Submitted by Pamela Rees, Midwest Chapter Council Representative
State Library of Iowa, Des Moines, IA
Did you know that the Medical Library Association was started on May 2, 1898, by four librarians and four physicians from Canada and the United States? Three of the founders are of special note. Sir William Osler-a physician, medical historian and librarian-was originally from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Margaret Ridley Charlton was assistant medical librarian at McGill University for many years. Dr. George Milby Gould, an ophthalmologist, edited three medical journals and authored three medical dictionaries. He practiced in Philadelphia and convened the organizational meeting of the Medical Library Association there. The Medical Library Association began as an organization of libraries and did not have individual memberships until later.
The chapters developed in the 1940s and 1950s when MLA suspended annual meetings during World War II. Librarians planned their own meetings during this time in the areas where they lived as a substitute. The chapters evolved from these meetings.
Did you know that you do not have to be an MLA member to belong to one of the fourteen chapters across the United States? Some of the offices on the Midwest Chapter Board require MLA membership, but committee work does not. At the spring meeting of the Midwest Chapter Board, we learned that there are about 500 MLA members who live in the Midwest Chapter area but don't belong to the Midwest Chapter.
MLA gives out a number of awards every year to individuals and groups in recognition of their valuable contributions to the association. One of these awards is the Majors/MLA Chapter Project of the Year Award. This general award, sponsored by J.A. Majors, recognizes excellence, innovation and contribution to the profession of health sciences librarianship. These attributes must be shown through special projects beyond the normal operational programming of the chapter. The 2009 award goes to the Pacific Northwest Chapter of MLA for "Awakening the Searcher Within: An Online Seminar on Expert Searching." For more information on the 2009 MLA awardees, click here.
The MLA Board has established a new blog this year, MLA Connections. The purpose of this blog is to provide an easy way for all board members and MLA members to communicate with each other about issues of importance to MLA.
Another MLA blog to check out is the Task Force on Social Networking Software blog, which includes current awareness information, social networking @ MLA, social networking applications evaluations, task force updates and IT support information. Short online courses on social networking topics (free to MLA members) are offered from time to time. This task force also has a presence on Facebook.