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Press Releases

April 2008

MLA Presents Congressman David Obey (D-WI) with Award for Distinguished Public Service
MLA Honors Excellence in Health Sciences Librarianship
Rick B. Forsman, AHIP, FMLA, Receives MLA's Highest Honor

MLA Presents Congressman David Obey (D-WI) with Award for Distinguished Public Service

On April 9, 2008, MLA President Mark E. Funk, AHIP, presented Representative David Obey (D-WI) with MLA's 2008 Award for Distinguished Public Service. In presenting this award, Funk recognized Representative Obey's contributions to the health information community for causes to which MLA, as the association of health information professionals, is strongly committed. In particular, MLA thanked Obey for his strong support of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), and changes to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) public access policy. As chairman of both the House Appropriations Committee and the House Labor-Health and Human Services (HHS)-Education Appropriations Subcommittee, Obey fought to increase funding for federal health and education programs, mainly through the fiscal year (FY) 2008 Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill. His efforts resulted in a final appropriations bill that provides NLM with $329 million in funding for the National Library of Medicine (NLM), which was $8 million above President Bush's request.

In addition to providing funding increases for NIH and NLM, Chairman Obey supported inclusion of language in the FY 2008 Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill requiring all investigators funded by NIH to submit their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts to NLM's PubMed Central database within twelve months of publication. Obey joined Congress in 1969, as its youngest member and immediately became a leading spokesperson for political and congressional reform to make government more accountable to its citizens.

The MLA Award for Distinguished Public Service was established in 1988 to honor persons whose exemplary actions have served to advance the health, welfare, and intellectual freedom of the public. MLA grants the award at the discretion of the MLA Board of Directors and only on occasions when a nominee's merits clearly recommend recognition. Nominees are not limited to members of the library and information science profession, or to the association membership.

MLA is a nonprofit, educational organization with more than 4,000 health sciences information professional members worldwide. Founded in 1898, MLA provides lifelong educational opportunities, supports a knowledgebase of health information research, and works with a global network of partners to promote the importance of quality information for improved health to the health care community and the public.

For more information, please contact Mary Langman, langman@mlahq.org, 312.419.9094 x27.

MLA Honors Excellence in Health Sciences Librarianship

The Medical Library Association (MLA) is pleased to announce this year's award winners selected through the MLA professional recognition program. The award recipients, recognized for their outstanding achievements in health sciences information, will be honored at the Awards Ceremony and Luncheon on Monday, May 19, 2008, during MLA '08 in Chicago, IL. This year's winners are as follows:

Thomas Basler, FMLA (Janet Doe Lectureship)
Keith W. Cogdill, AHIP (Ida and George Eliot Prize)
Digital Divide, Rural American Indian Communities, NM (Thomson Scientific/Frank Bradway Rogers Information Advancement Award)
Bob Gerth (Rittenhouse Award)
Grey Literature Report, New York Academy of Medicine (Louise Darling Medal for Distinguished Achievement in Collection Development in the Health Sciences)
Heidi Heilemann, AHIP (Murray Gottlieb Prize)
Debra R. Lappin (Joseph Leiter NLM/MLA Lectureship)
Carol Lefebvre (T. Mark Hodges International Service Award)
Logan Ludwig, AHIP (Virginia L. and William K. Beatty MLA Volunteer Service Award)
Sarah K. McCord, AHIP (Lucretia W. McClure Excellence in Education Award)
New York-New Jersey Chapter of MLA (Majors/MLA Chapter Project of the Year Award)
Jan Orick, AHIP (Lois Ann Colaianni Award for Excellence and Achievement in Hospital Librarianship)

The individual chosen to deliver the Janet Doe Lecture are selected for their unique perspectives on the history or philosophy of medical librarianship. The Doe lectureship was established in 1966 by anonymous donation. With his long-standing, exemplary career in the health sciences information profession, this year's presenter, Thomas Basler, FMLA, is exceptionally qualified for this distinguished honor. Director of Libraries and Learning Resource Centers, Medical University of South Carolina-Charleston, Basler is a sought after instructor who has lectured extensively at universities and conferences across the country. He has also lent his expertise as a consultant and advisor to several committees and boards and was asked to serve as chair of the National Library of Medicine Biomedical Library Review Committee. In 2004, he was honored with Fellow status in MLA. Some of his greatest contributions have been in the area of health outreach to underserved and minority populations as he and his library staff have been heavily involved in developing health information literacy programs for citizens of his community. Basler's Doe lecture is titled "There are No More Giants: Changing Leadership for Changing Times."

