Heartfelt thanks goes to the co-chairs, Mary Pat Harnegie and Mary Schleicher, and the committees for all their hard work on the 2018 Annual Conference. A big thank you to all of the exhibitors and sponsors who attended and supported the conference.
Thank you!
On behalf of the Midwest Chapter of the Medical Library Association, the Wisconsin Health Science Library Association and the Southeastern Wisconsin Health Sciences Libraries Consortium, we invite you to Milwaukee for next year’s Midwest Chapter/MLA 2019 annual meeting.
Our Sunday night social event will be dinner and exploration at the Harley Davidson Museum®, a Milwaukee icon. Discover the history of the motorcycle, hear the thunder of the different engines and take a selfie riding a HOG!
Connect to Milwaukee through our new streetcar, which will be free in 2019. Use it to travel from downtown to the lakefront. While in downtown Milwaukee, make stops at the Milwaukee Public Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum, or take a stroll down the Milwaukee RiverWalk and say hi to the Bronze Fonz.
Collaborate on new and exciting ideas with your colleagues in a stellar conference experience. We are excited to announce that our keynote speaker is MK Czerwiec (Zurwick), RN, MA, aka Comic Nurse. She is the artist in residence at the Feinberg Northwestern School of Medicine in Chicago, Co-founder of graphicmedicine.org, and a leader in the field of connecting clinicians, patients, and practitioners through narrative medicine and telling their stories.
-Brenda Fay, 2019 Conference Co-Chair
It’s time to consider time allocation for the conference and we have three ideas for you to consider below:
We are excited to have you join us in Cleveland for the 2018 Midwest Chapter Shake, Rattle, and Roll Conference.
See you in a few weeks!
Your 2018 Midwest Conference Publicity Committee
This is your friendly reminder to register by Midnight EDT on Friday, September 21st, in order to get the Early Bird Registration rate. Also – the conference room hotel rates (Saturday and Sunday) expire at midnight on the 21st of September as well. More information about both lodging and registration are available here.
The Midwest Chapter/MLA board seeks your feedback on our redesigned logo. Please review the three potential logo designs are below and then go to our online survey to rank the logos in your preferred order. Thanks for your input!
The new logo will be selected in time for our meeting in Cleveland, OH. Shake, Rattle, and Roll!
Please respond by September 14th.
Logo 1:
Logo 2:
Logo 3:
Hello fellow Chapter members,
Who’s coming to the 2018 Midwest Chapter MLA Conference in Cleveland? It’s that time again, and time to Shake, Rattle, & Roll during a Jam Session at lunch! So come, “jam” with your colleagues on a topic of interest on Sunday October 7, 2018!
Register for a Jam Session at the 2018 Midwest Chapter MLA Conference. The conference registration form provides the opportunity to select a Jam Session table topic. You can also elect to be a table moderator!
Want to know more? Take a look at the list of Jam Session Table Topics and find a topic you’d like to discuss with your colleagues. Interested in being a Jam Session table topic moderator? When registering for the conference, choose a topic and select ‘Yes’ to indicate you are interested in moderating.
Choosing a Jam Session is optional, but we hope you find one that captures your interest!
Questions? Contact Mary Miles mmiles@ccf.org
Get ready for Cleveland!The website for the 2018 Annual Conference is live and online now!
Registration will open on April 14th. Until then, check out the conference schedule, read about the speakers, and learn more about the 33rd Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and things to do in Cleveland.
As the year winds down, it’s time to look back and see what happened. Check out some of the fun had at the MIDWEST CHAPTER MLA & MHSLA conference! Flickr albums have been divided by day and there is one for the conference overall.
Event planning is hard, especially when unexpected things happen. It is also fun and rewarding when things go right. Either way it is definitely worth all the work because it is still, even in our iGeneration, the best way to learn, connect with colleagues, and have fun.
One of the main purposes for me to attend #MidwestMHSLA17 was to observe the details of planning a professional conference. I am on the Planning Committee for the next Midwest MLA Conference in Cleveland in October 2018. I am a member of the Publicity Committee, and the Webmaster for the conference site. The Publicity Committee is responsible for getting the word out to the Midwest MLA membership about the conference and promoting the host city and state. We have already been working hard since the spring and the 2017 meeting was our first big milestone in planning. Besides observing and meeting our counterparts at the 2017 meeting, the 2018 Planning Committee sponsored a table with promotional materials, and announced the conference at the MHSLA Business Meeting and the Midwest Chapter Business Meeting.
