A word from the President

Welcome to 2006. I hope everyone had a good holiday
season. One of my resolutions for the new year is to pay
more attention to the details. I got off to a slow start in my
year as president; I missed the deadline for my first "A word
from the President" in the previous issue of the *Journal of*
*the Canadian Health Libraries Association / Journal de*
*l'Association des bibliothèques de la santé du Canada*
(JCHLA / JABSC). My excuse is conference "planning'itis",
and a summer focused on the installation of a new, replace-
ment library system. Now the conference is a distant mem-
ory, and the new system is up and humming.

Congratulations to the organizing committee of the To-
ronto 2005 Canadian Health Libraries Association / Associa-
tion des bibliothèques de la santé du Canada (CHLA / ABSC)
Conference. I think I speak for all of us on the Planning
Committee when I say that, after 2 years of planning, the
days of the conference just seemed to fly by. I look forward
to being an attendee at the 30th Annual Conference being
hosted in Vancouver, 12–16 May 2006. The theme, befitting
our 30th anniversary, is “Pearls of Wisdom”. Have you
added your thoughts yet to the “Memories of CHLA / ABSC
1976–2006 Blog”?

For all of those chapters who have been involved in plan-
ning a CHLA / ABSC conference, you will be pleased to
hear that CHLA / ABSC Board Member Linda Slater has
completed the herculean task of converting the paper-based
Conference Planning Manual into a Word document. Past
and future planners also will be pleased to hear that in the
process of converting the manual, Linda managed to incor-
porate the recommendations from past planning committees.
The old manual served us well, but its existence as a paper-
based manual meant there could be no updates of the timelines,
procedures, and sample documents. Planning committees re-
corded their recommendations in reports that were passed on
to the next group. As plans for the next conference were al-
ready well under way by the time the report for the most re-
cent conference was completed, the report was really of
more use to the group planning the conference to be held in
2 years time! We hope that having the manual in an electronic
format will encourage each conference planning committee
to add its own recommendations based on their planning ex-

perience to help guide the next set of intrepid conference
planners.

The Task Force on Hospital Library Standards has been working hard at reviewing and revising the CHLA / ABSC Standards for library and information services in Canadian health care facilities. A draft of the newly revised standards was presented to the Board for comment at the Fall meeting. A copy also was posted on the CHLA / ABSC Web site to elicit feedback from members.

The National Network of Libraries for Health / Réseau
national des bibliothèques pour la santé (NNLH / RNBS)
Task Force continues to work toward realizing a vision of a
nationwide network of health libraries that will ensure all
health care providers in Canada will have equal access to the
best information for patient care. Based on feedback from a
very successful Stakeholder meeting in June 2005, and from
attendees at the 2005 Conference, the Task Force has been
focused on the creation of a business plan for the develop-
ment of a National Network of Libraries for Health / Réseau
national des bibliothèques pour la santé. A commitment of
funding from participants of the Stakeholder meeting meant
that a request for proposal could be issued to engage the ser-
vices of a consultant to draft the business plan. For an up-
date on the status of the business plan, please be sure to
view the NNLH / RNBS Web site.

At the request of members, CHLA / ABSC has written a
letter to advocate in favour of continuing the special Library
Book Rate (LBR) agreement between Canada Post and the
Department of Canadian Heritage. The LBR is a discount
postal rate that was introduced in 1939 to facilitate interli-
brary loans. It provides all Canadians with equal access to
literature regardless of where they live.

To conclude, I would like to say thank you to Rebecca
Zakoor who has, with this issue of JCHLA / JABSC, com-
pleted her term as Editor. It has been a year of working
through the last kinks in the change from a print to an elec-
tronic journal. Rebecca has weathered it well. Sandra Halliday
has now taken over the reins of Editor. Gillian Griffith has
stepped into the position of Assistant Editor.

Tamsin Adams-Webber

CHLA / ABSC President, 2005–2006