This page was last updated on January 3, 2005. Credits
Newsletter Editors
Jon Crossno
UT Southwestern Medical Center Library
David Midyette
Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Well, here’s the post-MLA meeting issue, ready for your review — several months after the meeting, of course. It’s been another weird summer/fall, what with all sorts of things happening, which has again delayed publishing this fine resource for a little longer than we’d intended. “Like what?” you ask.
Hmmm. Where to start? How about this? One of us — the one in Texas — was planning on taking a nice little road trip cross-country to celebrate his nephew’s wedding in Salt Lake City this summer with the rest of his immediate family, but unfortunately he fell while climbing into the car to start the road trip. And broke his ankle: which required surgery: which forced him to remain non-weight-bearing for six weeks post-surgery: which kept him away from work all that time (staying with his mother in his hometown), recuperating until he was cleared to put weight on the injured ankle again. However, getting cleared to walk again wasn’t quite the light at the end of the tunnel that he’d hoped for because he needed another six weeks to get used to walking on the darn thing again and then he finds out that the swelling probably won’t go away completely until a full year passes.
Now, don’t fret too much. As depressing as it was to miss the wedding and the trip — and rest assured both WERE depressing — things are looking much better now. And this half of the co-editorship is indeed glad to be back in the driver’s seat.
And as for the other one – the one in California – well he has just been sitting around marveling at the fact that the pharmaceutical industry is completely insane, as is the residential market in the southland of “Kaalifornya!” In fact it’s really difficult for him to believe that it’s been over two years since he was happily ensconced in a nice little hospital library in the middle of the country. So, other than being disinterested in work at the moment, life is proceeding apace.
But all that’s water under the bridge now. We’re welcoming you to a new year! And to our planned anniversary gathering in San Antonio in May 2005!
We’ve got a nice welcome from the co-conveners, Tom Flemming and Sheila Snow-Croft, and in our continuing featurette, Sheila has graciously answered our “11 Questions” to help you get to know her a little better.
Michael Scott has provided an update on the various program activities in which the SIG is participating at the 2005 meeting, and Greg Bodin and/or Chris Shaffer update us on the changes that have taken place to the SIG Web site.
Finally, if you haven’t done so already, be sure to get those hotel reservations in early if you think you’ll be attending. (Richard Klein has provided some additional information in the “Housing Update”.)
So read on, gentle readers! And stay tuned for our next issue in April, which should be chock-full of 2005 meeting highlights.
Oh my! It seems we just left the warmth of May in Washington yesterday, but here it is December already and it surely isn’t warm where I sit in Hamilton right now! How did that happen ... ?
We are almost exactly halfway between MLA meetings – Washington in May 2004 and San Antonio in May 2005 – and such a lot has happened in this group since Washington ... This newsletter will be a great opportunity to get caught up on everything.
We have a new Web host and a new listserv. Chris Shaffer and Greg Bodin moved our Web site and our listserv to MLANET in the summer. The new address is http://www.lgbt.mlanet.org. The site has a clean, new look, and we invite you to visit, if you haven’t already done so.
Our program planning for San Antonio has moved forward under the able leadership of Michael Scott. We will be co-sponsoring three programs in San Antonio in 2005, and I hope this will encourage more of our members to attend the meeting than ever before. This issue of the newsletter will have an article on the programs so we’ll leave it to Michael to let you know what is planned.
The San Antonio meeting will give us the opportunity to celebrate our 10th anniversary as an official MLA SIG. It was at the San Antonio meeting in 1995 that the vote to have our group become a Special Interest Group of the MLA took place, and we want to mark this anniversary with special celebrations. Watch for more information about our planning closer to the conference. Remember, too, that once again our travel agent and former librarian, Richard Klein, has arranged a very special room rate ($120.00 per night, double occupancy) for us at the Menger Hotel (right across from the Alamo) in San Antonio. The rate is so good that other MLA attendees who discover it may well snap up our rooms before we get them, so call the hotel (1.800.345.9285) and make your reservation for the meeting now.
Your co-convenors have not been idle over the summer. Sheila Snow-Croft has moved from Alabama to Maryland and started a new job with the NN/LM SE/A Region recently. Tom Flemming is avidly contemplating his retirement as co-convenor (which will occur at the San Antonio meeting) and busily recruiting someone to take his place. If you have any interest in sharing the glory of the leadership of this group with Sheila Snow-Croft next year, please contact one of us forthwith.
