On Thursday June 12, from 11 am - noon PST, Marco Tamase and Julie Kwan from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine Pacific Southwest Region will present a web conference designed to help MLGSCA and NCNMLG members adapt to DOCLINE without coupons. This session will focus on alternative payment mechanisms, including reciprocal arrangements such as FreeShare and EFTS, as well as routing table construction and use of library groups within the routing table.

Instructions for entering the web conference will be announced soon. If there are any questions you would like to see addressed during this session, please send your suggestions to Julie Kwan.

Some helpful ILL resource web links are:

• DOCLINE: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/docline/
  Information resources for DOCLINE members including the DOCLINE Manual, Frequently Asked Questions, and technical requirement information
• EFTS: https://efts.uchc.edu/efts/EftsPublic/about.aspx
  Information regarding the Electronic Fund Transfer System (EFTS) for use with DOCLINE
• FreeShare: http://nnlm.gov/rsdd/freeshare/
  Information regarding FreeShare, DOCLINE’s Free Reciprocal Interlibrary Loan Group

From the 2007-08 MLGSCA Interlibrary Loan Committee

Marian Hicks, Chair
Karen Goodell
Andrea Harrow
Danielle Linden
Irene Lovas

Consider joining the voices of librarians and library supporters all over the US today by going to ALA’s Take Action site. It’s Virtual Library Legislative Day! Librarians are in DC today to ask Congress to pass legislation that supports libraries. If you’re not in DC you can still participate…virtually. At ALA’s Take Action site you type in your zip code and can send your congressional reps a little note on a variety of topics. Pick the one you care most about. Here are some suggestions, as taken from the site:

• more federal funding for ibraries
• a certified school media specialist in every school
• fair copyright laws
• an expanded role for libraries in E-Government
• national security letter reform

For those of you heading out to Chicago next week, don’t forget to cheer on your MLGSCA colleagues who are presenting papers and posters. Here are a few of the presentations/posters:

Section Program — The Bridge Is Out: Better Learn How to Swim–Coping with Budget Cuts–Creative Solutions in Lean Times
High Tech High Touch: Sharing Staff at a Distance
Sharon Dennis, Technology Coordinator; Claire Hamasu, Associate Director, NN/LM MidContinental Region, Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT; Heidi Sandstrom, Associate Director, NN/LM Pacific Southwest Region; Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, University of California, Los Angeles, CA

Section Program — Forging Connections to Emerging Research
Seven-year Tune Up: How One Library Reinvigorated Their Single Service Desk
Susan McGuinness, Pharmacy Librarian; Jeff Williams, Head, Collections and Access Services; Alice Witkowski, AHIP, Interim Director; Biomedical Library, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA

Section Program — Liaisons: Our Live Links to Users
Nursing Liaison Team: Making Connections Across the Education and Practice Spectrum
Cheryl A. Bartel, Research, Instruction, and Collection Services; Emily Brennan, Health and Life Sciences Librarian; Andrea Lynch, Instruction Coordinator; Rikke S. Ogawa, AHIP, Emergent Technologies Coordinator; Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, University of California, Los Angeles, CA

Poster Session 1
Connecting Health Sciences Students with MEDLINE through OvidSP: A Comparison of the Basic Search and Advanced Ovid Search Modes
Eileen Eandi, Acting Associate Director, Educational and Research Services Division, Norris Medical Library, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

Poster Session 2

Bridging the Gaps in Access: Merging Two Library Catalogs into One
Robin Sewell, Head, Systems; Mary Holcomb, Head, Collection Services; Joan B. Schlimgen, Assistant Director of Resources; Arizona Health Sciences Library, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ Poster Presentation

Live Well at the Library: Mayo Clinic Arizona Boosts Health and Wellness for Employees Carol Ann Attwood, AHIP, Medical Librarian, Patient and Health Education Library; Kay E. Wellik, AHIP, Director; Library Services, Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, AZ

Renovations Improve the Look and Functionality of Old Spaces
Janis F. Brown, AHIP, Associate Director, Systems and Information Technology, Norris Medical Library; William Clintworth, Director; Health Sciences Libraries, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

Using Pretests and Posttests to Assess Database Searching Instruction
Danielle M. Carlock, AHIP, Reference and Instruction Librarian and Health and Life Science Specialist, Library at the Polytechnic Campus; Jonna Anderson, Clinical Assistant Professor; College of Nursing and Healthcare Innovation, Arizona State University, Mesa, AZ

If your and MLGSCA member and your paper or poster isn’t mentioned here, please forgive the blog editors and post your presentation information below in the comments.

See you in Chicago!

Although celebrations can be huge, extravagant affairs, they can also be much smaller. Even just taking the time to say ‘congratulations’ or ‘good job’ to someone else (or yourself!) can be a small celebration. These celebrations are ways of marking our efforts and our progress forward. Here are a few of the many things we have to celebrate in MLGSCA right now:

• Laura Stubblefield and the Awards Committee have been hard at work, and will be announcing two scholarship winners and a Louise Darling Award winner at theSpring Business Meeting. Read on in the newsletter for bios of the scholarship winners. Many thanks to Laura, the committee and all the members who volunteered for the scholarship jury!
• The project to redeem the blue coupons is well underway and on target to be complete by the end of the year, thanks to the hard work of Kathleen Carlson, our ILL Coupon Manager. Marian Hicks and the ILL Committee are providing support for members during this transitional time. I had the joy of seeing Danielle Linden present a paper at the Joint Meeting in Las Vegas entitled, Techniques for Supporting the Interlibrary Loan Needs of MLGSCA Members which was coauthored by she and Marian and detailed some of the work the committee has done.
• Deborah Klein and the CE/Program Committee have another spectacular continuing education offering, Community Assessment scheduled for this month. It will be hard for them to top Face to Face: Strategies for Effective Consumer Health from last Fall, but I am sure they will manage it.
• I would also like to celebrate the amazing success of our NCNMLG neighbors on Viva Librarians! The program was beautifully planned and executed, and provided all of us a much-needed chance to network with our colleagues and brush up on our professional knowledge and skills.

Please join me in celebrating our many successes, whether they are for completed projects or simply for getting started on something new! Many thanks to the Advisory Council, committee members, and all of you who step forward to make MLGSCA such a successful and productive organization. If you have any questions, suggestions or concerns, please contact me at cbartel@library.ucla.edu or visit the MLGSCA Web site to contact a specific committee chair.

Back in October 2007, the MLGSCA Newsletter Committee published an article titled The Changing Face of MLGSCA Link. The big picture for the Newsletter Committe’s 2007-08 association year was to improve the timeliness and collaborative effort of the communicating with MLGSCA’s members through transitioning the newsletter to a blog format. While our timeline was pushed back as we encountered a few minor obstacles, we’re still pursuing the larger goal.

Why? The MLGSCA Newsletter committee has four specific goals it hopes to achieve through the transition to a blog format:

• Increase the frequency of communication with our members
• Increase contributors (authors & comments) to newsletter
• Improve the currency of the information communicated
• Simplify the newsletter production cycle

Finally, we’re aware of the MLA’s Social Networking Task Force results about access to social networking tools (see, What MLA Members Told Us about Social Networking) and plan to thoroughly investigate accessibility issues of our members to the MLGSCA Link blog.

Happy Blogging! . . . and don’t forget to sign up for our RSS feed.