| EAHIL - President’s report 2006.
Arne Jakobsson EAHIL Executive Board
The first meeting of EAHIL’s Executive Board took place at the Elsevier Offices, London, United Kingdom on January 20, 2006. Tony McSean had kindly invited the Board members and hosted the meeting.
The second meeting of EAHIL’s Executive Board was held on Monday 11th September, 2006, at the Colegiul Academicum, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Roles and tasks of Board Members 2006 Arne Jakobsson: President. Tony McSean: Past President and Chair of the Accreditation Committee. Linda Lisgarten: Secretary and Co-ordinator of the EAHIL Special Interest Groups. Manuela Colombi: Treasurer. Suzanne Bakker: 1st Vice President and Secretariat Supervisor. Helena Bouzkova: Continuing Education and Professional Development Co-ordinator. Meile Kretaviciene: 2nd Vice President. Marta Viragos: 1st Co-opted Member and Internal Communications Officer. Marta Viragos left the Board at the end of the year, after serving as a Board member 2001-2004 and co-opted Board member 2005-2006. Marta has been a very valuable and hard working Board member. Her reports from the Board Meetings in the JEAHIL have been excellent. She has also been EAHIL representative to HILJ International Editorial Advisory Board. EAHIL wish to thank her for her very valuable contributions over many years and wishes her every success for the future. Sally Wood-Lamont has a standing invitation to attend all Board meetings, ex officio in her role as Editor of the JEAHIL. 2006 elections for the EAHIL President and Executive Board members The 2006 elections for the EAHIL President and for two or three Executive Board members were closed August 1st. The Nomination Committee (Eva Alopaeus from the North, Bruce Madge from the West, Sally Wood-Lamont from the East and Luisa Fruttini from the South) and individual EAHIL members have worked hard to seek out and encourage active EAHIL members to stand for President and on the Board. The nomination form was published in JEAHIL Volume 2. No 1. and the nomination was closed march 31st 2006. 2 candidates had been nominated as President and 9 candidates had been nominated for the EAHIL Board. There are two or three vacancies for Board members and one for President. The two non-elected candidates who receive the largest numbers of votes will be co-opted to the Board. The voting papers were sent by ordinary mail to all EAHIL members with voting privileges, i.e. all members except affiliated members and honorary members. All candidates for Board and President were presented JEAHIL Volume 2. No 2. The votes were sent by ordinary mail to EAHIL secretariat. 11.08.06 Francoise Pasleau and Rene Mertens (EAHIL election committee) met to count the votes for the next president and for the members of the board. Suzanne Bakker provided the election committee with the ballot papers. After the counting she brought the bulletins back to the EAHIL secretariat. The results:
We received 308 bulletins for the president and 309 bulletins for the board members. For the president:
Suzanne Bakker collected 189 votes and Manuela Colombi received 113 votes.
Two bulletins were blank and 4 others were invalid. For the board members: 307 bulletins containing 1059 votes in total and the votes are divided as following:
Tony McSean 170 votes (elected)
Pirjo Rajakiili 164 votes (elected)
Benoit Thirion 164 votes (1st co-opted member)
Meile Kretaviciene 146 votes (2nd co-opted member)
Enrica Veronesi 103 votes
Friedhelm Rump 96 votes
Ioana Robu 92 votes
Marta Viragos 64 votes
Joanna Venieri 60 votes. Number of Council members from each country/region The number of EAHIL members has increased from 400 to over 800 and hopefully will continue to increase. According to the old statutes, one Council delegate was elected for each member state of the Council of Europe (or group of states, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure) with at least five voting members and one additional delegate for each state for each further block of twenty five (25) voting members. With the increasing number of EAHIL members, the numbers of councillors would explode to an unmanageable number under this system. To reduce the number of councillors for each country, the EAHIL Board proposes that the General Assembly changes paragraph 10.5.2 in the statutes so that each country can elect a maximum of three Council delegates only. OLD VERSION 10.5.2 One additional delegate for each state for each further block of twenty five (25) voting members. PROPOSED NEW VERSION 10.5.2 One additional delegate for each state for each further block of twenty five (25) voting members up to a maximum of three delegates per country. The proposed change was accepted by the General Assembly EAHIL council elections 2006 for the period 2007-2010. The role of EAHIL councillors and nomination procedures were published in JEAHIL 2006;2(4):4-5. The nomination form was also available on EAHIL web site. The nomination was closed 1st December 2006. The election of EAHIL councillors was open from the 15th of January 2007 until the 14th of February 2007. The EAHIL council elections were done electronically through the Membership Database. The voting system was developed by EAHIL Membership Database developer Morten Pedersen, University of Oslo Library, Library of Medicine and Health Sciences in co-operation with EAHIL President Arne Jakobsson. Instructions for voting 1. Go to EAHIL web http://www.eahil.net/ 2. Click on Membership database 3. Login with your userid and password. 