PNC/MLA BUSINESS MEETING
September 12, 2001
Salishan Lodge, Gleneden Beach, Oregon

DRAFT

Bob Pringle, Chair-Elect, started the meeting by asking for a moment of silence to remember those affected by the tragic events of Tuesday in New York City, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. Bob then welcomed the vendors and guests from National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the Medical Library Association (MLA.) Jan Schueller was appointed as Parliamentarian. The Executive Board was introduced. It was noted that several board members were not able to be at the meeting for personal reasons or work obligations, Janice Bacino, Chair, Chris Beahler, Recording Secretary, and Patrice O'Donovan, Chapter Council Representative. Maryanne Blake was acting as Recording Secretary. The members present accepted the minutes from last year's business meeting in Girdwood, Alaska by voice vote.

Executive Board and Committee Reports - Full reports from Board members and committee chairs have been submitted to the Executive Board.

Membership -- Kathy Martin, Membership Secretary
We currently have 163 members. This includes 16 new members. Kathy introduced the new members who were attending the meeting. Membership committee members include: Kathy Nelson -- Idaho, Kathy Martin - Oregon, Ann Girling - Alaska, ??? - Washington, Gail Wilkerson - Montana, Jim Henderson - Canada.

Treasurer's Report - Nola Higley, Treasurer
A copy of the Treasurer's report was distributed at the meeting. Nola Higley, Treasurer, summarized the report. The checking account balance as of September 6, 2001 was $5,514,45. Total expenses as of September 6, 2001 were $7,441.13. We have a reserve account balance of $9,098.23 in two CDs as of July 14, 2001. (See the Treasurer's Report for the complete accounting.)

Chapter Council - Dolores Judkins, Alternate Chapter Council Representative (giving the report for Patrice O' Donovan
Patrice attended the annual Medical Library Association (MLA) meeting in Orlando, Florida. Her report discussed the new MLA vision statement, "Quality Information for Improved Health," the focus of MLA on recruitment of new medical librarians including bringing minority students to the profession, and emphasis on mentoring. Also reported was the study on credible information that MLA is doing in conjunction with the Pew Internet in American Life Project. She talked about the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association (BMLA) changing its title to Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA) and being linked from PubMed Central as of January 2002. She mentioned that there would soon be two credential programs, the Consumer Health credential and a proposed Technology Specialist credential. Then there was a drawing for an MLA membership that was won by Peggy Baldwin.

Nominations and Elections Committee - Kim Granath, Past PNC/MLA Chair and Committee Chair
Committee members were Susan Long and Madelyn Hall. 105 ballots were returned. Elected were: Edean Berglund for MLA Nominating Committee, Cheryl Goodwin for Recording Secretary, and the new Chair-Elect is Peggy Baldwin.

By-Laws Committee - Jan Schueller, Committee Chair
Jan talked about the new MLA model bylaws. She said that the committee is in the process of looking at these to see what impact they would have on our bylaws. She said that minor revisions were planned over the next year. Committee members are Doreen Smith, Robin Braun and Donna Hudson.

Jan also talked about the MLA Continuing Education Grants Jury, of which she is a member. The jury will make one or more awards of up to $500 award. She spoke briefly of the requirements and said that the details will be going out on listservs in the near future. Additional information and forms can be found on the Web at MLAnet.

Conference Planning Committee - Kathy Murray, Committee Chair
Kathy reminded the members that there has been a conference planning committee for several years. Its charge is to support those who are putting on the meeting each year with copies of documents from previous meetings, templates for various letters and forms and advice and assistance. Members were encouraged to go to the PNC/MLA Web site at http://depts.washington.edu/pncmla/ and take the Meeting Survey. Kathy then gave us a summary of the answers collected so far. [need to ask Kathy for a copy of this] Kathy then shared that the Board raised the question of having a 2-day meeting with one of the days being Saturday so members who attended could take advantage of the Saturday-stay airline fairs. It was thought that one day would be continuing education and one day would be the meeting, including the business meeting. Robin Braun mentioned that we could do the business of the meeting in two days but we also come to network and she didn't think a two-day meeting would allow that, but maybe a two and a half day meeting would. Pamela Murray said that it might not be work traveling any distance if a meeting would just be two days. Marcy Horner said that we would have to make it worth the effort to travel and that two-day meetings didn't allow time for interaction. Beverly Schriver reminded us that for many there would still be a 3-night minimum stay even if the meeting were only two days. A discussion ensued about what days to do CE. Dolores Judkins suggested E at either end, Robin Braun suggested we embed CE into the program (give CE credit for just attending sessions of the meeting.) Also that it takes lots of paperwork and a fee to get CE credit and we already can get AHIP credit for attending meetings. It was noted that continuing education courses are a moneymaker for the chapter so it would be good to keep these as they are. The discussion ended on this note.

