A word from the President

The gavel has been passed! Please join me in welcoming Linda Slater as the Canadian Health Libraries Association / Association des bibliothèques de la santé du Canada (CHLA / ABSC) president for 2006–2007.

How often do we see the phrase “It is hard to believe it has been a year already!” at the end of someone’s term? I must concur. Last June, as Penny Logan handed me the gavel, I thought, “A year — we will be able to accomplish so much.” We have. And yet there are projects that remain ongoing. The year was not quite as long as I thought!

At the fall and winter CHLA / ABSC Board meetings, the board worked hard at developing a communications strategy to inform all aspects of our work. Wayne Glover, of Associations First, facilitated a morning discussion at the fall meeting and led us through a full day of discussions at the winter meeting. An example of the impact of our discussions is the redesign of the CHLA / ABSC pamphlet by Sue Fahey, public relations director.

The introduction of online membership renewal and pay-
ment has proved to be very popular; 79% of our members
used the credit card option for membership renewal or pur-
chase. At the time of writing, about 100 members have not
so far rejoined the association. The board is developing a
survey to be sent to lapsed members in an effort to deter-
mine why they may have elected not to rejoin.

On the National Network of Libraries for Health / Réseau
national des bibliothèques pour la santé (NNLH / RNBS)
Task Force front, in January a contract to create a business
plan was awarded to TDV Global. The project will be done
in two stages: a concept of operations and a business plan.
The concept of operations phase will be completed in time
for the 2006 conference and will be used to obtain endorse-
ments from CHLA / ABSC members and stakeholders for
the second stage. CHLA / ABSC and the Task Force grate-
fully acknowledge the significant donations received from
the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canada Insti-
tute for Scientific and Technical Information.

The Task Force on Hospital Library Standards presented a
draft of the *Standards for Library and Information Services*

in *Canadian Healthcare Facilities* at the fall board meeting.
A copy of the draft was also posted on the association Web
site in January for member feedback. A final version of the
standards will be presented at the CHLA / ABSC Conference
in May 2006.

In January 2006, CHLA / ABSC responded to three media
requests for comments about budget cuts to Health Canada's
Science Library Network. A formal CHLA / ABSC response
was posted in January on the association Web site and also
was sent to various people in Health Canada.

CHLA / ABSC offered a scholarship to support chapter
members in attending “Discover the leader in you! Developing
and realizing your leadership potential” — a continuing edu-
cation course offered at the 2006 conference. This course
represented the final stage of a process that began with the
Chapter Presidents’ Lunch at the 2005 conference. The first
stage was the creation of a report listing issues, successes,
challenges, and difficulties identified by chapters during a
facilitated discussion at the lunch. The second stage was the
creation of a PowerPoint presentation based on these discus-
sions that could be used by chapters at their own meetings or
could be viewed by members from a link on the association
Web site. The final stage was the development of a continu-
ing education course to be held as part of the 2006 CHLA /
ABSC Conference. The hope is that members taking the
course will become actively involved in the chapter and the
association and will take on leadership roles within their
organizations. A total of eight people from five different
CHLA / ABSC chapters were awarded scholarships.

In conclusion, I would like to thank all the members of
the board for their work, their insights, and their collegiality.
I also would like to thank members of the association who
called and e-mailed their comments, corrections, criticisms,
and kudos. As I begin my term as past-president, I look for-
ward to passing along to new members the pearls of wisdom
I have gleaned this past year and recruiting new board mem-
bers later this fall.

Tamsin Adams-Webber

April 2006