4. Click on Elections 5. You are only allowed to vote for councillors in your own country. In the Election list it should be stated the type of election (Council) and your country. In my case it is Norway. 6. Click on your country name and you will get information on the maximum number of votes you can cast. You will also get the candidate list. You can click on the candidates name to get the address information for the candidate, for instance workplace and even a photo if the candidate has added the photo in the membership database. If you want to vote for a candidate you just check the checkbox after the candidate name. 7. When you have checked the boxes for your candidate(s). Press the vote button. If you have voted for fewer candidates than your maximum number of votes, you are informed that you have chosen too few candidates. You can press vote again to proceed or check the boxes for more candidates and than press vote. You can only vote once! The Treasurer’s Report: The Association began 2006, the first year of virtual (no-fee) membership in a very healthy financial situation with a balance of 110,000 Euros at the end of 2005. Some institutional and non-EU members still contribute to EAHIL’s incomes and sponsors support the publication and shipment of JEAHIL. The major expenses come from the Secretariat which are still not as low as foreseen, and from the scholarships, which are one of the major scopes of the Association. The conference and workshop levy system gave good results A suggestion is to write soon a rule how conference and workshop organizers have to calculate the levy for EAHIL. A further suggestion is to write rules for the management of EAHIL scholarships. The budgets for 2007 and 2008 have been approved by the General Assembly in Cluj. The preliminary audit report by Nicole Regoort gives a final result of about 1600,00 Euro, which means that the financial situation of the Association is stable. Professional certification from EAHIL A proposal for an EAHIL cerification scheme has been drafted by Tony McSean. The proposal will be discussed by the EAHIL board and council before it is put before the general assembly. EAHIL Statute Revision Tony McSean reported that the proposed changes had been published in full in the JEAHIL Vol 2. No 3. Tony McSean had copies of them available at the General Assembly meeting, where the formal agreement of the GA would be sought. The changes were necessary to bring the Statutes in to line with the new organisation of EAHIL and the fact that membership fees were no longer charged to members from within Europe. Tony would explain the main features of the proposed changes to the General Assembly so that they understood the reason why they were necessary. The general assembly approved the changes of statutes. EAHIL scholarships In the January issue of Journal of EAHIL, EAHIL Executive Board announced 6 scholarships for the 10th EAHIL conference in Cluj, Romania 11-16th September. In addition two further scholarships were announced, specifically for veterinary librarians, awarded by the EVLG special interest group together with the EAHIL Executive Board. Each scholarship was worth up to 500 euros. To be able to grant 11 instead of the 8 announced scholarships, the local organizing committee for the 10th EUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF MEDICAL AND HEALTH LIBRARIES, Cluj-Napoca, generously provided extra funding for such scholarships. The EAHIL secretariat Suzanne has organised the files and archives at the NVB, integrating the files from the Brussels, Amsterdam and Utrecht periods, whilst disposing of the oldest financial records. (Dutch law requires that such material must be kept for 7 years). The accountant will check the financial records twice a year in future, and the Secretariat will produce financial overviews every quarter, which should help to give a more accurate financial picture. The interest in advertising in the JEAHIL is healthy and the number of advertisements placed was rising, despite charges having been raised slightly and surcharges made for cover and colour advertisements. There is also considerable interest by affiliated members in buying address labels for sending out their mailings. Journal of EAHIL The cost of mailing the JEAHIL continues to be sponsored by EBSCO. Advertising in the Newsletter has always been a good source of income and this is organized by Suzanne Bakker. By reducing the printing