Keith W. Cogdill, AHIP, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, is this year's recipient of the Ida and George Eliot Prize for his chapter, "Progress in Health Sciences Librarianship: 1970-2005," published in Advances in Librarianship, volume 30, 2006. With a historical perspective, Cogdill's chapter highlights key issues in medical librarianship and directs the reader to new opportunities in the profession. The Eliot Prize recognizes a work published in the preceding calendar year that has been judged most effective in furthering medical librarianship.

The Thomson Scientific/Frank Bradway Rogers Information Advancement Award is awarded to an individual or small group who have made outstanding contributions in the use of technology to deliver health sciences information, in the science of information, or in the facilitation of the delivery of information. This year's honor went to Linda Morgan Davis, Earlene Groseclose, and Louis J. Lafrado, creators of Digital Divide, Rural American Indian Communities, NM. The project facilitated the use of handheld to provide timely, evidence-based medical and Internet-based consumer health information to underserved populations in rural areas of New Mexico.

Bob Gerth, Graduate School of Library Science, Dominican University, River Forest, IL, received this year's Rittenhouse Award for his paper, "Varicose Veins Pathfinder," which developed a strong argument for the importance of its topic. The Rittenhouse Award, sponsored by Rittenhouse Book Distributors, is presented for the best unpublished paper on medical librarianship written by a student in an American Library Association-accredited school of library sciences or by an intern in health sciences librarianship.

The Louise Darling Medal recognizes accomplishment in collection development for the health sciences. The winner was the Grey Literature Report. The bimonthly publication, produced by librarians at New York Academy of Medicine, New York, provides a compilation of links to English language research done by various organizations and government entities in public health and health services.

For her essay, "Envisioning the Unborn: Art, Anatomy and the Printing Press in the Early Modern Era," Heidi Heilemann, AHIP, Lane Medical Library, Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, CA, received the 2008 Murray Gottlieb /Prize. The essay explores the historical evolution of medical illustrations of the fetus. The Murray Gottleib Prize honors the best unpublished essay on the history of medicine and the allied sciences written by a health sciences librarian.

Debra R. Lappin, B&D Consulting, Washington, DC, will present the 2008 Joseph Leiter National Library of Medicine/MLA Lecture. Lappin, a current member of the Advisory Council to the Director of the Centers for Disease Control, has participated on a number of committees at the National Academy of Sciences, including the Committee on the Organizational Structure of the National Institutes of Health, which directly informed the 2006 NIH Reform Act. A former member of the Inaugural Council of Public Representatives and the NLM PubMed Central Advisory Council, Lappin is a member of the Board at Research!America, chairs the Ethics Committee at National Jewish Hospital and Research Center in Denver, CO, and is an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, lecturing on biomedical ethics. She remains a director emeritus of the Arthritis Foundation, an organization of which she served as national chair from 1996 to 1998. The Joseph Leiter NLM/MLA Lectureship was established to stimulate intellectual liaison between MLA and NLM. Lecturers are chosen for their ability to discuss subjects related to biomedical communications.

The T. Mark Hodges International Service Award was established in 2007 to honor outstanding individual achievement in promoting, enabling, and/or delivering improvements in the quality of health information internationally through developing health information professions, improving libraries, or increasing use of health information services. Carol Lefebvre, National Institute for Health Research, UK Cochrane Centre, Middleway, Oxford, United Kingdom, was bestowed with this year's award. Lefebvre is one of the founders of the Cochrane Collaboration Information Retrieval Methods group, an international organization to which over 15,000 people contribute. She has also advanced the field of health librarianship and evidence-based medicine through her work on the importance of sensitivity and precision when searching complex thesaurus-driven databases.

Logan Ludwig, AHIP, Medical Center Library, Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine, Maywood, IL, is the first recipient of the newly established Virginia L. and William K. Beatty MLA Volunteer Service Award. Ludwig has made many exceptional contributions to the association particularly in the area of governmental relations. MLA benefited greatly from his expertise and leadership while he served as chair of both the MLA/Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries Joint Legislative Task Force and MLA Governmental Relations Committee. Ludwig has given testimony on behalf of MLA in its support of NLM programs and has spoken on the copyright issue for the association. In addition, he has extensive knowledge of library facility planning, a topic on which he has published several articles. He is also widely published in the area of distance education and led the development of E-health Illinois, a service that provides information about local health resources in the state of Illinois. The Beatty award recognizes exceptional contributions to furthering the mission, goals, and objectives of MLA and the profession as demonstrated by outstanding and significant service in the association's leadership, publications, research, a special project, or combination of these four elements.