Well, it’s time to turn this issue over to our hard-working co-editors and to let them regale us with news and views and whatever else they can find that is fit to print. We wish you all good things between now and San Antonio and hope to see as many of you there as possible. Remember, we’ll be celebrating our 10th birthday, so bring your noisemakers and pack your glad rags and be ready for a good time!
Tom Flemming and Sheila Snow-Croft, LGBT SIG Co-convenors
When is your birthday?
September 28th
Where are you located geographically?
Baltimore, MD
Where did you get your MLS?
U of Alabama
What was the worst part of library school?
Homework
How do you really feel about cataloging?
I have to do [things] to have feelings [about them]
What would your mother say was your most embarrassing moment?
Wearing my wedding dress inside-out
What would you say was your mother's most embarrassing moment?
When her husband, my father, demonstrated his winky for a cadre of medical students.
How did you come to medical librarianship?
Dale Prince shoved me.
An informationist is …
Someone who is afraid to use the L-word.
Fondest SIG/MLA memory?
Watching Robert Swain ride a fake bull at MLA in Dallas.
What is the most trivial fact you have rattling around your head?
The average length of time people watch hotel porn is 13 minutes.
According to our housing consultant, Richard Klein, three reservations have already been made within the SIG's treasured block of 15 rooms, as of October 2004. The block can be increased if demand warrants it, but that is dependent on booking patterns. The earlier people book brings the booking numbers up, which provides justification for more rooms.
So please go ahead and get those reservations early. You won't want to miss our anniversary get-togethers! Information about the hotel and how to register may be found on the SIG Web site at http://lgbt.mlanet.org/2005housing.html .
The LGBT SIG will be co-sponsoring 3 programs at MLA 2005 in San Antonio, TX. Overcoming Challenges: Magnificent Medical Contributions is sponsored by History of the Health Sciences, Chiropractic Libraries, and Relevant Issues Sections; and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Health Sciences Librarians SIG. This is a contributed papers and posters session that focuses on individuals especially those who have overcome some adversity -- be it physical challenges, racism, ethnic, minority, or gender discrimination -- to make some significant contribution to the field of medicine.
Diversity in Collection Development is an invited speakers session sponsored by Collection Development, Chiropractic Libraries, and Dental Sections; and Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Health Sciences Librarians SIGs. This session focuses on the fact that health sciences libraries support a diverse array of subject areas where much of the collection management literature and tools focus on mainstream clinical and basic sciences subjects. This program will present strategies and issues related to the literature of and collection development in more diverse subject areas, including complementary and alternative medicine, chiropractic medicine, gay literature, and dentistry. If you are interested in being a speaker or know someone who would be a great voice on GLBT medical literature, please let me know!
Finally, for something a little different, we will be co-sponsoring Challenging Patrons, Challenging Questions: Case Scenarios to Enlighten our Futuro Magnifico. This is will be contributed SKITS on various issues based around the idea of questions and/or patrons who present a challenge to us and our beliefs. As the description states, "How do we conduct a reference interview with an emotionally distracted, mentally ill, or mentally challenged patron? How do we handle our own emotions with patrons whose questions we find offensive? Experts from the counseling field will provide us with insights about the psychology of handling difficult customers through acted-out contributed scenarios." The group that put this together really wanted to focus on how we deal with patrons and subject that are challenging or even offensive to us and were very glad to have us on board. The program planners were challenged to do something different in 2005, so we decided as a group to go for it.
These should be very rewarding programs for us. I think it speaks well of us that we can and are often asked to participate in a co-sponsorship role with other sections and SIGs on programming. I want to thank everyone who has helped with the programs in the past and have blazed the trail.
The SIG website and discussion list have both migrated to MLA servers.
Thanks go to Chris Shaffer for coordinating the move to the new servers, as well as the redirection of the old site to the new one. Greg Bodin converted the web site to a beautiful new design and migrated it to the new server. The URL for the new site is:
More information on subscribing to the discussion list is available at:
http://lgbt.mlanet.org/mailman/listinfo/sig_lgbt.mlanet.org
Please forward any comments for additions or improvements to Chris Shaffer (chris-shaffer@uiowa.edu) and Greg Bodin (gbodin@library.tmc.edu).
This page was last updated on January 3, 2005. Credits