# Health Libraries Association of BC

The Health Libraries Association of BC was busy last fall with meetings and activities. Some of the highlights include our new web site launch; our successful October 2011 meeting with a speaker addressing the topic of health literacy; a review of our goals and objectives for 2011-2012; our continuing education survey; and the planning of our winter brunch meeting held January 28th with speaker Dr. Daniel Kalla.

## Web site

Daniel Hooker, our communications director, took the lead on creating our new web site. We are now located on the CHLA web site at http://chla-absc.ca/hlabc/. We are so pleased to have finally made the move. My thanks to the HLABC executive and to Daniel for putting in the time to successfully migrate and update our web site.

## October meeting on health literacy

Our October general meeting was held in the new Surrey Central City Library. This state-of-the-art building opened in September 2011, so it was an adventure to have our meeting at this location. We had a good turnout of Vancouver librarians and others in attendance. Our speaker, Andrea Freeman, librarian and bookstore coordinator for the BC Children's Hospital Family Resource and Support Centre, gave a dynamic presentation on health literacy from the perspective of sick children and their families. Several innovative initiatives have been undertaken by Andrea, including a Library on the Go cart and participation in a Family Fair at the hospital.

## Goals

At our October meeting, we also reviewed our key goals and objectives for the year. The most important goals we identified include completing our new web site, engaging members in relevant activities, and continuing education priorities as identified by our recent survey.

## Winter brunch

The winter brunch meeting was planned for January 28th at the Shaughnessy Restaurant in Van Dusen Gardens in Vancouver. Our guest speaker Dr. Daniel Kalla, Vancouver physician and novel writer, read from his new novel, *The Far Side of the Sky*.

## Unconference and continuing education survey

Dean Giustini, our continuing education director, has planned an unconference for HLABC members in February 2012 at the Justice Institute. Dean has also completed a recent continuing education survey of our members.

### Linda Searcy Howard, BA, MLS

HLABC President
Librarian, Fraser Health Library Services
Department of Evaluation & Research Services
Surrey Memorial Hospital
13750 96th Ave, Surrey, BC V3V 1Z2
E-mail: linda.howard@fraserhealth.ca