Conference in Santander
Constantin Cazan has given up the Internet column and been replaced by Benoit Thirion, Chief Librarian of the Rouen University Hospital Centre Library. The Board would like to thank Constantin Cazan for his valuable contributions over the past few years.
To reduce the cost of publishing, the Board decided to transfer the Newsletter printing to Cluj, Romania. Suzanne Bakker reported that Ebsco is willing to cover the mailing cost of the Newsletter.
EAHIL membership database
The University of Oslo Library, Library of Medicine and Health Sciences has agreed to develop and host a web based membership database where all EAHIL members can access and update their own membership record. This will in the future significantly decrease the administrative work of the EAHIL secretariat. A prototype for the membership database will be presented in Santander.
EAHIL Pharmaceutical Information Group
EAHIIL PhInG has a discussion list EAHIL-P with 25 members in June 2004. PhInG will have a scientific session at the 9th European Conference of Medical and Health Libraries, Santander, Spain, 20-25 September 2004.
EAHIL European Veterinary Libraries Group
EAHIL EVLG has a discussion list EVLG-L with 48 members. EVLG will have a scientific session at the 9th European Conference of Medical and Health Libraries, Santander, Spain, 20-25 September 2004.
EAHIL representation on other committees and groups
MLA meeting in Washington, May 2004
Tony McSean represented EAHIL at MLA meeting in Washington, May 2004.
IFLA mid-term meeting in Rome
Gabriella Poppi represented EAHIL at IFLA mid-term meeting in Rome. She participated in IFLA Management of Library Associations Section, 2nd Meeting of the MLAS Standing Committee, Rome, February 2004.
IFLA meeting in Buenos Aires, August 2004
Arne Jakobsson represented EAHIL at the business meetings of the Standing Committees Health and Biosciences Libraries, Buenos Aires, August 2004.
IFLA meeting in Oslo, 2005
The Board has decided that EAHIL should take a booth together with MLA at the 2005 IFLA conference in Oslo, August 2005.
EAHIL conferences and workshops
2004 Santander- Spain
9th EUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF MEDICAL AND HEALTH LIBRARIES
Santander, Spain, 21-26 September 2004.
2005 Palermo - Italy
EAHIL Workshop 2005: "Overall quality - quality for all". Palermo, Italy,
June 23-25, 2005.
2006 Cluj-Napoca - Romania
10th EUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF MEDICAL AND HEALTH LIBRARIES
Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Sally Wood-Lamont and Ioana Robu is charge of organizing the 2006 conference in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
2007 EAHIL workshop in Cracow, Poland
At the EAHIL Board meeting in Amsterdam 9th of January, the Board awarded the 2007 workshop to the Medical Library of Jagiellonian University in cooperation with Information Studies Department of The Institute of Public Health of Jagiellonian University. The proposed date for the workshop is September 11 – 14, 2007, Cracow, Poland.
ICML
9th ICML-International Congress on Medical Librarianship, 19-23 September, 2005,
Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. (http://www.icml.org/). On behalf EAHIL Arne Jakobsson has joined the Executive International Committee for the 9th International Congress on Medical Librarianship (ICML9).
Arne Jakobsson
EAHIL President
