Submitted by Patricia Martin
The Michigan Health Sciences Libraries Association held their 34th annual conference in Bay City, Michigan, September 26-28. The Doubletree Hotel, right on the banks of the Saginaw River, was the center of activity, and fit right in with the theme, “Navigating the Sea of Information.”
The conference was rich in CE opportunities, with a total of 26 hours offered, some concurrent. "Ethnic Awareness and Health Information Resources: Chicken Soup and Crawdad Gumbo" and "Beyond an Apple a Day" provided resources and considerations for providing health information to consumers and to ethnically diverse users. Three other classes used the very nice computers labs at the Delta College Planetarium and Learning Center, just a stone’s throw from the conference hotel. To mention just one specifically, Sandy Swanson taught "Introduction to RSS & Blogging for Librarians" and continues her mission in promoting the MHSLA Blog. For pure fun, we had an interesting presentation by Doc Choc (Dr. Patrick F. Fields, MSU) on chocolate, followed by a yummy tasting session.
Our keynote was given by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum, speaking on "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Library." They are the creators of Unshelved, a comic strip about libraries. They provided some good laughs and worked on our ball catching skills.
At the business meeting, Janet Zimmerman accepted the president's gavel and Mike Simmons was awarded recognition as The Librarian of the Year. But the highlight of the that meeting was the invitation to the 2008 Midwest/MHSLA Conference "Vital Signs: Keeping You and Your Library Vibrant and Healthy." The conference will be held at the Troy, Michigan Marriott.
I hope this gives you a sense of our conference. It is hard to mention everything, but be assured we had a great dinner event at that same planetarium, we had interesting posters, and we had, as usual, much support from and good conversations with our vendors. Please visit our website section for the conference, with presentation slides and handouts.