Please welcome the following new PNC members. This list was submitted by Barbara Crain, Membership Secretary.
Beverly Schriver
SHMC Professional Library
Sacred Heart Medical Center
bschriver@peacehealth.orgCarole Shultz
Technical Resource & Information Center
HealthComm International, Inc
carole@healthcomm.comNicole Hitchcock
Kissler Family Health Sciences Library
Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center
nicohitc@mailstn.sarmc.orgMelissa Wills
Kissler Family Health Sciences Library
Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center
MELIWILL@mailstn.sarmc.orgKarin Thomsen
thomk@ils.unc.eduAnn Marie Clark
Arnold Digital Library
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
aclark@fhcrc.orgMelanie Jones
Community Health Library
Kittitas Valley Community Hospital
hlthlib@eburg.comJan Gallagher
Library Services
Overlake Hospital
overb@halcyon.com
Over the past three years, the expenses of operating our chapter have been greater than the income that has been generated. As a result, the PNC/MLA Board is proposing a dues increase of $10.00 per year for chapter membership to take effect in 1999 if approved. Should members vote to approve this increase, dues will be raised to $25.00 per year U.S. and $28.00 per year Canadian funds. There are a number of reasons the Board decided to propose this dues increase.
On December 31, 1994, the assets of our organization totaled $11,602.05. Assets as of October 29, 1998 totaled $8,255.05, and are projected to drop further unless steps are taken to stabilize the chapter's income base. A question was raised at the recent annual meeting in Boise as to why the general membership should raise their dues to support the annual meeting. Actually, just the opposite is the reality. Annual meeting profits have historically been used to subsidize regular chapter business along with the annual dues paid by each member. However, in the past three years, as meetings have become more expensive to produce, and as vendor support and attendance has declined (along with a decline in attendance by our members to "rural" meetings), meeting profits have declined dramatically. Chapter membership has remained fairly steady over those same years as well, offering no additional dues income on which to rely for regular chapter business expenses. The following is an actual breakdown of income and expenses over the past four years:
| Year | Meeting Income | Dues Income | Total Income* | Total Expenses |
| 1995 | $6,135.19 | $2,511.28 | $8,801.70 | $5,669.45 |
| 1996 | $73.00 | $1,719.67 | $1,882.20 | $ 6,636.84 |
| 1997 | $542.44 | $2,703.00 | $3.395.92 | $7,491.16 |
| 1998 | $2,805.89 | $2,574.00** | $5,512.06** | $6,239.65** |
The Board has undertaken several cost cutting measures including electronic publication of the newsletter, Northwest Notes, which has eliminated printing and postage costs and minimizing Board travel expenses by reducing overnight stays where feasible and using the cheapest possible airfares. However, these cost cutting measures have not provided the balance needed to bring the chapter budget into line.
The Board will be submitting this issue to a vote of the membership in December 1998. Ballots will be mailed in the first week of December and are due back via mail (no faxes please) no later than December 31, 1998. If you are a current PNC member and have not received a mailed ballot by December 10th, please contact Pam Spickelmier, Treasurer, at (208) 381-2277 or e-mail spickelp@slrmc.org.
Bylaws
submitted by
Jan Schueller
During the past year the Bylaws Committee has been working on changes to PNC's bylaws and is now incorporating the newest proposed changes for submission to MLA. Changes mainly reflect revisions to MLA's Bylaws, the incorporation of PNC, changes to committee structures, and general clarification of wording. Once MLA has approved the revisions, the membership will have the opportunity to review and vote on the changes. Members of the Committee are Doreen Smith, Nancy Turrentine, and Jan Schueller, Chair.
Conference Planning Committee
submitted by Leilani St. Anna
Leilani St. Anna, chair
Bonnie Chadbourne
Peggy Baldwin
Kathy Murray (2000 mtg chair)
Mary Ellen Lemon (1998 mtg chair)
Betty Jo Jensen
Vicki Croft
Caroline Mann (1997 mtg chair)
The committee met during the 1997 Portland meeting and produced a long list of items to add to the Conference Planning Manual. We're working toward centralizing some processes to lessen the burden on local groups, add more continuity to the planning process and pass on 'the collective memory'. The committee wants to add sample documents to the manual, provide more detailed instructions and concrete examples and to standardize reports. The current PNC Conference Manual is now available on the PNC web site. Peggy Baldwin produced a vendor database. Leilani St. Anna handled the registration for the Boise meeting from a distance.
Professional Development Committee
submitted by Lisa Oberg
At the 1997 Annual Meeting in Portland, OR, Lisa Oberg of the University of Washington Health Sciences Library assumed the chair of the Professional Development Committee.
Current membership of the Committee includes:
Janice Bacino, St. Peter's Community Hospital
Margaret Connors, Oregon Health Sciences University
Mary Ellen Lemon, Healthwise
Nancy Press, NN/LM
Barbara Saint, University of British Columbia
Doreen Smith, Fairbanks Memorial Hospital
Lea Starr, Multicare Health System
PNC Web Site
A section of the PNC/MLA web site has been developed for the Professional Development Committee and is available at http://weber.u.washington.edu/~pncmla/ce/. Information available includes the roster of current committee members, upcoming CE opportunities in the PNC region and professional development funding opportunities. Suggestions are welcome, as well as CE courses you would like to see included.
