The 23rd Annual Meeting of the Alabama Health Libraries Association
was held September 11-12, 2003 at The Island
House Hotel in Orange Beach,
Alabama,. This year's theme "FUTURE SPLASH: The Information
Wave,” was explored by thirty-seven members and four guests.
The conference kicked off on Wednesday afternoon with the MLA
teleconference, "Reading Between the Lines: Focusing on Health Information Literacy" at
1:00 p.m. CT (with first wrap around session beginning at 12:30). Held in the
University Library at the University of South Alabama the teleconference was
hosted by Justin Robertson and the discussion leader was Kay Hogan Smith. There
were 14 attendees, which included not only medical librarians, but also public
librarians from the area.
On Thursday, in Orange Beach, there were 3 CE courses offered. Starting off the
in the morning, T. Scott Plutchak, Director of Lister
Hill Library of the Health Sciences at UAB and editor of the Journal
of the Medical Library Association, talked to 21 of us about "Writing
for Publication." In the afternoon, there were 2 choices. Penny
Dendy, Executive Director of Volunteer
Mobile and internationally recognized trainer for USAID and
the Kettering Foundation, will present, "Customer
Driven Service for the 21st Century" to 15 atendees. Also, Mary Fielder,
Outreach Librarian, Three Rivers AHEC,
and Susan Poorbaugh, Assistant Director, Learning Resource Center, Georgia
Statewide Area AHEC spoke to 8 participants about "Writing
Successful National Library of Medicine Grants." CE course were four hours
each.
Thursday evening we went across the road to Zeke's
Downunder Restaurant for great
food and fun.
We enjoyed great Gulf Coast cuisine from Mr. Jim's buffet, networking with dinner
mates and door prize drawings.
Our invited speaker on Friday morning was Dr.
Konrad Kressley, author
of one of the World Future Society's best
sellers, Living in the Third Millennium. Dr. Kressley shared his insights into
the world of work in the 21st century with his presentation, "Ready for the Information
Age? Professional and Survival Skills for Knowledge Workers". Afterward there
was a question and answer session with all of our presenters.
The business
luncheon wrapped up our 23rd Annual
Meeting. Agenda items of special interest were an update from Janice Kelley of
the NN/LM Regional office, and the ALHeLA
Student Scholarship Award winning paper presentation by Susan
Clemmons,. Her paper was titled “Marketing the Medical Library (If They Only
Knew).”
Support was provided for the meeting by the following vendors:
Sincerely,
Geneva Bush Staggs
President Elect, ALHeLA |
