DEPARTMENTS / DÉPARTEMENTS

Editor's message

This issue of the *Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association* (JCHLA) highlights thought-provoking articles, interesting book reviews, and timely columns. In their paper "Ensuring access to consumer health information pamphlets at Capital Health", Penny Logan and Eleanor King provide an excellent description of a major project they embraced to ensure patients receive the required educational information. Trish Chatterley, who contributed the feature "The Flower Report: Libraries without walls — (almost) 20 years later", is to be commended for accepting the challenge to update the often referenced 1987 article by M.A. Flower. "Direct to you: innovative information services to support nurses' continuing competence in Manitoba" is the title of the paper written by Lisa Demczuk, Analyn Cohen Baker, Christine Shaw-Daigle, and Melissa Raynard. The authors describe an innovative program that benefits both nurses and hospital libraries. In their article "Availability of electronic libraries in the health sciences in the Arabian Gulf region", Karen Neves and Hakin Bishawi highlight and document the library services and programs in the Arabian Gulf region.

Three books were reviewed for this issue: *The Accidental Library Manager* (reviewed by Elyse Pike), *Creating Database-Backed Library Web Pages* (reviewed by Jackie MacDonald), and *New Directions in Reference* (reviewed by Jeff Mason). Susan Murray's "Consumer health information" column helps health information professionals stay current with the latest

CHI tools and resources. Furthermore, checkout the two columns by Teresa Lee (JCHLA's new Assistant Editor) — "News and notes" and "Current research".

This issue of JCHLA marks the beginning of a transition, as this was my last issue as Editor. Gillian Griffith, in the role of "editor-in-training" was responsible for editing a significant portion of this issue. Thanks Gillian for your columns throughout the past year and for your enthusiasm in embracing your upcoming responsibilities as the Editor of JCHLA for 2007. Also, I want to thank Susan Murray for contributing the highly relevant CHI columns in 2006. This is the last issue of JCHLA that will contain the "A word from the President" column. To learn more about the reasons behind this decision, see "A word from the CHLA / ABSC Board".

Working as the Editor of JCHLA provided me with the opportunity to correspond and, in some instances, meet the authors of the papers, columns, and book reviews that were published. It was enjoyable to work with health information professionals across Canada. JCHLA is an open access journal that provides you with a forum to highlight your creativity and knowledge, and to demonstrate how indispensable libraries and librarians are. Embrace the opportunity to publish in JCHLA.

Sandra Halliday