costs of the JEAHIL and increasing the income from advertisements the Journal is now financially self-supporting. Sally is confident that it would be possible to continue with the printed version of the journal in the foreseeable future because it continued to make an overall profit, but agreed that with the rapidly rising membership numbers, it would be useful and save wastage if members from the same library elected to receive only one print version to that address. The introduction of two full colour middle-page spreads in the first volume had been so successful that it is planned to expand this feature in 2006, with the aim of having at least three colour spreads, hopefully of eight pages each. This would be financed by the advertisers, who were already booking “colour” spaces. Starting from 2006, articles in JEAHIL are peer reviewed. Our enthusiastic and hard-working chief editor Sally Wood-Lamont and her editorial team have produced our excellent JEAHIL on schedule. The production plan 2006 for the newsletter: Issue 1 – NEWS FROM CLUJ -NAPOCA, ROMANIA 10th EAHIL Conference 2006 Issue 2 – Theme Issue: Health Technology Assessment Issue 3 – Theme Issue: Evidence-Based Medicine Issue 4 – Reports from CLUJ -NAPOCA, ROMANIA 10th EAHIL Conference 2006 A special thanks to Eva-Marie Lacroix, Giovanna Miranda and Benoit Thirion for their regular columns and Márta Virágos for her regular Board news, and Suzanne Bakker for her valuable advice. EAHIL Membership Database The membership database hosted by the University of Oslo Library, Library of Medicine and Health Sciences was fully functional. The database has 3 levels of authorised access, namely level 1 for general ordinary membership access; level 2 for Council members, (for checking and amending the data relating to their own country’s members), and level 3, which was the supervisor’s level. The new database is now the definitive list of members, and labels for the JEAHIL is printed out using that data. Membership was growing very rapidly: January - 308 new members February – 103 new members March – 66 new members April – 21 new members May – 17 new members June – 18 new members July – 6 new members August – 12 new members September – 92 new members October – 40 new members November – 26 new members December – 9 new members Total: 718 new members 4th of February 2007 EAHIL had 1134 members. After a new member has initiated membership details and they have been approved by their local Council members, the list of approved new names was published in JEAHIL. It is a very important new responsibility for Council members to check out new applications and to encourage membership from their country, as well as keeping a general eye on the accuracy and currency of the entries. Initially some 170 “old” members had not renewed their membership on the new database, and it needed local Council members to identify and encourage those members within their area, so that they were not lost unnecessarily. However, many Council members had already been extremely active in checking applications in response to the details on how to approve registrations which had been sent to them, and their pro-active and enthusiastic approach was very encouraging. Even after many contact efforts some “old” members did not renew their membership and very deleted from the database. The database is extremely easy to use and had a number of new features, such as the “statistics” feature whereby Council members could check on the number of EAHIL members in their regions. The Board also discussed the situation regarding memberships from people outside Europe, who would continue to pay subscription fees. Suzanne had drafted a membership application form in regard to these cases. It was agreed that members in the USA should be encouraged to join via the MLA, to further our useful links and information exchange with the MLA. Arne would draft a piece about the Membership Database to be included in the next JEAHIL, and Linda agreed to draft a short “Welcome and How to Join EAHIL” piece for inclusion on the database. Linda also agreed to go through the list of new members from time to time to encourage anyone with what looked to be relevant affiliations to also join one of the Special Interest Groups. Development of standardized EAHIL abstract submission forms It had been pointed out by Manuela that a lot of work could be saved for conference organisers and especially the International Programme Committees if EAHIL could develop and use standard templates for the submission and evaluation of presentations. University of Oslo Library, Library of Medicine and Health Sciences membership database developer agreed to develop a system for abstract submission and evaluation. A betaversion will be presented at the board meeting 16th of February. The abstract Submission and evaluation system will be operative for the Helsinki conference. EAHIL web The EAHIL board is very grateful that Benoit Thirion, Coordinator of the CISMeF Project