The 2018 Publicity Committee (consisting of Margaret Hoogland, Theresa Kline, and me) planned out our table and decided to give out buckeyes (chocolate and peanut butter truffles for those non-Ohioans), Cleveland pins, and chances to win a $50 coupon towards the registration cost of the next meeting. We made a banner and decorated our table with rock-n-roll paraphernalia. We encouraged visitors to take selfies and tag them with the official meeting hasthtag, #MidwestMLA18. We benefited from the 2017 Special Karaoke Event which got people thinking in a rock-and-roll mode. The video featuring our 2018 conference chairs Mary Pat Harnegie and Mary Schleicher, and the music of real life rock star librarian Cathy Murch put an exclamation point on our marketing efforts. In a happy coincidence, the NLM in Focus blog has been focusing on “rock-star” medical librarians all month – a gift of free marketing for us!
I am sure that all the 2018 Conference Planning Committee members were watching carefully and learning from the 2017 meeting. Stephanie Swanberg, the chair of the 2017 Publicity Committee, met with us and shared some pointers and volunteered to be available for questions. I spoke with Emily Ginier, the chair of the CE committee, when my CE instructor suddenly cancelled. Probably the most important thing I learned from observing this meeting is how to land on one’s feet when that inevitable something doesn’t go as planned. Switching gracefully to Plan B is a conference planner’s biggest challenge. But the 2017 conference planning committee did an excellent job of moving forward and rolling with the stormy waves. I told Emily that I actually enjoyed the substituted CE class very much as it ended up giving me a full day crash course on Research Data Management. Although I was disappointed at not getting to hear Curt Guyette speak, I did not mind the gap in the schedule as things just moved on gracefully.
In reflecting on my 2017 conference experience, I am very thankful for this opportunity. I am thankful to have received an NN/LM GMR Professional Development Award to attend the conference. I had hoped to take some CEs, and learn from the vendors, paper and poster presenters, and the keynote speaker, but what I learned most is how important personal interaction still is and how valuable physical attendance at a conference is. Even the “fun” sessions like the welcome party, karaoke night, and down-time are not just icing on the cake, but opportunities to really build relationships among colleagues, have some great discussions, and even establish some mentor and mentee relationships.
All in all I was very pleased with my conference experience – and that is the goal, after all, isn’t it? I realized that a tight schedule is important, but that just being with and learning from one’s peers is what is most important about conferences. If I want to learn about a topic I can just search for an article, or watch a video online. But there is no replacement for meeting people in person. Even with scheduling snafus, an annual conference still provides that in-person networking and fellowship time that is growing increasingly rare in our society. I will take this realization back to my 2018 planning work. I want to keep in mind that building collegial relationships is the most important thing in a conference, not the production of a perfectly smooth, clockwork event. In that spirit, we can almost guarantee that the Cleveland conference next year will Shake, Rattle, and Roll!!
Donald Pearson, MBA/MIS, MLIS, AHIP
Library Technology Specialist, Mount Carmel Health Sciences Library
Columbus, Ohio
dpearson@mchs.com | library.mchs.com
We are happy to report that the scholarship fundraiser was a success. The total amount raised was $1038.00!
Not only did we raise over $1000 but a Chapter ‘Critter’ was selected by a significant margin. The owl won with 158 total votes, 90 more votes than any of the other top 6 ‘critters’.
A great big thanks to our generous colleagues who donated handmade silent auction items: Jen DeBerg, Carole Gilbert, Karen Hanus, Janna Lawrence, Jolene Miller, Merle Rosenzweig, Nicole Theis-Mahon, and Edith Starbuck.
Thanks as well to the volunteers who monitored the silent auction table, sold ‘critter’ votes and fun ribbons: Jessica DeCaro, Mary Pat Harnegie, Janna Lawrence, Mini Prasad, Nicole Theis-Mahon, Eileen Severson, Angie Tucker, and Beth Whipple.
Special thanks to my co-chair Nicole Theis-Mahon who contributed her ideas, time, silent auction knowledge, and creativity to the fundraiser.
Finally, thanks to all of you who bid on silent auction items, purchased ‘critter’ votes, fun ribbons, and conference magnets! Together we really did make this a successful fundraiser.
What’s happening next year? We’re planning to do another fundraiser that will include a silent auction and another opportunity to purchase fun ribbons and vote on some aspect of the Midwest Chapter / MLA owl. In addition, we will be working with the Executive Board toward creating an official fundraising committee.
More on all of this as the year progresses. Thanks again to all for making this such a successful fundraiser!
Edith Starbuck (edith.starbuck@uc.edu)
2017 Silent Auction Fundraiser Co-chair