Sarah K. McCord, AHIP, will receive the 2008 Lucretia W. McClure Excellence in Education Award. McCord, head of reference and instructional services, Henrietta DeBenedictus Library, Massachusetts College-Boston, has served the association as chair of the MLA Pharmacy and Drug Information Section and has delivered numerous presentations and posters at MLA meetings. McCord recently worked as reference coordinator, Owen Science and Engineering Library, Washington State University-Pullman, where she developed an innovative instruction program based on the Association of College and Resource Libraries Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. In her current position, she coordinates the reference and instructional work on three campuses. Named for one of the profession's most revered leaders and one of MLA most esteemed members, the Lucretia W. McClure award recognizes outstanding practicing librarians or library educators in the field of health sciences librarianship and informatics who demonstrate skills in one or more of the following areas: teaching, curriculum development, mentoring, research, or leadership in education at local, regional, or national levels.

The Majors/MLA Chapter Project of the Year Award is sponsored by the J. A. Majors Company and 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 a chapter. The New York-New Jersey Chapter of MLA was selected to receive this award for their innovative project, "Digitization of Chapter Photographic Archives." The chapter, which has always had a written history available on their website, documented their rich history via photography, creating a bridge between the generations and helping new chapter members gain a sense of the chapter's tradition of fellowship, camaraderie, and professionalism

The Lois Ann Colaianni Award for Excellence and Achievement in Hospital Librarianship is given to a member of the association who has made significant contributions to the profession through overall distinction or leadership in hospital library administration or service, production of a definitive publication related to hospital librarianship, teaching, research, advocacy, or development or application of innovative technology to hospital librarianship. This year's award is bestowed on Jan Orick, AHIP, Biomedical Library, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, for her service and leadership in the health sciences information profession and her institution. For MLA, Orick served as chair of MLA's Southern Chapter and is a long-standing member of MLA's Hospital Libraries and Cancer Librarians Sections. Most recently, Orick, a Distinguished Member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals, served on MLA's Vital Pathways Task Force and contributed to helping hospital libraries collaborate with their hospital administrators. As director of the Biomedical Library at St. Jude's, she has taken a leading role in guiding her library to meeting the information needs of her institution's clinicians, researchers, and its consumers. She has increased electronic journal access for researchers at her hospital from 5 to over 1,700 titles, became one of the first to adopt a document delivery system, thus decreasing the turnaround for interlibrary loans, and developed a resource list of authoritative Internet cancer resources.

For more information, please contact Lisa C. Fried, mlapd2@mlahq.org, 312.419.9094 x28.

Rick B. Forsman, AHIP, FMLA, Receives MLA's Highest Honor

The Medical Library Association (MLA) is pleased to announce that Rick B. Forsman, AHIP, FMLA, will be presented with the Marcia C. Noyes Award at MLA '08 in Chicago, IL, in May. The Marcia C. Noyes Award was established in 1947 and recognizes a career that has resulted in lasting, outstanding contributions to health sciences librarianship.

In 2007, Forsman retired from his fifteen-year post as director and associate professor of the University of Colorado Denver's Denison Memorial Library, where he oversaw the complete planning and building of the new Health Sciences Center Library, University of Colorado Anschulz Medical Campus-Aurora. He most recently returned to the school to accept a position as senior project manager for the university's Office of Academic and Student Affairs.

Of Forsman's contributions to the education of health sciences information professionals, MLA Past President Fred W. Roper, AHIP, FMLA, stated, "MLA's professional development programs and in the broader areas of education for health sciences librarianship has been widespread. He has been directly involved in all of MLA's major professional development activities for more than twenty-five years. The effectiveness of MLA's programs and respect for the association's professional development activities are due in no small part to Rick Forsman's efforts."

Throughout his long and accomplished career in health sciences librarianship, Forsman has remained a devoted and active member of MLA for more than twenty years. Especially involved in MLA's professional development program, he was a major architect of MLA's Platform for Change education policy, which was adopted by the association in 1992. Most recently he served as chair of the Task Force on MLA Education Policy Statement which was charged with revising Platform for Change. The updated document, now called Professional Competencies, serves as the cornerstone of MLA's professional development program.

A sought after instructor, Forsman has taught several courses in technical services, information technology, and administration. For MLA, he created the library director continuing education course, which remains one of the most popular CE courses offered at MLA annual meetings.

Forsman has chaired numerous MLA committees, sections, and task forces including the National Program Committee (1993), Professional Recognition Review Panel (1988-1990), Technical Services Section (1984/85), and the Medical School Libraries Section (1991/92) (now the Medical Library Education Section. He has made some of his most enduring contributions in the area of credentialing. While chairing the Task Force to Review the Academy of Health Information Professionals (1995), he was instrumental in creating MLA's current credentialing program.

He has also shared his expertise with other associations, including as a Board member (1996-99) of MLA's allied organization, Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries and later as its president in 2001. He also chaired the American Library Association's Committee on Accreditation (2000/01).

For more information, please contact Lisa C. Fried, mlapd2@mlahq.org, 312.419.9094 x28