has undertaken the job of maintaining, developing and hosting EAHIL web. The old domain name had now been forever lost and the new name, www.eahil.net, should be emphasized to avoid confusion. It was agreed that it was desirable to create an archive containing all the EAHIL conference proceedings together in the same place. EAHIL discussion lists In February the Karolinska Institute closed its list-server and all discussion lists were re-launched in the Netherlands at: nic.surfnet.nl. All the list archives were successfully moved to the new server. The EAHIL board is very grateful that Suzanne Bakker has undertaken the job of maintaining and hosting EAHIL discussion list at nic.surfnet.nl Special Interest Groups Linda Lisgarten had the role as co-ordinator to liaise with the Special Interest Groups. EAHIL Pharmaceutical Information Group (PHING) Secretary: Michelle Wake United Kingdom Co-Chairs: Giovanna Miranda Italy Linda Lisgarten United Kingdom PHING Web Pages Since Palermo updates and suggestions to the PHING web pages have been made by members and the Group would like to thank Benoit Thirion, EAHIL WebMaster, for his help with this. Membership The EAHIL Membership Database has proved a great promotional tool for PHING with membership increasing to 198. The promoting of PHING and meeting members’ needs are key items on the agenda for the coming year and will be discussed at our next Business Meeting. Business Meeting A business meeting was held at the 10th EAHIL Conference on Tuesday 12th September 2006 at 14.30 in the Club Room at the Colegiul Academicum, Str. Kognaliceanu 3-5. The Agenda included discussions on the web site, the evaluation of pharmacy databases, a meeting at the 2007 EAHIL Workshop in Cracow, promoting PHING and recruiting new members (including the possibility of providing a scholarship). EAHIL European Veterinary Libraries Group EAHIL EVLG had 58 members. Contact: Dr. Friedhelm Rump Germany EAHIL WHO Documentation Centres EAHIL Who Documentation Centres had 232 members. Group Co-ordinator: Paivi Pekkarinen Finland Secretary: Sue Thomas United Kingdom The Nordic Baltic Association for Medical and Health Information The Nordic Baltic Association for Medical and Health Information arranged their annual meeting in connection with EAHIL conferences and workshops. Within the framework of the association the SHM Baltic Sea Region Cooperation has cooperation projects with libraries in the Baltic countries and in St.Petersburg. The ambition is to run projects over a few years in order to establish a continuity that allows the programme to escalate according to needs and means recognized over time. In 2006 the group organized Transfer of knowledge: providing and managing evidence-based health information. Continuing education courses, St. Petersburg, May-June 2006. Continuing education courses were organized in St. Petersburg over a 4-day period, 29 May – 2 June, in accordance with SMH’s plan of activities for 2006. 30 librarians participated during this period. This was the second time SMH had organized courses in St. Petersburg. The course holders came from medical libraries in Oslo, Helsinki, Kaunas and Riga. Most of the courses were held in English and communicating in English is an important part of the partnership process. Some of the course material was translated into Russian and in addition, the Baltic librarians gave active language support to the Russian participants and acted as facilitators. Their knowledge of the Russian language and culture was of great value. Their discussions with the St. Petersburg librarians were of great help to all involved, on both a professional and a personal level, being of great importance for the exchange of ideas. MLA representative to EAHIL BECKY LYON has been appointed as the MLA representative to EAHIL, filling the remaining one year of Eve Marie Lacroix's term. This appointment resulted after Ms. Lacroix's resignation. Ms. Lyon's term begins in June 2006 and extends through May 2007. On the occasion of Eve Marie Lacroix’s retirement from the National Library of Medicine, the EAHIL board sent a letter thanking Eve Marie for her contributions at our meetings, on our committees, and via written articles for our publications. EAHIL representation on other committees and groups MLA meeting in Phoenix, May 2006 Tony McSean represented EAHIL at the MLA meeting in Phoenix, May 2006. AHILA meeting in Mobasa, October 2006 Tony McSean represented EAHIL at the AHILA meeting in Mombasa, October 2006. Health Information and Libraries Journal. Marta Vigaros represented EAHIL on the Editorial Board of the Health Information and Libraries Journal. HSLG Conference 2006. Irish Health Sciences Libraries Group, Annual Conference , 23-24 February 2006, Kilkenny, Ireland Arne Jakobsson represented EAHIL and presented a paper on Concepts on Open Access. EAHIL conferences and workshops 2006 Cluj-Napoca - Romania The 10th EAHIL Conference in Cluj succeeded in attracting many participants