Technology Committee - Susan Barnes, Committee Chair
Susan announced that the other members of the committee are Bob Pringle and Cathy Burroughs. The committee is looking at barriers and finding ways to address the barriers to electronic document delivery in the Pacific Northwest.

Report for the 2001 Annual Meeting - Beverly Schriver, Chair
Bev reported that these figures are preliminary but as of this meeting there were 62 full conference registrations, 8 conference-only and 9 continuing-education-only registrations. There were also some late registrations that will increase the numbers in the final tally. Good news is that we made the room nights we needed at the hotel. Sixteen exhibitors signed up for space but only 7 showed up. One of the questions that the committee had was whether or not to reimburse the no-show vendors. Approximate figures for the budget are that we took in $24,000 in income and had $23,000 in expenses. When the $1,000 seed money is returned it was not thought that there would be much of a profit.

Nancy Griffin voiced her opinion that it was not a good idea to refund money to the no-how vendors.

Benchmarking Task Force - Robin Braun, Task Force Member
The beta test of the benchmarking survey is now over and the survey has been revised. The survey will go live this winter. Any MLA member may participate by going to the MLA Member Only area and filling out the form. It is hoped that at least 33 members in PNC will participate. A discussion ensued with numbers of detailed questions and Robin told us that there is an FAQ and other helpful resources on the site to answer participants' questions.

It was mentioned that the state and province reports would be available on the PNC/MLA Web site. Kathy Murray said that there would be a "tooting your own horn" column in NorthWest Notes. Laura Larsson asked if it would be like the feature that has been used several times in HLIB-NW. Kathy said it would be more in-depth. Kathy Martin said that members could send their "tootings" to Jim Henderson in Canada, Gail Wilkerson in Montana, Kathy Martin in Oregon, Ann Girling in Alaska and Kathy Nelson in Idaho.

New Business

Future meetings
Bob Pringle lead a discussion about future meetings. INWHSL libraries are responsible for the meeting in 2003 that will be held in Seattle. Sarah McCord is chair for the meeting. [is that right?] We were reminded that the 2002 meeting will be in Vancouver.

Joint Meeting with California
Kathy Murray then brought up the meeting in 2004. A joint meeting with the Northern California / Southern California chapters was open for discussion. It would be a tri-chapter meeting, the whole west coast. Rebecca Davis at UC Davis is the chair for the meeting. It would be held in Sacramento, California in February 2004. The California chapters would be in charge of the meeting and we would be "honored guests." We would have a chance to have input on continuing education but we would not share in the work or the profits. The discussion was opened up to the members. There were concerns from members who had heard about a previous disastrous joint meeting. Numerous people with knowledge of previous PNC/MLA joint meetings gave their accounts and views. Other concerns were travel in February from remote places like Montana, Idaho and Eastern Washington; how many people would be able to go to two meetings in one fiscal year since the Seattle meeting would have only taken place five months previously; will we lose sight of the fact of why we have regional meetings in the first place - that is to give a venue to people who can't make it to MLA or distant places. It was felt that we were not getting a good picture of how others in the chapter might feel and perhaps the question of going to a joint meeting out of the region needed to be asked more broadly. Comments were made that the "hard core" members would travel anywhere for the meeting. No motions were made or actions taken at this time.

Revision of the Chapter Map
Bob Pringle explained what the Chapter map is. The map is to be revised every five years and the coming year, 2002, is the year this will happen. The Executive Board will be working on the map project , looking at our goals and objectives and revising the map accordingly.

Announcements

Jim Henderson gave a brief BC report in which he reminded us to get to know the many new colleagues that had come from BC to Salishan. There are major upheavals in the Canadian Health Network and there will be significant changes in funding and personnel. Jim also reported good news of new BC regional health libraries in [he mentioned several and I didn't get their names - call him].

A gift of a colorful wind spinner from Catch the Wind was given in absentia to the outgoing Chair, Janice Bacino.

Diane Helmer, the host of next year's conference invited us to join her and all of the committee and the B.C. librarians at the meeting in Vancouver, B.C. She told us about the exciting program and speakers the committee has already confirmed. The theme for the meeting is "Bringing It All Together"; bringing together diverse geographic regions, and kinds of libraries and librarians. The conference hotel will be the West Coast Vancouver Hotel and the Web site is http://www.chspr.ubc.ca/pncmla/

The meeting was then declared closed by Bob Pringle.