PNC CE Survey
Together with Nancy Press and the generous support of the RML, the PNC CE Survey was revised and the 1998 survey was mailed to members late in 1997. The survey was mailed earlier than usual in order to try and address educational interests at the 1998 Annual Meeting. Some interesting results from the survey are that PubMed and using other Internet resources were the most frequently suggested course topics, that 36% of the membership (of 113 respondents) have been in the profession over 15 years and that time and time management are on everyone's minds. For complete results see http://weber.u.washington.edu/~pncmla/ce/98results.html.
MLA '98 Survey
The MLA Continuing Education Committee (CEC) has developed a Chapter Needs Assessment Survey, available at http://www.tulane.edu/~zeller/intro.html, that they would like chapters to use in 1998. Copies will be available to members at the 1998 Annual Meeting.
PNC Annual Meeting - Boise, ID, October 27-29, 1998
Three courses were arranged for the meeting:
Just In Time Information Delivery Options
Jean Shipman, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
26 attendees
Consumer Health Information
Part I - Planning and Providing Consumer Health Information
Michele Spatz, Planetree Health Resources Center, The Dalles,
OR
13 attendees
Part II - The Psycho-Social Aspects of Providing Health Information
to Patients & Consumers
Margaret Connors, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland,
OR
Jane Grosman, Santa Rosa Medical Center, Santa Rosa, CA
Michele Spatz, Planetree Health Resources Center, The Dalles,
OR
22 attendees
Finding the Figures
Bill Gembala, Lisa Oberg and Janet Schnall
University of Washington, Seattle, WA
17 attendees
1998 Goals
Goals for 1998 include developing a packet for the instructors
to use as a guide to developing courses. This idea had been proposed
previously and I would like to pursue it. Also, I would
like to see more CE posts to HLIB-NW and possibly added to the
PNC web site when appropriate. As many librarians' jobs
continue to diversify, I would like to be sensitive to the fact
that relevant CE opportunities may come from many different sources.
Nancy and I have also discussed a major revision to the
PNC CE Survey and this will be an agenda item of the Professional
Development
Committee at the Annual Meeting.
"Evidence-Based Health Care (EBHC) in Action"
The MLA Continuing Education Committee, in celebration of MLA's Centennial, has developed a yearlong distance learning program about evidence-based health care. As part of this program I arranged for the downlinking of the kick-off teleconference, which was broadcast on September 16, 1998. There were 16 local attendees, who were very favorable about the teleconference in their evaluations. A videotaped copy can be borrowed from the PNC Lending Library. [editor's note: Check the complete list of items available for loan from the Lending Library. This page also describes the video content as "Evidence-Based Health Care in Action Teleconference, September 16, 1998, 1 1/2 hour. (Sponsored by the Medical Library Association and by Ovid Technologies, Inc.). The conference provided knowledge about the purpose, origin, and history of EBHC; demonstrated the actual practice and process of EBHC, illustrated the roles that librarians are currently undertaking in the process, and provided a starting point for discussion through the creation of an EBHC listserv."]
MLA has also organized a series of journal clubs focusing on evidence-based health care that they are encouraging members to participate in. For more information see MLA's EBHC web site at http://www.mlanet.org/education/telecon/.
Benchmarking Tool Kit
A copy of the Benchmarking Tool Kit has been ordered using PNC Professional Development funds. It will be available for borrowing from the PNC Lending Library. Benchmarking is a key tool for continuous quality improvement. Using the guidelines for data collection and performance measurement in this Tool Kit, health and other special libraries will be able to compare their own performance with pilot project data; benchmark against their own performance over time; or benchmark against one or more partners.
Publications
Newsletter
submitted by Kathy
Murray
Another year has slipped away. Part of the reason this last year was so painless for me, is that I was ably assisted by Loretta Andress. The newsletter was her html learning tool and thus many hours of work were shifted from my shoulders to hers. I also want to thank Emily Hull. She has put in many, many hours building our web pages. Her list of projects for next year would be intimidating for many, but I have every confidence she will have a completed checkmark next to each item by year's end. I am also grateful for her statistics...to paraphrase Ms. Fields, "You really, really read the newsletter!"
Northwest Notes has been in electronic form for two years. Any suggestions? We currently mail only six copies. This will increase by one for next year when we add the University of Washington's Library School to our mailing list. The library school at UBC has received a copy for many years...it's unfortunate that the only other school in our region has been neglected.
I will be contacting you (hiding behind the door won't help ;-)) in the coming months. I would like to see more information about the little things we all do that others will find interesting. [note: in this issue, Kootenai Medical Center's library has submitted a number of interesting tidbits.] What is happening in your library or life?
Web Editor
submitted by Emily
Hull
The access log, which has been operational since the middle of March, reveals some interesting usage patterns. A monthly average of 322 files have been viewed in the last six and a half months, with a high of 441 in September and a low of 167 in April. The daily average is 11 hits, with highs of 104 on May 20th, 118 on July 23rd, and 125 on October 21st.
The Program Planning Manual is a perennial favorite with an average of 31 hits each month, though access dropped off dramatically in September, but by then it was too late, right?
Peaks in usage seem to follow announcements about the web site on HLIB-NW. A third of the usage in May occurred on the 20th, the day that a question about putting a member list on the site was raised on the email list. After the conference registration materials were posted and the April-June issue of Northwest Notes was announced on July 22, the site received 180 hits in three days. Again, when the current issue of Northwest Notes was announced on October 21st, usage jumped to 125 hits in one day.
The annual conference information doubled in popularity between July and August, from 87 hits to 171, and interest continues strongly into October.
Clearly there is a lot of material on the web site that is useful to members. The Bylaws, Membership, Publications, and Professional Development Committees have all contributed information. I'd like to see the work of all the committees represented. Please contact me with any ideas for new content on the web site.