from Romania and neighbouring countries. More than 300 health information professionals from 36 countries from all over the world, including 120 firsttimers, met in Cluj. The theme of the conference was Europe as an Open Book. The organizers also succeeded in opening our hearts to Cluj and Romania. The overall quality of the scientific programme was excellent. It is very promising for the future that the quality is getting better and better with each succeeding conference. New successful ideas were introduced in Cluj. The reception for first-timers was a huge success and so were the Empowerment Sessions where we could go into depth on one theme. Hopefully they will continue in the future. The Social Programme was outstanding. Opera, gala dinner and sightseeing tours! The organizers had left no stone unturned. They even dragged down a string quartet into the salt mines. On behalf of the EAHIL Board and all EAHIL members I wish to thank everyone who helped with organizing the 10th EAHIL Conference in Cluj. It was outstanding - superb! 2007 EAHIL workshop in Krakow, Poland The 2007 workshop will be organized by the Medical Library of Jagiellonian University in cooperation with Information Studies Department of The Institute of Public Health of Jagiellonian University. Barbara Niedzwiedzka, chair of the International Program Committee reported that the date of the conference will be 12-15 September 2007. A welcome page has already been opened. The IPC fixed the workshop theme which will be Education, Training and Continuing Development of the Health Library and Information Workforce. The organizers would like a real workshop with a few introductory papers and small-group discussions. 11. EUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF MEDICAL AND HEALTH LIBRARIES The Finnish Medical Library Association (Bibliothecarie Medicinae Fenniae - BMF) has agreed to organize the 11. European Conference of Medical and Health Libraries in Helsinki, 2008. The date of the conference will be 23-28 June. The conference location will be the Finlandia Hall. The Finlandia Hall has been designed by the most famous Finnish architect Alvar Aalto and most places – like hotels – are in walking distance. 2009 EAHIL Workshop in Dublin, Ireland. The Board had received two detailed and very impressive applications to host the 2009 workshop, from Oxford and Ireland respectively. After long discussion, and having agreed that it had been a very difficult decision to choose between two such excellent bids, it was finally decided to approve the proposal from Dublin, as submitted by the Health Science Libraries Group of Ireland. It was noted that there will be an ICML meeting in Brisbane, Australia, during 2009 and so it was agreed to remind the Dublin organisers that the dates should not clash. 2010 EAHIL conference The Board decided that it was time to invite expressions of interest in hosting the 2010 conference. Arne, as President, would make an announcement to this effect at the Council and General Assembly meetings. Board members agreed that following several EAHIL events in the North and East of Europe, it would be good to have a meeting in the South or West if possible, to ensure geographic spread, but all expressions of interest would be considered on merit. 10. ICML 2009. The University of Queensland Library and the IFLA Section of Biological and Medical Sciences Libraries invite you to participate in the 10. International Congress on Medical Librarianship (http://www.icml2009.com/), to be held 31 August – 4 September 2009 in Brisbane, the capital city of the state of Queensland, Australia. The ICML 2009 theme Positioning the Profession will offer delegates an array of research papers, user studies and innovative solutions from a wide range of local and international presenters. A number of continuing education activities will be offered as well as tours of the region. EAHIL has agreed to sponsor a parallel session during the 10. ICLM. Tony McSean and Arne Jakobsson are members of the International Committee EAHIL 20th Anniversary. 18th August 2007, EAHIL as properly constituted would be 20 years old. It would be good to mark this anniversary in some appropriate way. The Board agreed that Council members should be asked for ideas and comments at the Council meeting in Cluj. Handing over I leave office at the end of the year. I will continue on the Board as Past-President. It will give me great pleasure to hand over to my successor Suzanne Bakker. Suzanne is an experienced Board member, the EAHIL secretariat supervisor and conference organizer. Congratulations Suzanne! EAHIL will be in good hands. I would also like to congratulate Tony McSeán on being re-elected to the Board after serving as Past-President for 4 years, Pirjo Rajakiili as a new Board member, Benoit Thirion as 1st co-opted member and Meile Kretaviciene as 2nd co-opted member. Arne Jakobsson EAHIL President 2006 Oslo 22nd Februar 2007
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